“I used to dream of being a father. Today, I have two children, and knowing that children in my country are dying due to lack of water is something that moves and saddens me. That’s why, through the Alok Institute, we are forming important partnerships to contribute to access to clean water in some rural and urban communities in the Northeast over the next three years“, says Alok. The Institute intends to invest approximately R$2 million in this area.”
Water for Drinking is an initiative of the Alok Institute to support actions that contribute to access to clean water, initially in the Northeast region of Brazil. The first partnerships are with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the startup Água Camelo.
The proposed actions will be carried out in both urban and rural areas, with a particular focus on the perspectives and needs of indigenous peoples and traditional communities. These actions will take place across multiple municipalities located in the Northeast region of Brazil, specifically in the states of Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Bahia, and Maranhão.
Our objective is to collaborate with other partners to advance the Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), which aims to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030, with a particular focus on meeting the needs of women and girls.
Fotos: Alécio Cézar
WASH – Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
We are teaming up with Unicef and several other partners as part of the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene initiative. Our goal is to support public policies in the Northeast states and promote the health, well-being, and development of children and adolescents. We aim to achieve this through strategies that ensure safe access to water for human consumption, sanitation services, and good hygiene practices. The following priority areas will be our focus:
- Sanitation in rural areas;
- Promotion of healthy and sustainable environments in schools;
- Indigenous peoples and traditional communities.
In this partnership, the priority will be given to addressing the needs in the state of Pernambuco (PE), where improvements in water, sanitation, and sewage systems will be made in 40 rural schools, as well as support to ensure water chlorination in schools and the availability of materials for menstrual dignity. The municipalities in PE defined so far are: Araripina, Bodocó, Cumaru, Itaíba, and Ouricuri.
The Southern region of Bahia and Maranhão will also benefit, specifically in indigenous lands in situations of extreme sanitary vulnerability and quilombola communities.
The program employs diverse methodologies, tailored to local requirements, such as the use of solar-powered pumps to collect water. This includes the establishment and upkeep of communal alternative water supply solutions for indigenous peoples and traditional communities, schools, and healthcare facilities in rural areas for human consumption.
The Southern region of Bahia may also benefit this year, specifically in indigenous lands facing extreme sanitary vulnerability. In total, by 2028, Unicef hopes to reach 40 indigenous communities with the WASH program.
According to Rodrigo Resende, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Officer at UNICEF in Brazil: “It is with great joy that we celebrate the second project between the Alok Institute and UNICEF. In 2021, the partnership focused on ensuring safe environments through hygiene practices for children, adolescents, and vulnerable families during the Covid-19 pandemic. Among the actions, there was the installation of 10 handwashing stations in Maranhão, prioritizing schools in quilombola communities in the greater São Luís area. Additionally, the alliance worked with the population to raise awareness about good hygiene practices, through handwashing, including the school community for the safe reopening of schools.“
Fotos: Alécio Cézar
Camelo Centers – Water Fountains
The partnership with startup Água Camelo will provide access to treated, drinkable water through 20 Camelo Centers, which are Community Water Fountains with innovative systems for water treatment, collection, and cooling.
The first locations, strategically chosen in institutions that support people in social vulnerability and needy communities with a scarcity of potable water, will be:
● Ceará: Fortaleza, Maracanaú, Forquilha, Eusébio e Aracati.
● Rio Grande do Norte: Mossoró.
● Paraíba: João Pessoa e Campina Grande.
● Pernambuco: Caruaru e Petrolina.
● Alagoas: Maceió.
● Piauí: Parnaíba.
The actions will benefit approximately 20,000 people.
According to the Co-founder of Água Camelo, João Piedrafita: “It is essential to work together to fight against this great war, where 35 million people in Brazil alone wake up every day without a clean glass of water to drink in their homes. Therefore, it is fundamental to always build projects with many hands, with partner institutions, community leaders, and organizations that have local knowledge and the trust of the people, so that we can always have the best and greatest possible impact. It is a great honor to bring this partnership with the Alok Institute to life, an organization that we admire and have been envisioning working with for a long time. Furthermore, we believe it is an example where Alok, its founder, uses his enormous visibility to make a difference in such important causes, through his commitment to essential issues and the seriousness and dedication to genuine impact.“
In addition to the Alok Institute, WAAW – audio equipment, supports.
Fotos: Gabriel Tesserolli / Água Camelo
Water and Health
In Brazil, it is estimated that around 30 million people still do not have access to treated water, and about 100 million live without sewage collection.
According to UNICEF, the lack of access to sanitation – toilets and sewage systems – is one of the deprivations that most impacts children and adolescents in Brazil. According to data from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Pnad Contínua) 2020 (the latest available for this theme), four out of ten girls and boys were deprived of this right.
There are nearly twice as many black and indigenous children and adolescents deprived of the right to sanitation in Brazil, compared to white and yellow ones – 47% and 29.7%, respectively. The problem is more serious in the North and Northeast regions, where there are states with more than 80% of children and adolescents deprived of sanitation, as indicated by the UNICEF research “The Multiple Dimensions of Childhood and Adolescence Poverty in Brazil“. Although these numbers have been decreasing, the precariousness and lack of investment in public health systems, including sanitation and access to clean water, are one of the main causes of infant mortality in Brazil (after prematurity, due to lack of assistance and guidance to pregnant women, many in a state of malnutrition, and – once again – due to the deficit in environmental sanitation services).
Drinking poor-quality water primarily causes gastrointestinal and stomach diseases in children, but not exclusively, with symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting, and fever, along with the appearance of worm infestations. Among the diseases it can cause, the most serious are leishmaniasis and leptospirosis.
Infant mortality includes the sum of deaths (0-6 days of life), late neonatal (7-27 days), and post-neonatal (28 days and less than 1 year of age) per thousand live births, in a given geographical area, in the year considered.
The lack of clean water impacts black and indigenous children and adolescents more intensely, also compromising their access to other rights. Approximately 2.1 million children and adolescents live without adequate access to water in Brazil.
(Sources: Ecoa/Uol, Unicef, Observatory of the Legal Framework of Early Childhood, Abrinq Foundation, Ministry of Health, and IBGE)
How UNICEF Works
Among other strategies, in Brazil, Unicef has the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene initiative (WASH), aimed at supporting the strengthening of public policies in more vulnerable territories – with special attention to indigenous peoples and traditional communities – water, sanitation, and hygiene services in schools, and capacity building for municipalities located in the Legal Amazon and Brazilian Semi-Arid.
The actions aim at the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 6, which aims to ensure the availability and sustainable management of clean water and sanitation for all, with special attention to the needs of women and girls and people in vulnerable situations.
For the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene area, UNICEF has the support of various individual donors and corporate partners.
Strategic Partners: Aegea, FRAM Capital, Salvador Arena Foundation, Profarma Group, RD Group-RaiaDrogasil, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Labor Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPT), Takeda.
Partners: Tigre Group, Alok Institute, and WEG.
Supporter: Sempre Livre® & Carefree®.
The strategy also relies on international partners who support emergency actions and the migration crisis: European Union Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (Echo), United States Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), and Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid).
UNICEF’s WASH Program in Brazil aims to achieve overall systemic results. Below are some of UNICEF’s goals for this initiative in 2024:
- Benefit 60,000 people with basic access to water
- 60 solar-powered water systems
- 5 municipalities with developed and approved municipal basic sanitation plans
- 60 health units provided with basic WASH services
- 200 schools reached with basic WASH services
- 20,000 women and adolescent girls with menstrual hygiene needs addressed
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Como a Água Camelo atua
Água Camelo is a startup that aims to create a positive social and environmental impact, with a focus on the ESG market. The company works on projects to provide access to clean drinking water for organizations, and to promote access to safe sources of treated water for individuals in vulnerable situations. Their projects span across urban centers, semi-arid regions, and the Amazon Rainforest.
To address the lack of access to treated water, the startup utilizes simple, affordable and easy-to-use technologies, providing high-quality water to populations without access to this basic service.
Camelo uses water filtration and distribution technology to provide safe drinking water to communities. They have designed filtering equipment that can process a high volume of raw water (24,000 liters/day) for treatment, making it suitable for consumption, personal hygiene, or food cleaning. The equipment has a hollow fiber membrane made of fluoropolymer PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) on the inner part. This material has high chemical stability, oxidation resistance, and resistance to acids and alkalis.