World Water Day

One Difference dominates YouTube on World Water Day 2010

2.5 million people will see Smivadee’s latest video to raise awareness of One Difference Campaign

World Water Day on 22^nd March is an important time to reflect on the estimated 1.1billion people in the world who have no access to safe, clean drinking water. Global Ethics has been highlighting this very problem for 5 years through its One Water brand, whose profits go to fund PlayPumps across Africa.

Having now donated £3.5 million and fundamentally changed the lives of over 1 million people Global Ethics wanted to bring their cause to a wider audience. Harnessing the power of social media through and YouTube on World Water Day is the perfect way to get a very simple message out as widely as possible. If 250,000 people sign up to the One Difference Facebook group by World Water Day, a sponsor will fund an extra PlayPump for a village in Africa.

To help raise awareness of the campaign, Global Ethics worked with Mindshare Invention to produce a film specifically designed to motivate their Facebook fan base. They invited YouTube super user Smivadee (Matt Smith) to visit one of their PlayPump installations in South Africa’s North West Province just two weeks ago, and what he saw had a marked effect on him: "We visited a school which had a play pump installed. The kids loved it. Having a piece of equipment to play on allows them to just be kids instead of spending all day walking for miles searching for water." And it's not just the kids that benefit. "I was speaking to one guy who said water is the most important thing to them and the PlayPump has changed their lives," comments Matt

When it came to choosing what to film, Mindshare worked with Matt on an alternative approach to previous charity videos and do something different as Matt explains: "Every single person I met had something in common and that was their smiles. Everybody was happy which completely caught me off guard. We decided not to make a typical charity video, stating facts and figures about how many people die every year. In fact we decided to turn it on its head and be positive showing people what One Water has done so far, and what a difference it would make if we got it stocked everywhere."

Matt’s video is now available on YouTube.

He has one final message for us all: "I can't stress how simple it is, we’re not asking for your donations, just buy One Water instead of the other brands and if you don't buy bottled water then simply spread the word to people who do and join the One Difference Facebook group."

Join the One Difference Facebook group here today!

Facebook Community Pulls Together To Fund A PlayPump For World Water Day:

It started with a donation of $5000 from One Foundation trustee, Paul Robinson and has developed in a full blown campaign to fund a Facebook PlayPump.

A further donation of $5000 has been pledged if 250,000 Facebook users join the One Difference fan page in time for World Water Day on the 22nd March.

Facebook users from around the world are flocking to join the campaign.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/One-Difference/466458895477

The $10,000 total will fund a PlayPump for a village in Africa.

Duncan Goose, Founder of One water said 'it's amazing to see so many people out there who want to support us - I just wish I could get out there and thank them all personally. I really feel with such a big army of support behind us that we can achieve anything.'

In only a matter of days the group has grown to 25,000 people and the page is full of enthusiastic comments from people coming up with all sorts of ways to encourage people to join.

The PlayPump will be created in honour of the Faceook community, most likely with their faces forming a mosaic on the 4 panels of the water storage tower.

Please join the group and pass this on to all your contacts. Be a part of the change.