Etisalat announces the commencement of a major initiative amongst its corporate social responsibility Agenda

Etisalat has recently announced the commencement of a major initiative amongst its corporate social responsibility Agenda. In a press conference attended by the company officials, journalists from diverse backgrounds, renowned executives from the development arena including the heads of the organizations involved it was announced that the latest CSR initiative "Origin" was now operational

In part of Etisalat’s corporate social responsibility strategies, Etisalat has identified the platform of water as an area of intervention, and announced that "Origin" is a nation-wide project Etisalat has devised to counter Egypt’s water dilemma. The initiative is in partnership with the giant international organization "Care" as well as renowned Egyptian non-governmental organizations like "Resala" the "Egyptian Society for integrated development" and others as well as a large number of community development agencies. It is estimated to directly aid hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries in 7 governorates in its first year.

The initiative has four main components; the first and main component is bringing safe drinking water to the homes, schools and medical units of deprived villages that have suffered from thirst and have little or no access to drinking water. The second component is water purification which entails supplying villages, rural areas and squatter settlements suffering from polluted or contaminated water with purification plants and systems to filter the current water supply and turn it into usable drinking water.

The third component consists of irrigation water interventions planned closely in collaboration with care's "water and stability" project officials, it features aiding villages suffering irrigation water difficulties to overcome their problems, this area includes construction, re-digging and clearing kilometers of watercourses as well insulating them with stonework amidst other irrigation water management activities. The fourth and last component targets kidney failure, a direct result of declined water quality; this includes providing hospitals with dialysis equipment and water treatment facilities enabling them to provide the patients with free dialysis treatment,

All the mentioned components are complimented with the necessary preliminary researches to assess the needing villages and the suitable type of intervention. The initiative also labels awareness and education as a cross cutting theme; capacity development workshops for the CDAs taking part have already started, awareness programs for the beneficiaries and field trips for the school children of the target locations are also commencing shortly. .

It is worth mentioning that the United Nations General Assembly, in December 2003, proclaimed the years 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action 'Water for Life'. The primary goal of the 'Water for Life' Decade is to promote efforts to fulfill international commitments made on water and water-related issues by 2015.

29/3/2009