An international team from HSBC interact with the community at Harnu Village, Kanpur district (Credit: WWF / Hugh Mehta)

The Ganges is known for being a holy river, but despite its prestige, it’s suffering from the way it is used and managed. Over-extraction and pollution are huge problems; almost 60% of its water is diverted before it reaches the plains and an unbelievable 12 billion litres of untreated wastewater flows into it every day. All of this is really bad news for species that depend on the Ganges, not to mention the 450 million people that live in its basin.

WWF-India is working hard to implement practical on the ground solutions to these issues whilst driving policy which should help to ensure the overall health of the river. This work, like all of our programmes, depends on the generosity of others. Through the Water Programme, HSBC is helping us to protect freshwater in five iconic places, including the Ganges basin. When a group of international HSBC employees congregated in India, we jumped at the chance to showcase what we’re doing – especially as they wanted to share our work with their colleagues. Here are just a few of the highlights from each place we visited.

Kanpur and cow dung

We started in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Despite being the largest city in India’s most populous state, my guide book says ‘there is not much to see in and around Kanpur’. Well I suppose that depends on what you’re looking for because we were treated to some interesting stuff.

The group had already spent several days with WaterAid – another Water Programme partner – which is delivering vital water and sanitation projects for communities in the area. WWF has also been working with people here, notably in farming villages surrounding the city. We visited Harnu, where farmers have been helped to manage wetlands and use new methods which are less harmful to the land and local water sources. Most of the village has moved away from using chemical fertilisers, opting instead for an organic alternative made from cow dung, urine and other natural substances. The people we met insisted that this fertiliser was producing better quality crops, which required less watering and in many cases could be sold for a premium. One farmer is now producing 85 sacks of organic potatoes each crop cycle rather than the 55 he used to. Another enterprising chap had started bottling and selling the fertiliser helping to boost his income significantly.

Dolphin spotting in Narora

An international team from HSBC interact with the community at Harnu Village, Kanpur district (Credit: WWF / Hugh Mehta)

It may have taken a five hour train ride and one and half hours by car to get there, but the group was more than happy to arrive in Narora where we’d been promised that we’d see Ganges river dolphins. Dolphins are an important indicator species – where they flourish we know the overall health of the river is good. WWF has worked closely with the river bank communities to reduce pollution. We went to a village where the main domestic sewage drain used to empty directly into the river before WWF helped the community to build a treatment plant. We’re also working with farmers to prevent river bank erosion and reduce the amount of chemicals they use. The result is a healthy stretch of river for the dolphins – we caught sight of nearly 10 whilst out on the river and they all looked pretty happy to me. Healthy dolphin habitats are good for people too – as a poster in the local WWF office pointed out, ‘Saving the river dolphin would in turn mean clean drinking water for those living along the Ganges’.

More to do in Moradabad

We spent our final day together in Moradabad, a city with 1.2m inhabitants which lies on the banks of the Ramganga, the first major tributary of the Ganges. Here it was a completely different story – there’s no sewage treatment plant and the river is used as a drain for domestic and industrial waste. Low flows, caused by barrages that take away cleaner water elsewhere, mean that there’s little to dilute the problem. We could see for ourselves that water quality was poor and local people outside of the city explained that the river is no longer fit for their drinking, washing or fishing requirements.

But we need to further understand the health of the greater river system and WWF is developing an innovative community based river assessment, which will involve hundreds of people at up to 15 sites who will unlock valuable data and information for our programme. Participants will feed back on water quality and flows as well as their own human needs and values connected to the river. As part of a pilot for this work, the HSBC team got to be scientists for the day testing the water themselves. The river health assessments will also help WWF in its new mission to bring together local communities, business and government to revive the Ramganga. Over lunch we met the District Magistrate who promised to help tackle the issues head on – he invited us to come back later on to see how things have changed.

I like to hope that a healthy flowing Ramganga might just be one of the legacies of the HSBC Water Programme.

Sok Chea now pursues an alternative livelihood as a tour boat operator at the Kampi dolphin watching site. Given their popularity with both foreign and local tourists, the dolphins are now a strong source of income for Sok.
CREDIT: © WWF-CAMBODIA / TEP ASNARITH

WWF has so far identified more than 70 local villages across Thailand and Laos that are set to benefit from sustainable resource management and alternative livelihood opportunities once on-the-ground activities get underway through the HSBC Water Programme (HWP).

With HSBC funding, WWF will work with farmers, communities, local authorities and businesses to implement new policies and practices in the Greater Mekong Basin that will not only protect one of the most biologically diverse habitats on the planet, but create opportunities to improve the livelihoods of its local communities.

At the heart of the Greater Mekong sub-region lies the Mekong River which winds for 4,800km and whose basin is home to 80 million people.

The natural floodplains nurture over 1,300 fish species and the river is home to the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, which is an important source of income for river communities involved in ecotourism. But due to unsustainable fishing practices (including gillnet and dynamite fishing), the river is under threat.

Without careful management this could have catastrophic consequences, particularly for those whose livelihood relies on fishing.The basin accounts for up to 25% of the global freshwater catch, making it the world’s largest inland fishery; it provides up to 80% of all animal protein for people living in the Mekong River basin.To ensure that this industry continues to thrive while operating sustainably, local people will need to be ready to adapt, and WWF’s previous work in providing alternative options has already proved successful.

Cambodian villager Sok Chea (pictured) was given the opportunity to pursue a career as a Tour Boat Operator; an alternative to fishing following the Cambodian government’s ban of gillnet use in the recently created Dolphin Managerial Protection Zones of the Mekong. He is now one of 15 successful operators taking tourists on a daily basis to the Kampi Irrawaddy dolphin watching site.

“The presence of the dolphin at Kampi helps me and other villagers maintain jobs that are a crucial source of income to our families. I usually get two trips per day and earn a total wage of 30,000 riel ($7.50)” said Sok Chea. “Without dolphins, we would face difficulties making a living.”

Earth Hour, Peru © WWF Miguel Bellido2

For five years, HSBC has been a major corporate supporter of WWF’s Earth Hour, helping to spread the message to over 250,000 employees around the globe about using our resources responsibly. This year, HSBC has also lent its support to World Water Day, a UN inititiative, to emphasise the importance of sustainable water management around the world.

There is a strong synergy between these two campaigns, particularly as Earth Hour and World Water Day are key dates in the campaign calendars for two of our HSBC Water Programme partners, WWF and WaterAid.

WWF’s Earth Hour continues to inspire.

On 23 March, HSBC employees joined hundreds of millions of people across the world took part in WWF’s Earth Hour – the annual global phenomenon that unites people to celebrate and protect our brilliant planet.

Since its origins in 2007 in Sydney, Australia – when 2.2 million individuals got involved – WWF’s Earth Hour has grown year-on-year to become the world’s largest voluntary campaign for the environment. At 8.30pm, individuals across 150+ countries and 7,000 towns and cities switched off their lights for one hour, on the same night in a huge symbolic show of support.

Palestine, Rwanda and Tunisia were amongst the countries joining in for the first time as iconic landmarks from Sydney’s OPera House and Tokyo Tower to The Acropolis and the UK’s Buckingham Palace plunged into darkness. Hundreds of thousands of schools, businesses and local authorities stood alongside a huge range of celebrities lending their support – including Yoko Ono, Jessica Alba, Lionel Messi, Sienna Miller and pop band McFly.

World Water Day raised awareness of the fact that water is the world’s most vital resource. It’s essential for individuals, communities, economies and the environment. Currently one in 10 of the world’s population live without access to safe and it’s estimated that by 2030 47 per cent of the world’s population will be living in areas with inadequate supplies. It is because water is vital to building healthy communities and developing economies that HSBC has chosen to develop the HSBC Water Programme, in which all employees can take part. WaterAid supporters got involved in a variety of ways, from taking part in a countdown to World Water Day on twitter and facebook, to joining walks for water around the globe as part of the End Water Poverty campaign. To find out more visit www.wateraid.org/wwd

“If I had clean water there would be no sickness”

Mary makes and sells pap, a traditional Nigerian food that requires a lot of water. But in Olo-Obande there is only one borehole, which is broken down.

Progress on construction: WaterAid and their local partner carried out a geological survey in Olo-Obande in January 2013. A new well is now under construction and a water, sanitation and hygiene committee are being trained on how to maintain it, to ensure the project will continue to improve the lives of people like Mary long-term.

To mark these two symbolic days, HSBC colleagues across the world got involved:-

• Creating film of colleagues outside their HSBC offices as the lights go out

• Making on-line pledges to reduce their use of resources such as water, paper, power

• Fundraising for the HSBC Water Programme partners

• Organising events

• Joining the HSBC Water Programme Community

As a business, HSBC’s strategy is to reduce annual employee COS emissions by one tonne of CO2 by 2020. They have already made good progress. HSBC’s global energy consumption has reduced by 6 per cent (2011-2012), paper usage has reduced by 17 per cent (2011-2012) and water usage by over 10 per cent (2011-2012).

The success of Earth Hour and World Water Day is dependent on the individuals who take part, so a huge thank you to all of you who got involved. But your support doesn’t need to stop here…

Go beyond the hour

Even the smallest of changes to our lifestyles, such as using less energy, or less water, can make a huge difference if enough of us make them – so for an idea of how to take your support beyond the hour and to find out more of what happened on 23 March, visit www.earthhour.org. To find out more about World Water Day vist www.worldwaterday.org and www.wateraid.org .

Newly trained Citizen Science Leader, Priscilla Hui at the launch of The HSBC Water Programme in Hong Kong. [Earthwatch/Rita Chung]

Participants on the one-day training courses, facilitated by Earthwatch, are introduced to key water issues and shown how to collect important data on water quality and biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems in their local area.

The HSBC Water Programme is a five-year learning and research partnership programme collaboration between Earthwatch, HSBC, WWF and WaterAid.HSBC IT Development Specialist, Priscilla Hui, became one of the programme’s first freshwater ambassadors after successfully completing Hong Kong’s inaugural CSL training day on March 9.

Priscilla, who joined 21 other CSLs at the Open University of Hong Kong and two sites along the Lam Tsuen River, said the experience had opened her eyes to freshwater issues facing the planet.

“Earthwatch told us that only 2.5%  of the world’s water is freshwater and only 0.0075% of that is accessible. I think we’re at a tipping point and that sparks urgency in people; that they need to face this crisis (now), ” Priscilla said.

“I think a great thing that Earthwatch did was to show us the connection between our lifestyle and freshwater consumption.  It was a powerful motivator for action,” she added.

Between now and 2016, the Earthwatch’s part of the HSBC Water Programme will see around 7,500 HSBC employees train as CSLs across 25 key cities and aims to engage 100,000 more people with online learning, ‘hands-on’ research days, and on-going self-directed data collection.

Senior Freshwater Research Manager for the programme, Dr Steven Loiselle, said CSL days were a unique opportunity to bring science and citizen science together to meet important and far reaching goals.

He added: “Each participant will have the opportunity to work with a scientist and each scientist will have the opportunity to extend his or her reach through the eyes and hands of trained citizen scientists. The project will explore ecosystems that have yet to be investigated and allow for a comparison that is unprecedented.”

How Priscilla will filter what she has learnt into everyday life:

- I will take shorter showers. That’s pretty easy.

- When I wash my vegetables now, I’ll soak them in a bowl instead of running them under the tap continuously.

- I’ll think about things like whether I really need to use so much detergent when I’m washing up.

- A lot of it is personal habits and lifestyle changes like eating less meat, but I won’t go cold turkey. I think changes in habits are only sustainable when the change is gradual.

- Share messages with colleagues at work to get them more informed.

Rita Chung, Regional Programme Manager, Hong Kong:

“Everything came together really well: the classroom sessions were engaging, the field work demonstration and practice was a lot of fun for everyone involved, and even the weather was gorgeous! We received very positive evaluations from the team who were very motivated to … fulfil their commitments as newly-minted CSLs!”

Newly-trained Citizen Science Leader, Priscilla Hui:

“Act now. Change your lifestyle. Don’t wait until the availability of water turns to zero per cent.”

Marathon athlete Oliver Govett in training for this year’s event on April 21. [Credit: Oliver Govett]

This year, Ollie Govett from Royal Avenue Branch in Belfast and Alex Konewko from RBWM Risk in HSBC HQ in London, are joining the field to raise money for WWF.  A few weeks later, on June 8, WaterAid hold their biggest annual challenge – WaterAid200.   The targets are to have at least one team at the top of 200 peaks across the UK and Ireland and to raise over £200,000 for WaterAid projects in Nepal.

Taking part is a team of seven HSBC colleagues from the Customer Care Team in Sheffield, who will be tackling Mam Tor, a 1700ft peak in Derbyshire, whilst a team of five from HSBC in Hamilton will be climbing Ben Ledi, the highest mountain in the Trossachs.

Our two marathon runners, both the ripe young age of 32, have been spurred on to run out of a desire to support WWF.  As Ollie explained, “The importance of having the funding to sustain projects that help protect our world is paramount to me.  By running in the London Marathon for WWF I am raising awareness amongst my peers, family and friends that money is still needed to protect animals especially.”

For Alex, the London Marathon is a once in a lifetime opportunity, he was inspired to run for WWF following a honeymoon trip to Australia last year.  Alex said, “It really hit home how important wildlife and protecting our planet really is.”  Alex and Ollie each aim to raise £2,000 for WWF.  You can support their tremendous efforts here.   http://www.justgiving.com/AlexKonewko and http://www.justgiving.com/Ollie-Govett

If you’re are interested in running the London Marathon for WWF in 2014, please use this form:- http://www.wwf.org.uk/how_you_can_help/fundraising/fundraising_events/register_your_interest.cfm

Lyndsay Masterton, Business Risk Manager at HSBC in Hamilton, and four colleagues will be joining a total of 2,000 WaterAid200 climbers on 8 June.

Lyndsay said, “We wanted to combine climbing with a charity event that we cared about, so WaterAid200 is perfect for us, she added, “It will be great to feel that we are part of making this change and for such a fantastic cause.”  To help the ‘Fizzy Onions’ team reach their £500 target, visit their online fundraising pages. For Lyndsay and for Edward.

In Sheffield, it only took Edward an hour to gather a team, having seen WaterAid200 in the My Health and Wellbeing Newsletter.  His research on the charity revealed just how many places in the world do not have access to safe water and sanitation.  He said, “It is such a basic necessity for the survival of human life and we take it for granted every day.”  The team hope to beat their £400 target, as Edward explained, “£400 could fund four tapstands, each delivering clean water to several households in Nepal, so the small part we are playing can make a big difference in Nepal.”  You can sponsor his team, The Mamary Torists here.

Visit www.wateraid200.org to find out more about participating in WaterAid200.  From gentle slopes to steep scrambles, there are peaks suitable for climbers and walkers of all levels.

To get an insight into life in Ghana and the challenges faced by the children, women and men of these communities, please view this film about the visit and three short films about some of the people we met, including a fisherman and two schoolgirls. With HSBC funding, WaterAid and their local partners will be working in these communities, as part of a wider five year programme, to bring safe water to 120,000 people and sanitation to 80,000 people in Ghana.

The Ganga suffers from pollution and over-extraction, yet it is the lifeblood for many agricultural communities in the Ganga basin.

WWF and their partners, Shramik Bharti, have been working with the people of Harnu village to introduce new agricultural practices. This village is situated in a critical stretch of the Ganga basin, stretching from Gangotri to Kanpur.

One of the adaptations they have pioneered is the use of organic fertiliser in place of chemicals. Husband and wife Chotte and Gayatri gave us a demonstration of how it is made. Several natural ingredients, including neem leaves, cow dung and urine are mixed with five litres of water in a pot.

The pot is then sealed with clay and left for 15 days. The mixture is strained, with the liquid being used for fertiliser and the rest composted.

Although most of the villagers make the fertiliser for their own use, Pancham Lal, a local entrepreneur, manufactures and sells the fertiliser to other farmers in the local area. He was given a small amount of funding to set up his business by Shramik Bharti. He faced challenges in getting people to accept that the fertiliser worked.  He got over these by changing the name to Bioprotector, and initially gave some away for free so people could try it for themselves.

There are major benefits in using organic fertiliser over chemicals – the food tastes better, there are no health risks, there is increased crop yield, the soil is improved, less watering is required, it can be used on any crop, it is a natural repellent to pests and most importantly, the run  off does not contribute to the pollution of the iconic and revered river Ganges. Pancham is happy because, in addition to these incredible benefits, he has also increased his income.

Our journey today took us to  Kanpur and one of its many urban slums. Fifty per cent of the city’s 2.7m people live this way.

It’s a familiar story in these parts – farm plot sizes shrink with continued population growth and people are forced into cities by the hope of work and opportunity beyond subsistence living.

Unfortunately it doesn’t always pan out as planned.  Mechanisation has replaced people power in many traditional industries leaving poorly educated workers with few options.

Many slums are a sad tale of neglect and frustration. Plumbing and what we would call ‘municipal services’ are non-existent. Stray pigs rummage in ponds of sewage and garbage, and flies buzz over everything.  In the monsoon the brown tide rises to knee deep.  People wade around in this mess for months. The only thing that dries up is work.

Unlike the more temporary slums I worked with in Bangalore, today’s first slum had been in existence for 60 years.  I think it was this permanency that was so depressing.    I met a woman whose husband, unsurprisingly, had contracted cholera. He’s been off work so she’s taken a whopping 8,000-rupee loan at 20% interest (a month) to make ends meet and pay the medical bill. She has one child having lost 2 others to preventable diseases.

About 90 per cent of the slum practise open defecation as a result of non-existent services – either at the stinking mess of a pond to one side of the settlement or on the railway tracks which border it.  Women are afraid to let their children near the tracks for fear of injury, molestation and kidnapping by traffickers.

Life for girls and women is particularly hard.  There’s a low level of awareness of menstrual and sexual health which means urinary tract infections, unwanted pregnancies and risky abortions by backyard fixers that often end tragically.

How do you tackle a place like this?

The critical issue, as far as I could work out, was tenure over land.  Even as families are squeezed off their rural holdings, slum communities that settle illegally are not officially recognised.  As a consequence they are slow to receive government services, if at all. No one is willing to invest for the long term in an apparently temporary settlement. They are essentially ‘off the grid’. Slums which are recognised as ‘legal’ have greater but not guaranteed prospects of improvements to water, sanitation and health services.

We next visited another slum where WaterAid and its local partners had been able to activate the community to the point where, after months of meetings and advocacy, it had received official acknowledgement as a legitimate settlement.  From there it had begun to see improvements in its sewerage system, toilet facilities and water supplies and a greater willingness on the part of the people to invest in their own livelihoods It underlined the importance of not just executing plans at the grassroots but also the ability to influence policy and key decision-makers – a key feature of WaterAid’s work.

** Author’s note – the intention of this story is not to paint an overly negative picture of India, but rather draw attention to the development challenges it faces and offer hope that these can be overcome. Despite working in some of the least ‘appealing’ parts of the country my 7-week journey in India has been characterised both by the unrelenting hospitality of its people and well… me walking around with a permanent grin of fascination and love.

Sunday 17th March

Goswami Nagar is a 65-year-old slum that up until 20 years ago was home to people who had to beg to make their money by singing and performing in the streets. It is now buzzing with industrial activity and the people have learned that they can make a living by purchasing old clothes, washing and repairing them, and selling them in the market to the low income population.

When we arrived in this slum, you could feel a sense of pride and gratitude from the community. They told us how they transformed from beggers who felt shame to workers who are proud of what they do. They also told us that when WaterAid started working in this slum one-and-a-half years ago, the community joined together to unearth an old sewer line that was buried under the huts, and worked with the municipality to clean and restore it. Since then, 11 shared toilets and 1 household toilet have been constructed and connected to the sewer line.

We were pulled in all directions by the community members who wanted to show us their homes and talk to us. “Mam, mam”, “come, come” they said as they pulled my arms in different directions. One particular family that stood out to me was a family of 27 that lived in a four room mud hut on a family income of 5,000 rupees/month (the equivalent to US$3.42 a month each). They told me that they were in the process of building a toilet because the women had experienced abuse and teasing when going to the toilet in the open by the railway line.

Two women in the house, Angeli and Uma, also told us that they had worked with our partners to influence the government to legalize the slum, a huge accomplishment that will help to relieve concerns over their homes being demolished and encourage families to invest in toilets. “We are illiterate,” they told us confidently, “but we can express ourselves well.” When I asked the family what changes they had seen as a result of the work WaterAid had done, they told us how the restored water pumps meant they didn’t have to walk as far to wash the clothes, how the streets were no longer waterlogged, and how community members had been taught how to clean and maintain their community and their homes.

When I asked them what other changes they would like to see, they presented a hand written list, which read as follows:

1. Drainage system in the community

2. Road constructed

3. Toilets in every household

4. A water filter or shared water filter in every household

5. Menstrual hygiene education for women

6. A dustbin/garbage in every household

7. A ladle in every household (to be used for water handling)

Take a look at the items above – do you think any of this is unreasonable? For these people, these simple, basic items could mean the difference between life and death. I have no doubt that the people of Goswami Nagar will continue to work together as a community to overcome adversity. They are strong people, and it is clear that the work of our partners has helped to empower and teach them that they can, and should, fight for their basic human rights.

Friday 15^th and Saturday 16^th March

The last two days we visited villages and slums that have not received any outside help from NGOs like WaterAid. It has been a drastically different experience to that of the sites that have received help as the overwhelming feeling has been despair and helplessness. The people we spoke to are part of the scheduled caste and from what I understand, this is the bottom of the pyramid – people who have been historically oppressed and who feel like they have been forgotten.

On arrival at Roshanabad, a 1000 person dwelling on the outskirts of the capital city of Lucknow, the first thing that hit me was the vast number of flies. The village lacked a formal drainage system and water from washing and the water pump stations snaked down the narrow village paths mixing with cow dung and collecting garbage along the way. I tried not to wince as one of the ladies in the village picked up her baby daughter and washed her bottom in this dirty water beside me. It was clear just from looking around that the importance of sanitation and safe water was either not understood or came low on the list of priorities for the people in this village (from our conversations it appeared to be a mix of both). As a result, the health situation was dire – we spoke to two groups of women and in each there was a girl who had not been to school in 10 – 15 days due to fever and convulsions.

We also visited Jhakarkatti Rakhi Mandi, a 65 year old urban slum situated close to a railway in the city of Kanpur. In this slum there were no drains for waste water management and garbage was everywhere. I was introduced to a blind elderly woman named Munnidevi, who was keen to share her story with me. Like most households in the slum, she has no toilet and her daughter-in-law must walk 15 to 20 minutes to fetch water because the nearby water pumps are not working. When I asked her what challenges she faced as a result of being blind, Munnidevi told me she relies heavily on her daughter-in-law to fetch water and wood and take her to the railway line when she needs to go to the toilet. She told me she has been blind since she was 18 from small pox and she’s been looked after by her son and her daughter-in-law since her husband died 20 years ago from tuberculosis. She told me no one cares about their slum and she is scared it will be demolished and she will have nowhere to go. My heart broke as I heard her story and I felt absolutely helpless as she pleaded with me to help bring safe water and cleanliness to her village.

The good news is that WaterAid is planning to expand their work to both of these areas and are working with local government and community members to make this happen. While the city slum in particular will be a difficult project to tackle because of the scale of challenges they are facing, we visited a nearby slum in the afternoon that was in the early stages of project intervention and with only a couple of new water pumps, drainage structures and a small group of community members who had been trained to create a more healthy and safe environment, it was clear that hope can be restored – even in a slum – and that small changes can prove to these communities that they have not been forgotten.