WASH in Schools Event: March 12, Washington DC

You’re Invited to the Launch of the WASH-in-Schools Initiative

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The National Geographic Society Grosvenor Auditorium
1600 M Street NW
Washington, DC

8:30am Doors open

9:00 – 11:00am Program and videos

11:00 – 11:30am Coffee and tea

Media interview opportunities will be available from 11:00am – 11:30am

*We encourage parents to bring their children to this event.

Please join Water Advocates and a growing list of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), foundations, corporations, and schools to launch the U.S. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Schools Initiative—an effort to help the 50% of schools in the developing world that lack access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene education.

The morning’s events will feature videos of schoolchildren in the developing world as well as comments from Gil Grosvenor, Chairman, Board of Trustees, National Geographic Society; Ambassador Hattie Babbitt; Carol Bellamy, President and CEO, World Learning and UNICEF Executive Director from 1995-2005; Dr. Peter Gleick, President and Co-founder Pacific Institute; Gil Garcetti, Photographer of "Water is Key: A Better Future for Africa;" and Alexandra Cousteau, co-founder Earth Echo International.

While much is already being done for WASH in Schools, there is still an enormous unmet global problem—half the schools in the developing world lack adequate water and sanitation. This initiative will focus on expanding WASH to 1,000 schools in developing countries while creating the momentum to help as many additional schools as possible worldwide. Water Advocates encourages interested corporations, foundations, organizations, and individuals to use this event as a platform to highlight their activities or to pledge their support to do more for WASH in Schools.

For more information on the WASH in Schools Initiative and how you can be involved, please contact Andra Tamburro 202-293-4047, atamburro@wateradvocates.org.

*** To attend the event, please RSVP to Katie Delisio at WaterAdvocatesRSVP@gmail.com

For a map to the event: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorer/map.html

Please share this invitation with your friends and colleagues.