Decanter has given £75,000 to WaterAid, marking its biggest single donation to the international water charity since the two formed a partnership a decade ago.
Decanter’s team, including publishing director Sarah Kemp (second from right) and publisher Lindsay Greatbatch (far right), hand over the cheque at the Decanter Mediterranean Fine Wine Encounter.
Decanter‘s publishing director, Sarah Kemp, presented WaterAid with a cheque for £75,000 at the recent Decanter Mediterranean Fine Wine Encounter.
As well as being Decanter’s largest single donation to the charity, it also means that Decanter has given more than £500,000 to WaterAid since 2005.
The money has been raised by auctioning wines from the annual Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).
Ahead of the most recent auction, hosted by Christie’s in London in October last year, Kemp described her experience of visiting a small village in Zambia in 2012 and meeting a girl named Fenny, who has since benefited from money raised via previous wine sales.
‘Every time you pull the cork on of those bottles, you are helping someone like Fenny,’ she told buyers, adding that Decanter was proud to support WaterAid in its essential work to give more people access to better sanitation and clean drinking water.
Separately, DWWA sponsor Belu announced this month that it has donated just over £1m to WaterAid to date, as part of its own partnership with the charity.
Earlier this month, WaterAid said dirty water and lack of basic sanitation – such as access to a clean toilet – was the fifth biggest killer of women globally, ahead of HIV/AIDS and breast cancer. Its findings were taken from analysis of Institute of Health figures.
To coincide with World Water Day, which took place yesterday (22 March), WaterAid also launched a new report focused on mortality rates for newborn babies.
Its report, ‘healthy start: the first month of life’, says that a forthcoming World Health Organisation study of conditions in 54 developing countries is set to state that 38% of healthcare facilities examined lacked a clean water supply. Close to one in five facilities had not sanitation, said WaterAid, which also drew attention to high infant mortality rates from infections.
WaterAid has called on the United Nations to include a dedicated goal to clean water and sanitation in its Sustainable Development Goals, which are set to be agreed this year and are to replace the Millenium Development Goals.
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Written by Decanter.com staff
