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AUARA: Water to change the world
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In August 2019, Parques Reunidos introduced a new water brand at its Spanish parks’ restaurants and stores. The decision to introduce AUARA among the other brands available actually goes beyond water itself. AUARA works to bring drinkable water to communities who are deprived of it, and it is the first brand in Europe to bottle its water with 100% recycled and 100% recyclable material.
THE ORIGIN OF AUARA
It all started when Antonio Espinosa returned to Spain from one of his trips to work with non-profit organizations in coutries that experience extreme poverty. In his travels, Antonio realized that the thing that those countries lack the most was drinkable water. Antonio then decided to get down to work to alleviate the precarious situation he had observed in those communities.
He got in touch with a friend who is an entrepreneur, Pablo Urbano, who clearly indentified what they needed to do in order to develop a project that would tackle the humanitarian problems related to a limited access to drinkable water. AUARA needed to be a social enterprise.
AUARA project in Kenya
WHAT IS A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE?
In the United Kingdom there are many companies that apply for the Social Enterprise Mark, an accreditation for companies whose activity is has a clear social or environmental purpose and that meet certain requirements such as devoting at least 51% of their revenue to social and environmental causes.
AUARA was the first Spanish company to be certified by Social Enterprise Mark, and they dedicate 100% of their revenue to social and humanitarian projects to provide access to drinkable water to communities arround the world who are deprived of it.
THE WATER CHALLENGE
Life on Earth began underwater and water is essential to live. It is widely known that the human body can go on for weeks without food, but we can only survive a few days without water.
The numbers are impressive: to this day there are 700 million people in the world who don’t have access to drinkable water, a figure that exceeds the current European population. In addition, polluted water is responsible for 80% of disease infections among these popullations and its ingestion is this first cause of child mortality.
Yet, the emergengy isn’t just sanitary. 75% of the time women and children are in charge of bringing water home, and they must travel every day to far-off wells, streams and water sources to find water to bring back home. Often their kilometer-long commutes force them to walk for an average of six hours a day, preventing children to go to school and women to have a job to support their families. Only on Africa, members of these communities walk 40.000 million hours every year in order to supply their families with water. This data shows that the lack of drinking water is not only a health threat, but also a significant handicap to these communities’ development.
AUARA’S PROJECTS
AUARA works on three types of projects:
- Wells
- Tanks
- Bathrooms and latrines
In contries where AUARA works (Haiti, Benin, Cameroon, DRC, Uganda, Ethiopia, Morocco and Malawi) building this sort of infrastructure can have an relatively moderate cost -12.000€ approximately to build a well- but if we remember that people in these communities live on 1€ a day, it becomes paramount that third parties bring financial support to these projects, which are vital to improve their quality of life.
The impact of these projects is even more significant if we consider that a well provides water not just to the village or school where it is built. In many cases neighboring villages also benefit from this new well, since it becomes the closest source of water and ensures better quality.
A well built by AUARA in Kenya
HOW COULD WE NOT GET ONBOARD?
Last August Parques Reunidos joined AUARA and you can now find this water brand in all the restaurants and stores in our Spanish parks. Through this collaboration, we strengthen our environmental commitment by introducint 100% recycled and 100% recyclable bottles among our water offer. In addition, we are proud to contribute to projects such as the construction of water wells, that will enable hundreds of children to attend school, instead of having to fetch water for their families. Thus we extend our commitment towards child education and we contribute to their families’ possiblities to prosper and develop, inproving their quality of life through these projects.
