human rights

End Water Poverty (EWP) operates on the principle that social change starts with civil society: without human rights defenders, there are no human rights. We specialise in funding community-led direct civil society action that counters regression and advances accountability, justice and human rights. Each year we provide mini-grants of £1,000-£5,000 through Claim Your Water Rights, a global public pressure campaign that mobilises, emboldens and unites civil society who support communities to claim their rights to safe water and sanitation.

Free trade agreements: Corporate greed makes the right to water of Phichit villagers a distant reality

In Central Thailand’s Phichit province, a group of villagers resisted a goldmining company that polluted their water and destroyed their livelihoods for almost 20 years. Manushya Foundation have written a comprehensive exposé documenting the villagers' fight against corporate impunity and state exploitation.

In Central Thailand’s Phichit province, a group of villagers resisted a gold mine that polluted their water and destroyed their livelihoods and health for almost 20 years. When the Chatree Goldmining Complex was finally closed in 2017, the villagers had one goal left: to get justice and fair compensation for the damages caused by Akara Resources, a Thai subsidiary of Australian company Kingsgate. In a cynical development the company decided to bring Thailand to arbitration under the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement, claiming the Thai government expropriated the gold mine and leaving Phichit villagers to fear for their future. After five years of arbitration, the military-backed government of Prayut Chan-o-cha decided to put profit above people and the planet and renewed four licences to Kingsgate, allowing it to re-open the Chatree complex. Meanwhile villagers are still yet to receive compensation for the environmental, physical and emotional harm they have suffered over the past 20 years. 

End Water Poverty were part of the Forum Alternatif Mondial de l’Eau (FAME 2022) last week, where hundreds of water and social justice activists from around the world gathered in Dakar, Senegal. The theme of FAME was “access to water and sanitation is a matter of public health and a barometer of democracy”.

Read End Water Poverty coordinator Alana Potter's framing to our session on expanding civic space at the Alternative World Water Forum in Dakar.

Alternative World Water Forum, secretariat interviews + World Water Day.

We start 2022 by introducing several new members to our coalition.

A widow of a sanitation worker, who died along with his co-worker from poisonous gases in a manhole, is being pressured by the Punjab government to withdraw a case of criminal negligence against a sanitation department in Sargodha, Pakistan.

Drought, disease, dissolution, death - these are the stark realities of life without safe water. Quality of life, health, and hygiene largely depend on safe drinking water and proper sanitation. Yet in many areas of rural India these fundamental human rights have not been realised - especially among poor and marginalised people. Odisha, as one of the least progressive states in the country, needs more attention than most.