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Water and Sanitation as a Human Right

Blue Communities promote the Human Right to Water and Sanitation and engage to have it enshrined in the constitution and the laws of every
country.

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Water and Sanitation as a Public Good

Blue Communities strive for water and sanitation services being developed, owned, financed, and governed by the citizens and operated by public institutions in their interest. They engage against privatisation and commodification of water and sanitation, but promote water as common good with equal access for all.

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Good quality Tap Water everywhere for everyone

Blue Communities refrain from bottled water, but use and promote tap water wherever possible. Bottled water shall be banned or phased out, striving for solutions harming our environment the least possible.

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Blue Community cooperation

Blue Communities campaign and cooperate on local, regional, national and international level. They support each other in the best way possible. The Blue Community network can serve as platform for this cooperation by helping to establish contacts and by supporting and coordinating these efforts.

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Welcome to our work in progress: Turn the world blue!

Dear reader. Welcome to the website from and for the global network of Blue Communities, the Blue Community.net. We invite you to explore these pages and the information we provide. Check out the BLUE NEWS for daily updates on Blue Communities around the world. We also encourage you to join one of our social media channels to stay updated and in touch with the Blue Community. If you have any information to add and/or suggestions for this website, please let us know. And if you are not a Blue Community yet, join in, TURN BLUE! 

Your Blue Team

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«The Blue Community is an inter­national reference in the defence of the human right to drinking water and sanitation. Blue Communities are an example of solidarity between trade unions, religious organisations, social movements and institutions such as universities and municipalities, in the defence of water as a common good, accessible to all but not appropriated by anyone; in the defence of water as the blue soul of life and the basis for coexistence in communities and societies.»

Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation

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«Welcome to this exciting new website. The Blue Communities movement is committed to protecting water as a human right and a public trust, not to be commodified and put on the open market like oil and gas. Thinking “blue” also means that we have to stop seeing water as a resource for economic growth and profit, and start understanding that water is the sacred source of all life. It is my dream that the Blue Communities movement will touch hearts and minds all over the world and protect Mother Earth and future generations forever.»

Maude Barlow, activist, author, co-founder of the Blue Communities movement.

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«The Blue Community initiative is a reconnection of Africans to their culture of sharing and collective ownership of water as a free gift from God. The modern threat of privatisation and over-commercialisation of this resource must be resisted collectively, and the expansion of Blue Communities is one way of doing this.»

Reverend Kolade Fadahunsi, minister of Methodist Church Nigeria, currently serving as the Director of the Christian Council of Nigeria, Institute of Church and Society Ibadan. Rev. Fadahunsi is a commissioner of the World Council of Churches, Commission on International Affairs, as well as the Regional Coordinator of the Ecumenical Water Network Africa.

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«I am grateful that as an active member of the Blue Community I can set an example for water, ergo life, and work to ensure that water remains a common good.»

Anoosh Werner, active member and ambassador for the Blue Community Germany and Neustrelitz - and in the national coordination of the Blue Community Chapter Germany.

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«The World Council of Churches WCC and its Ecumenic Water Network EWN is fully committed to spread the notion of Blue Communities and encourage hundreds of thousands of its related churches and Faith Based Organisations to become Blue Communities. We are strongly committed to 'Water for Life, over water for Profit'. Let us all become Blue Communities. »

Dinesh Suna, based in Geneva is the Coordinator of Ecumenical Water Network of World Council of Churches, since 2012. He is also the Co-lead of the Water, Environment and Climate Action workstream of PaRD, Germany, and a member of the Blue Team running this website (see his full statement there).

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«Water is everywhere and connects everything, including us humans with everything that surrounds us. It is the basis of our lives and we need to protect it and make it accessible to everyone. Access to water and sustainable (waste) water management is something I am also committed to professionally. Through Blue Communities, I can network and work with other stakeholders to contribute to the human right to water and sanitation.»

Dorothee Spuhler, OST Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Science, UMTEC Institute for Environmental and Process Engineering, Project Manager Global Cooperation, Adapted Water Technologies & Systems SuSanA (Sustainable Sanitation Alliance), Eawag and Board Member VaLoo.

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«It is urgent to affirm waters as a divine gift, human right and common good. To this end, Blue Universities contribute greatly, encouraging reflection and action that promote universal access to drinking water. Blue Universities promote social and environmental justice through water justice.»

Elias Wolff, Professor at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Brazil, has a doctorate in Theology and a master's degree in Philosophy, working specifically on the themes of interreligious dialogue and ecumenism. He is a member of the Ecumenical Water Network (World Council of Churches – Geneva), and one of the founders of the Ecumenical Water Network – Brazil.

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    Blue Community Ambassador Daniel Jaffee

    «Privatization of municipal water systems and the fast-growing bottled and packaged water industry are the two major ways that drinking water is being transformed into a for-profit commodity on a global scale. The Blue Community movement makes a critical connection between these two forms of commodification, highlighting how both of them pose a threat to realizing the human right to water. Cities, universities, schools, faith organizations, and others who become Blue Communities are taking an important stand–joining a worldwide movement to keep water a public good and working toward water justice.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Madeleine Moore

    «Water is essential for all forms of life, we cannot exist without it. That is why it is so crucial that we organise together through groups like Blue Communities to protect water and make it accessible for all.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Andrea Muehlebach

    «I support the Blue Community Initiative because it represents a pact between water utilities and the communities they serve: This is a collective commitment to keep water in public hands and manage it with long-term goals and environmentally sound planning. This commitment by the public sector makes sense not only in economic and ethical terms, but also in ecological and infrastructural terms.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Andreas Bieler

    «Blue Community is an excellent initiative raising the awareness of the importance of water and allowing people to mobilise with concrete measures in support of water as a human right.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Léo Heller

    «The Blue Community Initiative shares principles of challenging unjust processes of commodification and privatization of water, promoting the human rights to water, and sanitation and strengthening public services. I have advocated for these principles for decades, in my academic career, in my international mandates, and my political activism. For this reason, I support this important initiative.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Erin O'Donnell

    «Rivers are living beings with whom we are all in a relationship of mutual interdependence and reciprocity. The sooner we stop dominating and exploiting all waterways, the sooner we can embrace a truly legitimate and sustainable way of life. Water is life: for us, for the planet, and for itself.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Rutgerd Boelens

    «Across the world, new water justice movements have proliferated that creatively enliven rivers in all their senses. As multi-scalar coalitions they deploy alternative river–society proposals and practices that foster environmental justice. They bridge, translate and merge local river commoning practices, languages and strategies into global ones and vice versa, joining forces among South and North, triggering fundamentally new ways of thinking, acting, defending and living with rivers.» (Riverhood)

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    Blue Community Ambassador Caitlin Schroering

    «Water should not be a commodity for financial profit. Just as corporate power is attempting to profit off of the privatization of water and working globally to do so, transnational (or trans-local) social movements are also organizing to envision new paths forward where all have access to water, land, and other life-sustaining necessities. Without water, we have nothing.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Jerry van den Berge

    «Privatization of water (services and resources) increases inequality and injustice in society. By exploiting water, private companies make huge profits while people are confronted with higher prices, deteriorating environment, and loss of livelihoods. This must be stopped if we are serious about saying: ‘Water is a human right!’ Water is even more than that: ‘Water is a public good, not a commodity!’»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Marcela González Rivas

    «Water service provision should be treated as a public good, as evidence shows that public ownership is most compatible with the human right to water and sanitation. In my research I focus on global environmental justice for local or national water policies. Blue Communities align with and advocate for these principles, which is why I am happy to support the initiative.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Fredrick Mugira

    «The Blue Community Initiative is a vital effort to recognize water as a fundamental human right instead of a commodity. After covering water issues for over 20 years, I firmly believe everyone deserves clean water access. By joining the Blue Community, we commit to protecting water as a shared resource and fostering conversations and collaboration to enhance water management practices.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Isadora Cruxên

    «Water is life sustaining. Confronting the interrelated social and environmental challenges before us requires a collective commitment to governing water resources sustainably and to promoting access to clean water and adequate sanitation in ways that challenge structural inequalities and centre the health and vitality of our communities and ecosystems. The Blue Community’s mission contributes to this commitment.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Lyla Mehta

    «Water and sanitation are basic human rights. Yet the rights of poor and marginalised people around the world are routinely violated by powerful state and private actors with impunity. I support the Blue Community Initiative’s call for water justice for all, and the need to ensure accountability and that water remains a public good, not a commodity.»

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    Blue Community Ambassador Denise Freitas Soares de Moraes

    «The Blue Community is an initiative that recognizes water as a common good whose availability and quality must be protected. As an organization, it promotes dialogue between organizations and academics committed to struggles of resistance, mobilization, and building alternatives for just and equitable water management. I could not agree more with these principles, which is why I am a strong supporter of the Blue Community.»

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