Why should you become a Blue Community? Here some good reasons by Blue Team member Roland Brunner.
The Blue Community is not an organization, an association, or an institution. The Blue Community is a network of many different institutions and organizations that are themselves affiliated to the Blue Community. Blue Communities include towns and villages, universities and schools, businesses and NGOs, religious organizations, and trade unions, even a museum and a youth radio station. Based on the core values and principles of the Blue Community, they have joined the Blue Community network with a self-declaration (commitment) to promote the human right to water and sanitation and to oppose the privatization, commodification and commercialization of water and its services. Blue Communities work with governments, politicians, experts, journalists, and activists to ensure water justice for all. The Blue Community network supports the individual Blue Communities in these endeavors, facilitates contacts between them and facilitates exchange and cooperation.
Water makes headlines. Whether it’s droughts or floods, species extinction or food shortages, it’s all about our water, its distribution, and the access to it. Water is a major, indeed overriding, issue that will determine our fate. Will our home, the blue planet, stay blue? Will there be enough clean drinking water – for everyone, everywhere – despite the abundance of water? Faced with such questions, one might become fearful and anxious. Who will answer these questions and solve the water crisis? The Blue Communities are not waiting and hoping for big politics, for international conferences to finally tackle the problem seriously. Nor do we want to despair and be content with saving a little water in our own homes by taking shorter showers and turning off the tap when it’s not needed. Blue Communities are a collective effort to be part of the solution. We act together, make our Blue Community a place of water wisdom, get involved as a group and achieve more than a few big conferences and many small actions. We act and show that this is possible everywhere, that everyone can become a Blue Community.
There are many good reasons to become a Blue Community. These include not only a shared interest and commitment to our water. The Blue Community also offers a platform to present yourself, to publicize your activities on water beyond your own sphere of influence, to find like-minded people in other institutions and to reach out to experts. The Blue Community Network operates its own international website and social media channels through which all Blue Communities can present themselves. «Walk the talk» and «Do good and talk about it» could be the slogans for becoming part of the Blue Community network.