There are 663 million people worldwide who still lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion who lack access to adequate sanitation.
FRANK Water’s goal is simple: Safe Water for All. Through partnerships with some of India’s best grassroots organisations, FRANK works with marginalised communities to help them understand the issues and develop their own answers to securing safe, clean drinking water and sanitation.
Arup UKMEA region formed a three year strategic partnership with FRANK Water in April 2016. Through joint projects we are:
- Helping FRANK’s partners to better understand and manage the environmental impact of WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) projects
- Developing FRANK’s community engagement programme in the UK
- Improving FreeFill, FRANK Water’s most important fundraising initiative
FRANK Water’s India programme combines implementing projects, research & development, and advocacy. Projects tackle the challenges of supplying those communities that are hardest to reach or excluded from mainstream society including India’s poorest communities and tribes, particularly Scheduled Tribes and those living below the poverty line. Since 2005, they’ve reached more than 325,000 people in 210 communities with safe water and sanitation.
FRANK delivers individual programmes with NGO partner organisations in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. They work with partners and with the communities themselves to develop lasting solutions: including gravity-fed and pumped water supply systems, catchment management, water treatment, sanitation infrastructure, and education programmes.
In the near future we hope to use Arup’s expertise in city resilience to help Indian communities plan for sustainable and socially inclusive development, and support the fulfilment of SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) 6, helping to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.