ITT Employees Unite Worldwide to Draw Attention to Global Water Crisis
22/03/2010
On World Water Day, Employees in ITT Corporation Rally for Safe Water Awareness
Lowara HQ, March 22, 2010 – From Baroda, India to Stockholm, Sweden and from San Diego, USA to Quiché, Guatemala, ITT employees commemorated World Water Day through simultaneous global volunteer events drawing attention to the need for safe drinking water and sanitation in eradicating poverty and disease in the world.
ITT employees from all locations spent many hours in participating in local actions. They were joined by ITT’s 40,000 employees around the world, drawing attention to ITT Watermark, ITT’s global corporate citizenship effort in partnership with Water For People, China Women’s Development Foundation and Mercy Corps. ITT Watermark provides safe water, sanitation and hygiene education to children and families in schools and in disaster-struck areas of the developing world.
World Water Day is part of ITT Watermark’s global volunteer impact month in March. By the end of the month, ITT employees expect to log more than 5,000 hours in volunteer time by conducting river cleanups, working with students to test the quality of local water bodies and raising funds for ITT Watermark’s nonprofit partners.
In honor of World Water Day, ITT is raising funds for its nonprofit partners through a Facebook campaign. From March 22 – March 26, ITT will donate $1 to safe water solutions for every new fan of the ITT Watermark Facebook fan page. Money raised will be evenly distributed to ITT Watermark partners: Mercy Corps, Water For People and China Women’s Development Foundation. The average estimated global cost of providing water to one person for a lifetime is $25. This means for every 25 new fans, water can be provided to one person for life. ITT is encouraging its employees, customers and operating communities to log on to Facebook and become a fan of ITT Watermark by visiting www.ittwatermark.com/facebook.
Some comments from different companies of the ITT Corp. group:
“The simultaneous global impact efforts of thousands of ITT employees raises awareness of this critical need and draws attention to what our corporate citizenship efforts have long held up as one of the most pressing environmental and global poverty concerns – the need for safe water,”
Organizers at an estimated 100 facilities worldwide planned local events to tie World Water Day and global water scarcity issues to their own community’s water quality and conservation concerns. “The need for safe water is a critical issue that affects all of us, regardless of where we live”.
“ITT Watermark is connecting global water issues to our own neighborhoods, and this is a great chance to get involved and educate our community about how it affects everyone.”
Since its launch in 2008, ITT Watermark has provided safe water to more than 500,000 children and families in locations around the globe, from Nepal and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Guatemala. This includes installing safe water pumps, latrines and hand-washing stations at 184 schools in India, China, Guatemala and Honduras. In addition, the program secured critical water supplies and provided response training and equipment for more than 350,000 people in disaster-struck countries such as Myanmar, Nepal, China, and Haiti.
Activities will continue to take place throughout March 2010 in ITT communities around the world, as the company continues to offer services, expertise and solutions to address the growing global water crisis.
Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology provider, enabling customers to transport, treat, test and efficiently use water in public utility, residential and commercial building services, industrial and agricultural settings. The company does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands, and its people bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on finding local solutions to the world’s most challenging water and wastewater problems. Launched in 2011 from the spinoff of the water-related businesses of ITT Corporation, Xylem is headquartered in White Plains, N.Y., with 2010 annual revenues of $3.2 billion and 12,000 employees worldwide.
The name Xylem is derived from classical Greek and is the tissue that transports water in plants, highlighting the engineering efficiency of our water-centric business by linking it with the best water transportation of all — that which occurs in nature. For more information, please visit us at http://www.xyleminc.com.