Etisalat, leading telecom provider in the UAE, has recently announced the operation of a major concept of corporate social responsibility in Egypt, which targets the use of water in various applications.

Called the "Origin", the nation-wide project is devised to counter Egypt’s water dilemma.

The initiative is in partnership with the giant international organisation "Care" as well as renowned Egyptian non-governmental organisations like "Resala" the Egyptian society for integrated development and others as well as a large number of community development agencies.

It is estimated to directly aid hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries in seven governorates in its first year.

The initiative has four main components – the first and main component is bringing safe drinking water to the homes, schools and medical units of deprived villages that have suffered from thirst and have little or no access to drinking water.

The second component is water purification which entails supplying villages, rural areas and squatter settlements suffering from polluted or contaminated water with purification plants and systems to filter the current water supply and turn it into usable drinking water.

The third component consists of irrigation water interventions planned closely in collaboration with Care's "water and stability" project officials, it features aiding villages suffering irrigation water difficulties to overcome their problems, this area includes construction, re-digging and clearing kilometers of watercourses as well insulating them with stonework amidst other irrigation water management activities.

The fourth and last component targets kidney failure, a direct result of declined water quality; this includes providing hospitals with dialysis equipment and water treatment facilities enabling them to provide the patients with free dialysis treatment.

All the mentioned components are complimented with the necessary preliminary researches to assess the needing villages and the suitable type of intervention.

The initiative also labels awareness and education  as a cross cutting theme, capacity development workshops for the authorities taking part have already started, awareness programs for the beneficiaries and field trips for the school children of the target locations are also commencing shortly. – TradeArabia News Service