What do you think of water?

Join us in our celebration of diverse cultural perspectives on water, to help us respect the lifeblood that connects us all.

Deadline extended to 30 June 2009!

Respond to the following question(s) and share with us short poems, songs or visual art forms that illustrate your relationships with water:

1. What creation or healing stories (teachings) have you heard your teachers or Elders share about water and life on earth?
2. Where does the water you drink come from? Where does water in your home go, once you have finished using it? How and where does water travel in the hydrological cycle? How does water travel and change shape through the cycle: rain, snow, fog, streams, rivers, lakes, springs, groundwater, or oceans?
3. What fun, games, ceremonies or sport do you have with or in water? What water ceremonies do you, your family or community practice to show respect to water? What kind of water features (such as fountains, springs, lakes, rivers) are your favourite and special places to go and spend your free time?
4. What is it like to be thirsty? What can you and your community do to make sure that we all have enough clean water to drink, now and in the future? How can we be better caretakers of the water that flows through our lives?

Your contributions will be compiled into a book to be published with the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Depending on the number of contributions received, some will be selected for the book while the rest will be put up on the website for the UNESCO-IHP project on Water and Cultural Diversity.

If you are between of 9-16 of age (or grades 5-10, or are involved with teaching children and youths of such age), please send your contributions!

Please do not forget to include your name, age, address and contact information with the submission, as we will need to contact you later for copyright and other information to confirm that you are the creator of the work. Please also note that your privacy will be respected, and thus no personal information other than name, age, and country will be made public in our publications.

Please send your contributions by 30 June 2009, to wcd@unesco.org

Any questions? Send them to wcd@unesco.org

For more information on UNESCO-IHP project on Water and Cultural Diversity, download the brochure or visit the project home page.

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