Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Save the Children, a UK-based international charity known for helping some of the world's poorest families, held a presentation of the "Every Drop Matters II" project in the Sulu Tepe settlement outside the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Wednesday.

The project, implemented from January 1, 2012 to August 30, 2012 by Save the Children in Azerbaijan with funding from the Coca-Cola Foundation, Coca-Cola's primary international philanthropic arm, together with citizens and officials from Sulu Tepe settlement.

Save the Children has been active in Azerbaijan since December 1993, arriving in response to the country's bitter armed conflict with Armenia, which displaced about a million Azerbaijanis.

Supporting the Azerbaijani population by providing not only immediate relief, but also the assistance needed to ensure access to long-term healthcare, education and employment opportunities, Save the Children initially managed an emergency response umbrella grant program, through which it funded and coordinated international relief efforts.

Save the Children shifted its focus to development programs in 1998 and since then, the organization has been directly implementing programs in partnership with international and national NGOs, businesses, communities and the Azerbaijani government to help families and communities care for the needs of children by reforming the child welfare system, promoting economic opportunities, encouraging healthy lifestyles, improving basic social and physical infrastructure, and developing new educational materials and curricula.

The "Every Drop Matters II" project was designed by Save the Children in partnership with community members and other stakeholders to help households in the Sulu Tepe area have sustainable access to safe drinking water and thereby improve their daily lives and ease their household labor.

A newly built water pipe provided safe drinking water to 600 people and 168 households. For ongoing system maintenance Sulu Tepe municipality and Save the Children staff worked together to ensure the system transitions to the management of state water supplier Azersu LLC.

An integral part of the project was professional training for the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources Emergency Unit staff to expand their knowledge, skills and techniques in order to enable them to lead training programs on effective water management in the future.

Also, last year Seyidli village of the northern Khachmaz region was supplied with safe drinking water access in the framework of the "Every Drop Matters I" project. The goal of both Every Drop Matters I and Every Drop Matters II projects was to work with Azerbaijani communities to help them improve their access to safe drinking water.

Coca-Cola has contributed $150,000 to support the two initiatives.