At Lindex we have worked actively for many years at our suppliers with water as well as health and sanitation for women. We are very proud of our deepened collaboration with WaterAid and we will now be able to have a positive impact on life outside the factories as well, says Anna-Karin Dahlberg, Corporate Sustainability Manager at Lindex.
Lindex has been a partner to WaterAid since 2014 and now deepens the collaboration with the new project. The project is focused to Mirpur, an area in Dhaka, Bangladesh where many textile workers who produce clothes for Lindex live. In the area few people have access to clean water and decent toilets. This leads to both health issues and security risks where women and girls are particularly affected. Through the collaboration between Lindex and WaterAid, the residents and school students in the area will get access to clean water and sanitation. The project also includes education in the schools regarding sanitation and menstrual hygiene, with local partners. Women and girls will be especially involved in the project by being part of newly launched entrepreneurial groups and groups that will spread knowledge about hygiene.
Without clean water, sanitation and hygiene people cannot live good and healthy lives, yet millions of people in Bangladesh today still lack clean water and sanitation. The project that we are now starting in cooperation with Lindex will lead to sustainable change for thousands of people and improve their lives forever, says Cecilia Chatterjee-Martinsen, Executive Director of WaterAid Sweden.
The collaboration between Lindex and WaterAid is a three-year project scheduled to start April 1 2018. The project is financed with surplus from Lindex sales of shopping bags, in line with the initiative One Bag Habit. One Bag Habit aims at reducing the consumption of shopping bags, increase the awareness of plastic bags negative environmental impact and the surplus of the sales of bags is donated to causes that drive sustainable development.
Read more about Lindex and WaterAid’s deepened collaboration here.
WaterAid is an international organisation working for a world where everybody has access to clean water and sanitation. Every year the organisation changes lives for millions of people through increased access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene in the world’s poorest communities. WaterAid works with local partners for sustainable and long-term solutions, and influences decision makers to increase efforts for these basic needs on national and global levels. WaterAid works in 35 countries and since 1981, WaterAid has reached 26.8 million people with clean water and 26.8 million people with sanitation. Visit www.wateraid.org/uk for more information.
Photo: WaterAid/Abir Abdullah