• BACKGROUND & CONTEXT:

India is facing one of its major and most serious water crises.

According to the National Commission for Irrigated Water Resource Development of India, the water shortage problem we face arises not due to lack of water, but due to wastage and poor management.

But here’s what hit us really hard: An Indian city-dweller wastes 125 litres of water daily. But 200,000 people in villages die every year for lack of access to safe water. The water divide between the urban city-dwellers and the rural villagers is appallingly wide. The former’s negligence versus the latter’ struggle is heart-wrenching, to say the least.

• CREATIVE CHALLENGE

While most Urban Indians are aware about the nation’s water crisis they simply don’t care. They all believe social and sustainable behaviors are great, but they are either - too expensive, for later, or for someone else’s responsibility.

How do we get these ignorant Urban Indians to actually start taking the water crisis seriously and stop wasting water?

• SOLUTION:

The Insight: Unless we make Urban Indians FEEL the value of water, they will not be motivated to save it. We realised that while a long relaxing shower is a common activity for a city-dweller, long showers are where maximum water wastage happens.

The Idea: Show how almost half a village can drink water, in the time it takes one city-dweller to take a long shower.

• EXECUTION

In the middle of Mangalaram ki Dhani, one of the driest rural villages in Rajasthan (India), we placed a modern glass shower cubicle. The local villagers’ reaction to the shower was to drink from it instead of taking a bath. We decided to hold this up as a mirror to society, showing how almost half a village can drink water, in the time it takes one city dweller to take a shower.

This video on TV and digital, highlighted the real value of water and one simple act that people could do to save more of this precious life-giving element.

We followed it up with an interactive + shareable pledge #ShorterShowerPledge to make people realize that the reduction in 5 mins of their shower time could help save 25 litres of water. In a family of 4, it would help save 100 litres of water every day!