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The World Travel Market’s Just a Drop campaign can make a real difference to those in the Third World.

A donation of just £1 can provide an entire village with fresh water

Fiona Jeffery

Kate was just two years old, but looked much younger. Her body, wracked with the devastating combined effects of malaria and pneumonia, was being pumped full of quinine.

In the rudimentary facilities of the Msire Health Centre, Malawi, I prayed she would recover, but the irony was that she is one of the lucky ones – all the patients could at least drink clean, fresh water via a recently installed hand pump. This is of no interest to an industry that contemplates more compelling seeds of change like new technology and alliances that drive global yield management.

Oh but it is, right now, for you and me and the companies for whom we work.

It is our industry that is putting travellers of all kinds in touch with our planet on a scale never seen before. It is us that, in a matter-of-fact way, jet from one side of the world to the other, conducting business.

I started World Travel Market’s Just a Drop Appeal for the international travel and tourism industry to give us a chance to put something back into this fast-track world, to make a difference and allow a warm glow of satisfaction at the end of the day.

I was visiting Malawi and Mozambique on a seven-day fact finding tour (on nine flights) with the British Red Cross, as part of WTM’s campaign to raise £80,000 by the end of the year.

The money will build protected wells and latrines in rural areas, where it is the norm for women and children to walk over 12 miles a day to collect fresh water.

Those too weak or ill to make the trip, use the often polluted rivers and streams close to their homes.

In the Third World, 35% of children die of water-born disease like diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera before the age of five.

Just a Drop is not just a sentimental idea with no teeth. Its unique and it works because giving children a chance of life costs less than the loose change in our pocket. A well for a village of 1,000 people costs between £1,000 and £3,000 – as little as £1 per person.

There is so much you can do without taking too much time and effort: take part in World Travel Market’s Give a Pound Campaign by making a donation; or organise a fund-raising idea to coincide with the many functions that take place during World Travel Market week.

For more information about the Just a Drop campaign E-mail Nikki Davis at nikki.davis@reedexpo.co.uk.

And, on behalf of Kate and millions of other children, thank you.