Department
of Environmental Sciences, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan with the financial
support from WaterAid Pakistan organized one day seminar after concluding a
week-long awareness campaign in Schools and Colleges in District Mardan to
commemorate and contribute the global movement for accelerating change to
achieve SDG 6 – clean water and sanitation for all. This was a part of the series of events organized by WaterAid Pakistan
across the country to celebrate and contribute toward the global observance to raise
awareness about the importance of fresh water and issues around poor WASH
services. Participants from academia, civil society
organizations, NGOs, water and sanitation service providers, practitioners and
government line department officials attended the event.
Dr.
Dilawar Farhan Shams, Chairman Department of the Environmental Sciences, AWKUM
welcomed the participants and discuss the aims and objectives of the seminar.
It was revealed that globally over 3.6 billion people, almost half of the world population, do not have
access to safely managed sanitation at their home. Similarly, in
Pakistan 4.5 million population don’t have access to drinking water along with 141
million to safe drinking water and 70 million people have limited access to
sanitation facilities. Dr. Shams Ali Baig delivered a keynote talk on the theme of
accelerating change to achieve the SDG targets. He highlighted the reason of
the off track in achieving SDG 6 and linked with the climate change induced
disasters. The importance of adequate WASH services in adhering good hygiene
practices to improve the overall quality of life were briefly discussed by the
panelists including, Dr. Wali Ullah Khan, Department of Chemistry, Dr. Dilawar
Farhan Shams, Department of Environmental Sciences, and Mr. Rahat Ullah,
Customer Service Manager WSSCM Mardan in the panel discussion.
At the end, Dr. Muhammad
Idris, Director Administration, AWKUM in his closing remarks reiterated the
importance of clean drinking water and thanked WaterAid Pakistan for the
financial support and choosing AWKUM for this event. He also distributed
certificates of appreciation and shield among the participants and organizer.
The event ended with a walk within the campus to raise awareness on the World Water
Day.
