Sheikh Mohammed invites institutions to pump the ‘Well of Hope’

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has called on government and private sector employees through his social media platforms to participate in a new innovative humanitarian competition.

Launching the "Well of Hope" competition, Sheikh Mohammed tweeted, "A new institutional humanitarian competition embodies our search for the strength in every human being." During the Holy Month of Ramadan, public and private sector employees across the UAE will get the chance to pump the largest amount of water through a mobile virtual interactive pumping device.

Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI), will donate the total amounts of water pumped into the machine to people living in remote less fortunate societies with no access to clean water. The competition aims to promote the importance of simple individual efforts to serve humanity.

On the competition’s objectives, Sheikh Mohammed said, "there is a sense of goodness in every person, and a merciful and generous soul inside each of us. The aim is to remind people of the great value of water and demonstrate the difficulties hundreds of millions face to get access to water. Small gestures can make a big difference to ourselves before others."

Public and private entities can send a participation request to [email protected] to join the competition using the hashtag #Wellofhope. Twenty entities across the UAE will be selected based on the participation plan and supporting campaigns submitted for the competition.

The interactive pumping device will rotate across entities daily, providing an opportunity for employees to pump the largest amount of water in one working day.

The participating entities of the competition, set to begin in the Holy month of Ramadan, with a rotation schedule of the interactive water pump among entities in the country.

As a noble humanitarian competition, the "Well of Hope" seeks to instill the culture of giving and hope making and promote the values of solidarity, empathy and compassion.

The competition aims to create an institutional drive through an effective activity that reinforces Corporate Social Responsibility, cementing the country’s position as a regional and international showcase for systematic humanitarian and voluntary individual and collective work at all levels.

The "Well of Hope" is one of the humanitarian initiatives, operating under the umbrella of MBRGI, with aims to highlight the global pressing issue of water scarcity.

The foundation’s prominent entity that tackle water scarcity is UAE Water Aid Foundation, Suqia UAE, the largest of its kind in the region, dedicated to implementing sustainable water supplying projects to areas with scarce water resources, benefitting over 8 million people across the world.

According to figures, over 844 million people across the world lack access to clean drinking water, equivalent to one in every 10 people on earth. Women are mostly affected by water scarcity as women and girls around the world spend a collective 200 million hours daily collecting water to their families.

Women in Africa travel about six kilometers daily to collect 20 liters of water, while figures show that over 800 children under five years old die every day due to contaminated water consumption and poor health conditions. The gap between water demand and availability is expected to be around 50 per cent by 2023.

Launched in 2015, MBRGI is the biggest humanitarian foundation of its kind in the region that oversees and brings together humanitarian, developmental and community entities chaired by Sheikh Mohammed over the past 20 years, embodying his vision to serve humanity. The foundation comprises over 30 entities and initiatives that carry out over 1,400 programmes and projects serving more than 130 million people in 116 countries.

The foundation seeks to unite efforts and maximize impact that help overcome growing challenges facing humanity.