Belgrade, 2. 8. 2024. – The Right to Water initiative launched an action “ Together we send initiatives for fountains to come to life” , within the framework of which she enabled all citizens to send a petition to their municipality or city in a simple way through the polekol.org page for the restoration of an existing or the construction of a new public fountain in places where they consider their existence necessary.
Year after year, we face increasingly frequent and intense heat waves. Extremely high temperatures, due to climate change, can seriously damage people’s health, especially vulnerable groups such as children, people with chronic diseases, the elderly and people in a situation of homelessness. Water during such weather disasters is lifesaving, and providing access to water through public taps is an urgent measure to mitigate the unwanted consequences.
“We are doing this because we advocate the position that water is a public good and advocate that it must be made available to everyone on a non-profit basis. Living in changed climate conditions, we believe that we cannot talk about a functional public health system if there are no public fountains with clean drinking water on public areas,” said Žaklina Živković, from the Right to Water initiative.
Public fountains are a free and affordable source of drinking water, which is especially important during the summer months when cooling and fluid intake are of the greatest importance in preventing sunstroke and heat stroke. By using water from public taps, the use of bottled water is reduced, as well as plastic that pollutes the environment.
“Extreme heat has a negative effect on our health, especially in conditions of high air humidity and intense physical activity. Heatstroke first affects the cardiovascular and nervous systems, and the vulnerable groups are the elderly, people with chronic diseases and children. Climate change puts the elderly at risk and confronts us with new public health challenges, and there is an urgent need for a social agreement on how to respond to them.” , said Dr. Aleksandar Stevanović, assistant at the Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade.
In the Right to Water initiative, they say that during the last heat wave in July of this year, the citizens must have recognized which are the critical locations where public fountains are missing, and that now they have only created a simple tool that enabled and supported citizens to request public fountains from local governments.
Public areas that lack fountains are those areas that are accessible to everyone and serve for joint activities, gatherings and interaction of people, such as streets, squares, parks, school yards and kindergartens, sports fields, promenades and the like. On the polekol.org page, in addition to individuals, informal groups, associations and other legal entities can submit an initiative.