Unilever Leverages The Social Graph To Provide Clean Water For Millions

The mega brand partners with Facebook to address a critical issue that affects 800 million people worldwide

Over 1/2 billion people are daily Facebook users, collectively creating over 3.2 billion ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ every single day. What if these small, everyday actions could make a positive impact on the life of millions of people? Unilever, in partnership with PSI and Facebook, hopes to harness the social graph to address one of the world’s most critical challenges: access to clean water.

Nearly 800 million people around the world don’t have access to clean water, 1/2 of all hospital beds around the world are filled with people suffering from water-born diseases, and a child dies every 20 seconds from lack of access to clean water. But with the new Facebook app, Waterworks, Unilever hopes to be able to give at least 500 million of these people access to safe drinking water by 2020.

How? By leveraging existing social connections and turning them into a community connected around water. The Waterworks app, the world’s first open graph app for charitable giving, connects Facebook users to PSI trained waterworkers around the world. The waterworkers are trained women who help teach communities about the importance of fresh drinking water, and small, daily donations (10 cents) through the Waterworks app helps provide PSI workers with the tools they need to give clean water to those in need- water purifiers and sachets.