Community based water saving program

Lak Saviya Foundation volunteers with the NSW Premier, the Hon. Nathan Rees at a special event in February 2008.

An innovative, partnership that engages members of Sydney's culturally and linguistically diverse communities to use water wisely has received a $150,000 boost from the NSW Government's Water for Life program.

The Home Water Action Program now in its second year, has trained some 70 volunteer water ambassadors from the Tzu Chi and Lak Saviya Foundations who have spread water saving messages to more than 2,700 members of Sydney's Sri Lankan and Chinese communities. The ambassadors promote simple and practical ways to save water, including taking shorter showers, using a bucket to wash their cars and taking part in water savings programs, such as Sydney Water's WaterFix. The Ethnic Communities' Council of NSW (ECC) will now extend the program to other language groups across greater Sydney.

Through partnerships, such as this one with the ECC and the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change, the Water for Life Education Program has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Sydneysiders taking action to be water smart. As a result, greater Sydney is now using the same amount of water as it did in 1970, despite an extra one million residents.