Type Charity Area served worldwide Founder Benjamin Adrion | Origins Germany Method individual initiatives Founded 2005 | |
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Location Hamburg-St. Pauli
Germany Key people Arne Giessel
Marcel Siewert
Mathias Rüsch Mission to improve drinking water supply in developing countries Profiles | ||
Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli is a charity founded in 2005 in the Hamburg quarter of St. Pauli. The aim of the organization is to improve drinking water supply in developing countries in conjunction with the Welthungerhilfe. The organization is built up as an "open network" which means that it mainly consists of individual initiatives with the support of the organization’s head office. Several activities have been organized so far, including a march from Hamburg to the Swiss city of Basel (over 1050 km) in celebration of UEFA Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland.
Well-known German music artists, such as Gentleman (musician), Clueso and Sportfreunde Stiller have been giving concerts for this charity. In 2009, an amount of more than €300,000 of donations was collected. The head office of Viva con Agua is in Hamburg. The organization gets support by the German Welthungerhilfe. The German football team FC St. Pauli (in which area the office is located) supports the work and also the Fan club 18auf12. They had recorded many songs such as Back to St. Pauli and One Hundred Beers (Words and music by Henning Knorr & Christoph Brüx) A percentage share of sales (20%) is intended for Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli.
History
The organization is based on an incident in Cuba in 2005, when Benjamin Adrion (at that time a professional soccer player for FC. St. Pauli) was having a training camp and examined the living conditions. With the help of the Welthungerhilfe, Adrion started the initiative in Havana. Today, more than 150 kindergartens in the city have clean water dispensers. Besides providing help in Cuba, several other countries benefit from Viva con Agua, such as Kenya, Nepal, Uganda and Ethiopia.