Water and WaterScape: Children’s right to clean water

Project Team Leaders

About the project

Water, the essence of life, is a universal necessity for survival. Its significance transcends health, human development, existential, spiritual, educational, and cultural boundaries. The way we interact with water, reflects practices, beliefs, and policy. The essence of water is also highlighted in The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Article 24 declares every child’s right to health and access to clean drinking water. The project aligns with the UN 2030 agenda, especially through the following Sustainable Development Goals: 

Target groups:

1. Children aged 0-8, and especially those aged 4-8, their teachers, families and communities;

2. Policy makers on local, national, regional and global levels.

Main objectives:

Impact global and local policy to prioritize cherishing and protecting water, landscapes, and sources in the best interest of every child and the planet.

Sub objectives:

• Broaden understanding of water as a concept and vital resource for early childhood education, children, families and communities across contexts, nations, and cultures.
• Shift the narrative from viewing children as passive recipients of climate impacts to recognising them as active meaning makers, co-explorers of and belonging to their local waters and waterscapes.
• Enrich children’s lives and their sense of care and belonging to their local waterscapes, through local early childhood educational commitment
• Create narrative knowledge on the basis of children’s views of what water means for them and their families in the places where they live.

With this initiative, we invited OMEP members worldwide to organize a collaborative exploration among children from birth to eight years and educators to explore the conditions for their water supplies for everyday lives, survival and meaning-making.

Pilot project and reports

Pilot project Water and Waterscapes was completed between 2022 and 2023. The aim of the pilot projecty was  to raise awareness to cherish and protect water landscapes and water sources, broaden understanding of water as a concept and vital resource for children and their families across contexts, nations, and cultures. With this new initiative we invite OMEP members all over the world to organise a collaborative exploration with children aged 4 to 8 years. Specifically, introduce and invite children and professionals to explore the conditions for their water supplies for washing and for drinking and to express what finding the sources, sensing the water that is available for them, and what it means for them.   

The pilot project shed light on the pedagogy of water and waterscapes in Norwegian ECEC and revealed, through the kindergarten staff, researchers, and children’s experiences of their waterscapes, sceneries, materials, and the weather. 

This report outlines the background, context, methods, and findings of the pilot study completed between 2022 and 2023 in two Norwegian kindergartens, one in Lærdal and one in Tromsø, as part of Water and WaterScape: local conditions for children’s access to water (previously when the pilot project was conducted entitled “Water – Wash from the Start – Children’s Access to Water”), which is an international project developed by KINDknow/HVL in collaboration with OMEP World. 

The pilot project is finalized in reports for three countries:  Norway, New Zealand and Tanzania. 

The Norwegian Report here.

The New Zealand Report, here 

The Tanzanian Report, here   

Water and waterscapes is developed by KINDknow/HVL in collaboration with OMEP World.

New project starting in 2025 

A new project Water and Waterscapes is developed by KINDknow/HVL in collaboration with OMEP World and starts in 2025 and will be finalized in 2027.  

The aims of the project are:

• to showcast children’s meaning-making
• to support children, teachers and communities in education and life. 
• to raise awareness of and protect water landscapes and water sources
• to develop new knowledge and expand the understanding of water as a sensuous concept in children's lives and as a vital resource for children and their families, across nations and cultures.