Posted: 12 July 2024

Earlier this month students from across the Cambridge region joined us to share their views on how water is used in South Asian and Indian subcontinent cultures and ideas on how water could be saved as the main focus of our Young Innovators’ Panel.

Launched in 2019, the Young Innovators’ Panel brings together a group of young people from schools across the Cambridge region to share ideas on a business challenge.  

This year, as part of our Water Efficiency in Faith and Diverse Communities Project (WEFDC), funded by Ofwat’s Innovation Fund, we gathered students aged between 17 and 19, who have a connection or an interest in South Asian and Indian cultures. The aim was for them to share their experiences on how water is used in these cultures, what are the barriers to encouraging people to save water at home and how can we help to overcome them.

Split into two groups, the two teams were tasked with creating a behaviour change campaign aimed at customers from South Asian and Indian subcontinent communities to reduce water usage at home.

Both teams then delivered presentations to a judging panel made up of senior executives from Cambridge Water and South Staffs Water.

Their ideas included looking at ways to highlight water usage during food production, recycling water when washing rice and how water could be saved when bathing.

As well as giving young people, as future billpayers, the opportunity to share their views on challenges facing the water sector and learn more about the inner workings of a water company, the Young Innovators’ Panel provides students who take part with a formal reference for any UCAS or apprenticeship applications.

As part of our commitment to ensure our customers continue to receive high-quality water supplies, we need to preserve our water resources by protecting our region’s chalk streams which are also a precious and rare habitat. To do this, we need to look at ways we can encourage customers to be more water efficient and engage different communities to help them achieve this.

Earlier this year, as part of our WEFDC project, we launched a campaign called Reviving the Sunnah, in collaboration with Cambridge Central Mosque, to encourage members of the Muslim community to conserve water by making wudu in the way of the Prophet (peace be upon him). Click here to read more. 

We will be carrying out further activities and campaigns linked to our WEFDC project over the coming months.