Neymar Challenges World Cup Fans To Improve Water Quality In Brazil Via Partnership With PayPal

Brazilian and Barcelona FC striker Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior has partnered with Waves for Water and PayPal to help Brazilian communities in need obtain clean water in conjunction with the kickoff of the World Cup in Brazil on June 12. Neymar’s “Neymar Jr. Project Institute” will collaborate with PayPal to enable PayPal users to make donations on behalf of any of the 32 countries that qualified to participate in the 2014 World Cup of football, hosted in Brazil. The donations made by PayPal users will be counted by the country targeted for donation in order to encourage donors to compete for the designation of the country that solicited the most contributions toward clean water in Brazil. Donations will be stewarded by Waves for Water, an international NGO, to buy water filters to purify water in each of the 12 cities in which World Cup matches will be played, in addition to surrounding locales in need. The partnership between the Neymar Jr. Project Institute, PayPal and Waves for Water recognizes continued economic inequality and poverty in Brazil despite Brazil’s explosive economic growth in recent years.

Neymar commented on PayPal’s support of Waves for Water as follows:

I am extremely proud to work with PayPal to support Waves for Water. It deeply saddens me that so many people from my home country of Brazil have limited access to clean water, a gift so many of us take for granted. Through this campaign I hope we can touch people’s lives in a meaningful way and raise enough funds to bring safe, clean water to communities in need across my beloved Brazil.

Waves for Water purchases and distributes water filters to facilitate the purification of water for communities that face challenges associated with procuring clean water such as cholera, dysentery, girardia, and contamination by sewage and urine. Filters can be installed on indoor or outdoor faucets, or containers that hold water used for public consumption. PayPal users can donate funds toward the goal of clean water in Brazil at the Competition for Good website between now and July 13 or through their PayPal mobile app between June 12 and July 13. Users of the Competition for Good website simply pick a country and the amount of the donation to allow the website to display comparative statistics on which country has donated most toward the humanitarian cause of clean water.

The collaboration between the Neymar Jr. Project Institute, PayPal and Waves for Water represents the first time in the history of the World Cup that organizations from the public and private sector have pooled resources toward the end of improving water quality within the host nation. The effort to bring clean water to Brazil as a result of the World Cup represents a notable counterweight to the protests against the World Cup last summer that originated from the position that the World Cup fostered economic inequality in Brazil. The collaboration to fund clean water underscores the possibilities for the World Cup to foster economic and social development and suggests ways in which FIFA and other global sponsors could follow the lead set by Neymar by developing analogous programs that illustrate the World Cup’s potential to serve as a win-win scenario both for FIFA, the host nation and the Brazilian people. Meanwhile, World Cup poster boy Neymar touchingly exhorted fans to contribute by noting in a blog post, "PayPal and I will announce the winning country the week of July 14th. We hope we can touch people’s lives in a meaningful way and raise enough funds to bring safe, clean water to communities in need across my beloved country – but we need your help!"