We interrupt our usual e-mails to bring you an important announcement on behalf of the London water board: from 1-5 p.m. today, all water supplies in central London will be suspended due to crucial works being carried out.

Fooled you.

But in certain parts of the world, families are denied water not just for an hour, nor a week — but for life. So, with the collective power of our readers, we want to raise enough money (around £3,000) to buy a well through Charity: Water, a groovy organisation founded by New Yorker Scott Harrison, who’s making big ripples in the charity world. Charity: Water is about to hit London in a big way, and today is the first opportunity for us Brits to get involved.

The five gallons you use in one loo-flush is what one person in the developing world uses in one day. Donate as much as a tenner and help build a well that’ll provide fresh water for an entire community for years.

It’s possibly a drop in the ocean for you, but when added to a few more drops, it becomes the source of life for thousands.

Give, and you’ll let someone live today.

And that’s no joke.

Donate online at charityis.org.