Hydration Society of Kiravia

Hydration Society

Hydration Society of Great Kirav and Colonies
Ælúsendarvix Ôskan Ambrix Kiravsk us Axerkyal
Predecessor	All-Colonial Aquarian Committee
Registration no.	KVK-000-219838
Headquarters	Tandhurin Island Valēka, Kaviska
Subsidiaries	Hydration Society International Camel PAC

The Hydration Society, formally the Hydration Society of Great Kirav and Colonies is a Kiravian non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting adequate hydration and combatting dehydration, with a core focus on public outreach through media campaigns and educational initiatives. The Society is further known for its direct humanitarian relief efforts that provide emergency supplies of potable water to communities affected by natural disasters or deficient water infrastructure. The organisation is also engaged in advocacy and research on hydration-adjacent issues in the fields of public health, water policy, and water conservation.

The Hydration Society is one of the largest and most influential independent nonprofit organisations in Kiravia, and is often cited as a distinguished pillar of Kiravian civil society. It is known as the most prolific sponsor of public information films in the nation, which have become a hallmark of modern Kiravian mass culture. The Society's international arm, Hydration Society International, extends its humanitarian and educational reach to underdeveloped foreign countries.

History

The historical roots of the Hydration Society spring from the dynamic environment of the early-middle 19th century AD, a time of unprecedented openness and change when Kiravian society was diversifying its geographic footprint and forming an intricate network of interrelationships with other lands and peoples around the globe. Kiravians at the forefront of these transformative events often found themselves living and working for extended periods in unfamiliar tropical and arid climates to which they were not well-acclimated, observably impacting their health and performance. Military doctors noted the vulnerability of Kiravian soldiers to dehydration and related ailments (e.g. heat exhaustion, sunstroke) in the field, but were also wary of local water supplies, which they recognised as often being reservoirs of disease in their own right. This initial problematisation of hydration triggered a process of organisational learning for the Kiravian military and private-sector enterprises such as the Bay Trading Company in which these institutions would approach hydration in a scientific manner for the first time. As the Kiravian government and leading commercial concerns deepened their engagement with South Crona, Vallos, and similar regions in the form of permanent settlements and longer-term deployments, the issue of hydration became increasingly externalised, and stimulating the grassroots formation of voluntary civic groups active in the hydration space, working to ensure clean, reliable supplies of water to Kiravian troops and transplanted communities. Women were particularly prominent in such groups, many of which were outgrowths of officers' wives clubs.

In 1862, regional confederations of water-supply societies from across the South Crona and Vallos-Kindreds regions dispatched delegates to a conference in Sirana, where they agreed to form the All-Colonial Aquarian Committee to bring greater attention to their causes and needs from the press and the Kiravian government. Emerging technologies such as the underwater telegraph cable were instrumental in facilitating coöperation between groups in the colonies and in the metropole, spawning partner societies in Great Kirav and the temperate colonies (e.g. Porfíria, Atrassica) that worked to raise funds in support of their overseas compatriots' health. As the century wore on, popular interest in both personal and public health grew, and with this came greater attention to the health benefits of lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise. These trends caused many hydration societies in the cooler and more humid climes to turn some of their effort toward the home front, educating their neighbours on the importance of regular hydration and the merits of fresh water over beverages such as coffee, cola, and the ubiquitous table beer. In 1911 AD, a coterie of prominent Valēka-based philanthropists drawn from the crème of the city's industrialist and mercantile élite who were involved with such causes came together to found the Hydration Society of Great Kirav and Colonies.

During the Kiravian Civil War, like the rest of Kiravian society, the hydration movement was torn asunder along factional lines, with local committees falling in behind either the Federalist or Socialist sides (sometimes splintering in the process) and working closely with other voluntary soldier-support groups to keep their side's troops hydrated on the front lines. When Valēka fell to the Socialist forces, the bourgeois personages staffing the Hydration Society of Great Kirav and Colonies national body mostly fled (if they had not already) to the overseas colonies that would soon become the Kiravian Remnant. The Hydration Society would formally reconstitute itself in exile in the hill station of Téhama, South Æonara in 1937. Most local committees remaining on the Mainland under the rule of the Kiravian Union were subordinated to the Union of Workers' and Peasants' Hydration Councils.

Organisations on both sides of the Sunderance would return to their prewar activities for a time. However, due to dramatic improvements in municipal water supply and sanitation in the intervening decades since the dawn of the hydration movement (and thanks, in no small part, to the movement's own efforts) the issue of hydration waned in importance in the public consciousness as the postwar reconstruction process neared completion. This led to a substantial contraction of the organised hydration movement, but left smaller, leaner organisations that were more willing and able to reörient themselves toward the next phase of their mission.

Activities

The Hydration Society is best known for its many public information films and public service announcements broadcast on Kiravian TV and radio. These productions are meant to encourage good personal hydration habits and highlight the importance of adequate hydration to overall health. The Society has gone through many different campaigns and slogans over the decades, which due to their memorability wide distribution often become retrospectively iconic of the time periods during which they aired.