The water story – why give water and how?

• More people die each year from drinking dirty water than from the world’s hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes combined?

• Nearly 90 percent of all diseases in the world are caused by unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene. Every year, there are 4 billion cases of diarrhea as a direct result of drinking contaminated water; this results in more than 2.2 million deaths each year—the equivalent of 20 jumbo jets crashing every day?

• Over half of all schools worldwide lack safe water and sanitation, jeopardizing the health and education of millions of schoolchildren. Most of the 115 million children currently out of school are girls. Many are denied their place in the classroom by lack of access to decent toilets at school, or the daily chore of walking miles to collect water? (UNICEF)

• Reasearch in Uganda found households spending on average 660 hours a year collecting water. This represents two full months of labor, with attendant opportunity costs for education, income generation, and female leisure time?(UNDP)

While waiting for all the governments of the third world to get their act together, there is something you and i can do. We can give wells to whole communities. It is estimated that ten dollars will give one child water for life. This christmas we will all, collectively in the West spend more than 500 billion dollars at Christmas.