CHARITY
The
Water
Project
Nearly one billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water .
Nearly one billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water . Dirty water causes illnesses such as diarrhea and typhoid . Diarrhea alone kills 1.8 million children each year . Unsafe water causes a cycle of sickness and poverty . It is very sad to know that the poorest people in the world actually pay some of the world ’ s highest prices for drinking water , and the water they get is less clean and less plentiful . the poor pay more in the form of lost time , health , education , and life , but also in monetary terms . More than any other factor , water scarcity keeps the “ BOT- TOM BILLION ” entrapped in a cycle of extreme poverty . In the end all of humanity pays the price . The GOOD NEWS is that it DOESN ’ T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY !
Let ’ s start with an example , People living in the slums of Nairobi , Jakarta , and Manila actually pay 5 to 10 times more for water than those in high income areas of those same cities . They even pay more than consumers in London or New York . The poorest 20 percent of households in El Salvador and Nicaragua spend on average more than 10 percent of their household income on water . In the U . S . the median household spends only 1.1 percent of its income on water and sewage . For the poorest of the poor , the water bill may be the world ’ s most retrogressive tax — on life itself .
Infant mortality is highest where clean water access is lowest . Infant mortality is highest where clean water access is lowest . Every year 1.8 million children die from diarrhea , far more than armed conflict and terrorism combined . Picture a pre-school classroom blowing up every six minutes , day and night . The irony is that high infant mortality increases population . Demographers call it the “ demographic-economic paradox .” Elderly people in extreme poverty depend on their children for sustenance in old age . When people know some of their offspring will die , others will move away , and some will not be able help , they tend to have more children . So it is that India ’ s former minister of population , Karan Singh , coined the phrase , “ development is the best contraceptive .” Studies show that access to safe water reduces child death rates by more than 20 percent in Uganda . In Peru a toilet in the home reduces infant death by more than 30 percent . The world over , the people with lowest reproduction rates are those who know their babies are not going to die .
In Sub-Saharan Africa alone , 40 billion hours a year are spent mostly by women — just hauling water . That ’ s equivalent to a year ’ s labor for the entire workforce of France . The result , known as “ time-poverty ,” affects women and
girls most . About half the girls in Sub-Saharan Africa who drop out of primary school do so because of poor water and sanitation . At any given time close to half of the people in the developing world are suffering from one or more of the diseases associated with inadequate water and sanitation . 6 Each year , 443 million school days are lost from water-related illness — equivalent to an entire school year for all sevenyear-old children in Ethiopia . 7 Lack of education keeps children from getting out of poverty . Lack of water deprives children from education .
The payoff for water provision is big .
288 MAY / JUN 2016