Water 1st International

Over 1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water.

2.5 billion people worldwide lack hygienic toilets.

These are the estimates reported by the World Health Organization.

A child killer: Surviving diarrhea is the greatest single challenge for our world’s children. 5 million people die each year from water-related diseases, mostly children under the age of five. Diarrhea is the leading cause of death of children in countries with high child mortality rate. Even when children do survive, they too often do not thrive. Children weakened by frequent diarrheal illnesses are malnourished and vulnerable to other infections, like pneumonia, leaving them physically and mentally underdeveloped for the rest of their lives.

The opportunity cost of time spent by women and girls collecting water:Lack of access to clean water has a devastating effect on women and girls who are traditionally responsible for water collection. Collecting water is a difficult and time-intensive task, leaving women with little or no time to manage their households or participate in income-generating work. Illnesses in children and adults add to women’s workloads, as they are often the care-givers for the sick. Young girls often help their mothers collect water, making them unable to attend schools. See related video.

Reduced household income: Poor people spend a high percentage of their household income on medical treatment to combat frequent water-related illnesses. Additionally, without safe water sources nearby, women are often unable to engage in paid work or agriculture. Instead their time is spent collecting water, waking up before dawn to wait in long lines at a public water tap, caring for the ill in their households, or lacking the strength to work themselves because of injury or illness. In urban squatter settlements, the lack of clean water directly impacts a household’s income. In these areas, the poor are forced to buy water of unknown quality at very expensive rates from illegal connections and are subjected to exploitation by the slum power structure. The World Health Organization estimates that if everyone had access to water and sanitation, over $11 billion would be saved in treatment costs annually, and people would gain 5.5 billion productive days each year.

Integrated projects: Studies have consistently shown that together, water, sanitation, and health promotion activities can maximize health benefits and have the greatest reduction in diarrheal illnesses. Avoiding costs associated with illness depends on complete interruption of pathways of disease transmission. Sustainable projects: Constructing basic, low-cost water systems in developing countries may sound simple, but it is not. The water project failure rate in developing countries is astonishingly high--as many as 50% of projects fail for one reason or another. Water 1st projects are lasting and sustainable because of we only support the work of local partner organizations with a track record of success.

A community level response: This approach has a major per capita cost advantage over approaches that address water issues at the individual level. Additionally, if we agree that everyone should have water and toilets, why not take the most cost effective approach? Some of the health impacts are achieved when entire communities are participating: in order to prevent feces from entering the environment, our goal is 100% sanitation.

Convenient access to safe water: If we want to end poverty, we must reduce the amount of time spent by women and children collecting water. In addition, because hand-washing is so critical to the spread of diarrheal disease, the quantity of water delivered and used for households is an important aspect of public health. Each person needs about 5-13 gallons of water per day for drinking and personal hygiene. In order to achieve that quantity, total water collection time must no more than 15 minutes. In other words, water supplies must be made more convenient for poor people so that they have time to collect more water.

(Water 1st International)