Why water?
Because it is so pivotal to everything we do.
Close your eyes and try to imagine your life without your bathroom, without your toilets, without your laundry and without your kitchen sink. Try and imagine what it would be like to not have even one tap – a tap that fills a glass with water so clean that you and your children don’t become ill from it.
Life without clean water makes life very different and very challenging. In Ethiopia, it is the role of women to collect water and to do so, they walk long distances, often at high altitude, with 25 litre containers strapped to their backs. This is difficult and time-consuming work and the available water is often contaminated. It’s hard to keep everyone in the family clean and it’s virtually impossible to keep children healthy. Girls are often unable to attend school as their families depend on them for water.
When we build an improved water source, we make sure that there is plenty of clean water close to a village, it is a change for the better. In particular, we see children suffer less and avoidable diseases reduced. Further, girls have time to go to school and women have more time at home.
Why just water?
We concentrate on providing water because its availability is central to people and especially children having good health. It prevents children from getting ill, it prevents some children dying, it means that children go to school, and the amount of time required for women and girls to collect water is usually dramatically reduced because we make sure the water is available right in their village.
We also focus on water because we have a great system, a great network of people to work with, and because we need to keep things simple to ensure we remain efficient and effective for our donors and the people we serve.