This month we celebrate International Women’s Day and World Water Day – and it’s got us thinking about safety.
Where we operate, water is a burden women bear; it falls to them to provide for the family’s needs, and they often enlist their children to help carry the heavy buckets.
Every day, women and girls will spend 200 million hours searching for water. 70% of the women we work with have experienced physical or sexual violence during their search – most more than six times.
The human need for safety is as elemental as that for water – yet women’s safety is sacrificed in this pursuit every single day. And even at this devastating cost, what they bring back into their homes is unsafe. Approximately 1.4 million people die each year from diseases related to unclean water, sanitation, and hygiene.
You and I switch on a tap without a second thought. We drink freely, knowing we won’t be harmed by parasites, dirt and disease. Our need for water doesn’t put us in danger. We take it for granted – and that’s how it should be.
Luckily, bridging the gap between these two worlds is simple. By building a rainwater harvesting tank on a woman’s home, we ensure she never needs to venture further than her own backyard for as much clean water as she and her family could need.
It costs just $500 to build this bridge to safety. As her children grow, the memory of scarcity fades. Within one generation, wanting for water is as faraway a concept as it is for you and me.
