Kenya: Women from the Rendille tribe fetch water from a well. Photo: Marcus Perkins/Tearfund
Water pipes and toilets might not be the most glamorous of topics for people to rally behind, but the statistics make for shocking reading: around the world more than 1.1 billion people currently lack access to safe water. That number more than doubles to 2.4 billion when considering the total who lack basic sanitation facilities. The result? With every passing year 2.6 million children aged under five die from diarrhoeal diseases. Instead of being a case of turning on a tap, women and children in poorer countries spend hours each day collecting and carrying water. The weight of water carried can be more than 25 kilogrammes.
Water pipes and toilets might not be exciting to most of us, but they are a promise of hope for those who lack them, a major victory in the struggle against poverty.
But at Tearfund we understand that dealing with the problems of infrastructure is a massive opportunity to improve even more than the water supply. We encourage communities to develop or improve their own water supplies, to make decisions on location, technology, design and construction. This way our public health projects are about far more than water pipes and toilets. They’re about empowering people to make choices, restoring some of the dignity and control which poverty has take away.
If you would like to learn more about how you can support our Water and public health projects please click here.
More information on tearfund’s policy and research on water can be found here.