This page tries to give some insight into the key issues associated with Water Poverty. If you'd like to know more we have also collected together here a set of recommended videos from U-tube.

Heavy Water

Imagine having to get up at 5am to go and fetch the family's morning water. If you are lucky it may be only a 5-10 minute walk. But if, as is happening more and more, your local waterhole has dried up, you may need to walk an hour or two to the next one. There you wait your turn with hundreds of others to fill your container from the brown muddy waters. You probably use a 5 gallon container which will weigh 20kg once full - the same as a large heavy suitcase. You will need to do this at least twice a day. For some it will dominate the day - everything else will need to come second, including school.

Right: This beautiful photo of a young African woman scomes with kind permission from photographer Pernille Bærendtsen - visit her blog at www.pernille.typepad.com to see more of her photos of Africa

Diseased Water

In many areas of Africa increasing amounts of raw sewage flow directly into rivers and lakes, and water borne diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid are on the increase. Today diarrhoea is the second largest killer of children in the developing world, claiming 4000 children a day - way ahead of more publicised diseases such as AIDS and malaria.

Right: Women carrying water from a ditch in Bongo.
Photo courtesy of our partner Bongo Development - do visit their website at http://www.bongodevelopment.org to see more of what they are doing there.

Living Water

These problems can be fixed using simple sustainable technology

We can do that.

Please help us.

Right: A local tap with clean healthy water has replaced mud scooping from distant sources. We take such things for granted in the West but this is still life changing technology in many parts of Africa.
Photo credit: Photothèque Société des Eaux de Marseille