Clean Water Saves Lives
Water is life. Yet one billion people do not have access to safe water, and 2.6 billion people live without proper sanitation. Water-borne illness is the second highest cause of childhood death in the world. When water is unsafe and sanitation non-existent, water can kill.
UNICEF is committed to providing safe water and sanitation to the millions of affected children and their families. We distribute oral rehydration salts wherever children are suffering from illness and deadly dehydration caused by unsafe water. After a natural disaster, we train teachers to educate children about safe water and proper sanitation. And we distribute hygiene kits during a crisis to help children and their families adapt to their new circumstances and keep diseases like cholera at bay.
The Water-Education Link
Access to clean water does more than just save lives, it can turn lives around. When children no longer struggle with recurring illness, they can go to school and get an education. Their parents can tend to their fields and earn an income. Girls, especially, often miss out on school because they spend hours every day fetching water from distant sources. We help build pipelines to bring water to remote communities and we supply families with wells and water pumps so that girls, too, can get an education.
All children have the right to safe water and sanitation. Clean water helps break the cycle of poverty and saves children’s lives. UNICEF works all over the world to make sure children have access to the most basic, lifesaving element—water.
Latest News and Reports from the Field
July 1, 2009
In Bangladesh, recovery from Cyclone Aila continues with help from UNICEF
Cyclone Aila swept through south–west Bangladesh in May, reducing homes to rubble, destroying crops and leaving villagers without safe water or sanitation. Now, a UNICEF–supported program is giving cyclone-affected villagers hope and disseminating lifesaving information during a difficult time.
June 22, 2009
UNICEF restores water supplies in cyclone-affected Myanmar
A child laden with heavy water buckets isn't always a cheerful sight. But in Katipar Ywar Thit village, it has a different connotation. Even a few months after Cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar's delta region in May 2008, no one could draw any drinking water from the village pond.
June 8, 2009
UNICEF helping families affected by Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh
In the days since Cyclone Aila hit the fifteen coastal districts of Bangladesh on May 25, the magnitude of the damage has begun to unfold. Families are still without shelters, safe drinking water, food or medicines. Some have taken shelter on embankments to stay above the water level during high tide.
