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.
Related Links
November 13, 2008
Aid flights arrive in DR Congo, but insecurity persists
Insecurity persists in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than 250,000 people have been forced from their homes in the last two months alone, due to fighting between the army and a rebel group. Today, two more planeloads of emergency supplies landed in Goma to help address critical health and humanitarian needs of the displaced. A total of 10 shipments are expected over the coming days; six have landed thus far.
November 10, 2008
UNICEF Ambassador Joel Madden visits water projects in Central African Republic
UNICEF Ambassador Joel Madden has seen firsthand the deadly threat unsafe drinking water poses for thousands of children living in the Central African Republic (CAR). Madden, the leader of the rock band Good Charlotte, spent five days last week touring the country with his brother, Benji. Their visit to the capital, Bangui, as well as some of the country’s most remote villages, was organized by UNICEF’s office in CAR and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.
October 17, 2008
Improved sanitation keeps more girls in school in Malawi
Eveless purposefully walks to class, knowing that she only has two terms before she goes to secondary school. At 18, she is much older than most of her classmates in the eighth grade. This does not in any way daunt her, as she is focused on staying in school.
