Clean Water Campaign
Clean Water Saves Lives
Water is life. Yet one billion people do not have access to safe, clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion people live without proper sanitation. Water-borne illness is the second highest cause of childhood death in the world, and represents a global water crisis. 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. As part of our clean water campaign, 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 Clean 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. Girls, especially, often miss out on school because they spend hours every day fetching water from distant sources. UNICEF's clean water programs help build pipelines to bring water to remote communities and 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 Clean Water Reports
August 30, 2010
Combination treatment reduces diarrheal deaths in India
UNICEF and IKEA are partnering to promote a new treatment for children with diarrhea, saving thousands of lives in India. Loss of essential nutrients from diarrhea leaves children vulnerable to attacks of pneumonia, malaria and other deadly diseases, but 88% of global deaths from diarrhea are entirely preventable.
August 22, 2010
National plan for water and sanitation in Mali gets UNICEF support
At the Soufouroulaye Primary School in Mali, a derelict water pump stands dry in the dusty playground, quenching no one's thirst. Without safe drinking water and basic facilities for sanitation at school, children are at risk of diarrhea-related diseases and worms. UNICEF’s international partners are now funding improved water and sanitation in Mali, providing schools with facilities to practice safe hygiene.
June 11, 2010
Changing behaviors to stamp out cholera in Uganda
UNICEF is working with local governments in Uganda to contain the spread of cholera by helping change people's attitudes towards sanitation and the disease itself. In addition to educating people and providing water purification materials UNICEF is also exploring legislative action that would protect people from exposure to contaminated food and require a latrine for every household.
