Inspired Mothers: Marie wants clean water

My name is Marie and I'm from Haiti. I live with my husband and our four children in a town called Léogâne, which is about an hour's drive from the capital Port-au-Prince.

	Marie and her baby, Inspired Mother from Léogâne

Our lives changed completely when the earthquake struck in January. Our house was destroyed. We went to the countryside for shelter in an area where our families are from originally. Before the earthquake I had a good job at the Secretariat of State for Literacy. Now, I cook pies and sell them to make some small money and provide for our children. We all sleep in a tent that we built from sheets and sticks. Today, we are out in the open because the sun is hot like an oven. We just use the tent for sleeping.

It is very difficult to access a lot of services like health care, education and nutrition. But, clean drinking water is the most difficult to access. Most of the roads are impassable and many families set up shelter on the hillsides. About one in five families here have no clean water. UNICEF and other organisations have been distributing water buckets to homes and families in order to provide people with drinkable water in our region.

If you want to buy a Mother's Day present that really makes a difference, and help mothers like Marie to access clean drinking water for their families, you can buy a Family Water Kit from UNICEF's full range of Inspired Gifts. This kit contains buckets, collapsible water containers, soap and water purification tablets which can help families during an emergency situation.