It's Water Month. This June, we're restarting our drinking water project. In 2005, the United Nations launched the Water for Life Decade with the goal of halving the number of people in the world without access to safe drinking water. Why water?
Here are some data:
- “Pure water is essential for human life, yet more than 1 billion people lack access to it.” (UNICEF)
- Drinking unsafe water causes more deaths each year than all hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes combined.
- Every year, there are four billion cases of diarrhea directly linked to the consumption of contaminated water, and 2.2 million people die from it every year – the equivalent of 20 large jetliners crashing every day? (LWT)
- More than 5,000 children die every day from diseases related to drinking unsafe water, or 1.9 million each year. (UNICEF)
- Half of the hospital beds in developing countries are occupied by people with water-related diseases. (UN)
- More than half of schools lack safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, jeopardizing the health and education of millions of schoolchildren, especially girls who fail the arduous task of collecting water (UNICEF)
- In Uganda, households spend an average of 660 hours fetching water, which represents two full months of work, with the associated costs in terms of education, economic productivity, and rest time for women. (UNDP)
What can we do?
Some will say it's the governments' responsibility and do nothing. But you and I can do something.
We can choose to be active participants, donating money to drill and provide entire communities with clean water wells equipped with pumps. In this way, we ensure the survival of children and adults who will now have access to clean water.
To begin, we're targeting $5,000 in donations to provide a small well equipped with a pump to a poor community. Donations go directly to Living Water International (LWI), a charity that digs wells around the world.
We invite you to participate in this project and make your donations by clicking on this link to a secure page:
http://www.firstgiving.com/theophiluscompany , on the page, click on GIVE NOW.
Please consider raising awareness among your friends and sharing this link with them so they too can participate. Together we can make a difference.
