Safe Water & Sanitation
Key Facts
- Lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation is a global health crisis allowing diseases such as cholera to spread with impunity. Diarrhoea kills 4,000 children every day
- 1 in 8 people do not have regular access to safe water; they may walk miles per day to collect dirty water from the nearest source
- More than a third of the world’s population (2.6 billion people) have inadequate sanitation
Safe water and sanitation are the foundation blocks upon which development is built; it is impossible for a community or nation to move forward if constant sickness holds its members back. Along with shelter, food and healthcare, they meet basic human needs and are inextricably linked.
KENYA: A community borehole
In many of the countries where we work, the installation of tubewells and boreholes brings safe water into poor communities. This cuts the long distances women and children are forced to walk to collect water and ensures the safety of water used. It can be used for drinking, cooking, washing and also for watering the kitchen gardens we help families to establish to improve nutrition.
In Zanzibar, water tanks are being installed within villages. These act as reservoirs for water pumped from underground and enable easy access to clean water on their doorsteps.
In mountainous and remote areas of Nepal, IMPACT is focusing on bringing water to whole villages. Through gravity-fed water systems, IMPACT is providing safe water to communities that had previously had to rely on stream water and had little sanitation.
In Bangladesh, 97% of the population rely on ground water but estimates suggest almost two-thirds of it is contaminated by naturally-occurring arsenic. Long-term consumption is slowly poisoning millions of people. IMPACT is providing the poorest families with award-winning ‘Sono’ Filters to remove arsenic from water.
To improve sanitation, IMPACT is also installing toilets in schools and the homes of the most vulnerable people in Bangladesh and Nepal.
BANGLADESH: Household tubewells protect children from waterborne diseases
The worst floods in Pakistan’s history struck in July 2010. The scale of the tragedy was immense; it affected more people than the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the Asian Tsunami put together.
Thanks to IMPACT’s generous supporters and our local partner on the ground, action was quickly taken. IMPACT Pakistan was allocated a camp of 2,500 displaced men, women and children and was able to provide tents, clean water and regular hot meals.
This undoubtedly contributed to saving lives. A tented school was even set up to occupy 50 boys and 70 girls.
£52 provides an arsenic filter for a family in Bangladesh
The Human IMPACT
Like millions of people across the world, Halima and her small children had no option but to drink from a dirty stream and defecate in the bushes surrounding their home. Diarrhoea (which is the fourth biggest killer in Bangladesh) blighted their lives. Thanks to IMPACT they now have a tubewell and a sanitary latrine and the whole family’s health has improved immeasurably as a result.
By enabling some of the world’s poorest people to access clean water we are creating an essential first step to maintaining health, improving livelihoods and overcoming poverty.
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