PRIORITIES FOR ACTION - SAFE WATER AND SANITATION

Water is life, health and so much more……..

It is estimated that one in eight of the world’s people are without a safe water source; the vast majority of them live in the developing world. Water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery kill approximately 4,000 children every day in poorer countries. Deficient sanitation is even more prevalent, affecting 2.6 billion men, women and children. Inadequate water and sanitation allow diseases to flourish; causing death, sickness and keeping people in poverty.

Improving water and sanitation is a key IMPACT priority. Working in collaboration with our local partners in Bangladesh, Kenya, Zanzibar, Cambodia and Nepal, IMPACT is providing wells, water tanks, filters and sanitation facilities as well as health education so that people understand how they can stop the spread of water-borne diseases.

These are some of the initiatives we are making possible:

Boy drinking water in front of arsenic filter In Bangladesh, IMPACT is protecting families from arsenic by equipping them with a simple water purifier. Arsenic occurs naturally here and has contaminated many drinking water sources. This is slowly poisoning healthy people and causing skin lesions, cardiovascular disease and some cancers. By providing arsenic filters we are enabling vulnerable families in rural areas of Meherpur and Chuadanga to drink water, safe in the knowledge that the arsenic has been removed.

Water tanks which provide safe water to whole communities are being installed by our local partners in Zanzibar. The tanks act as reservoirs for water drawn by a pump from underground wells, and make it easy for local people to collect. More than 40 water tanks have been installed across two islands but there is still a long way to go to provide those is need with a safe source of water.

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.

The Lake Clinic is a boat that takes healthcare to the floating villages of the vast Tonlé Sap lake in Cambodia. Drinking the lake water is extremely damaging to their health but men, women and children living here have little alternative. We are providing lightweight Bio Sand Filters to clean the lake water and make it safe for consumption.

On dry land, IMPACT Cambodia is installing safe water sources for villagers in Kandal province as part of a comprehensive community healthcare programme.

Drought is a frequent problem in Kenya and puts millions of lives at risk every year. In Kibwezi and Embu where IMPACT works, many people are forced to find water where they can and it is usually polluted with human and animal waste and sometimes even crocodiles. Our partner IMPACT East Africa is installing tubewells and boreholes to reach water sources deep underground, in communal areas such as schools and hospitals. The water is used for cooking, cleaning and to irrigate home vegetable gardens (essential in times of famine). A nearby source of water also means women and children do not have to walk in the hot sun for hours to collect water for their household. We are now seeing fewer health problems and less absenteeism in schools.

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.

Bangladesh: £52 would provide a family with an arsenic filter
£78 would provide a family with a toilet

Zanzibar: £762 would provide a village with a water tank

Nepal: £12,000 would help pipe water to an entire village

Cambodia: £70 would give a family living in a houseboat a filter to make the lake water safe to drink

Kenya: £9,000 would enable IMPACT to drill another borehole to reach deep sources of clean water which would benefit a whole community