Women and children (primarily girls) in the developing world are typically responsible for collecting and carrying their families’ water supplies. This is an enormous burden in terms of time, physical stress, and quality of life.

Time and Distance

On average, women in Africa and Asia walk 4 miles every day to collect water for their families. The water they fetch frequently comes from sources open to the environment and shared by animals. Not surprisingly, this water is contaminated and often results in illness, which is a large component of the poverty cycle that prevents families, communities, and entire countries from reaching a higher standard of living.

A Heavy Burden

To transport the water, most women and children carry it in buckets, jars, or jerry cans on their heads. A typical bucket can hold 5 gallons of water, which weighs 40 pounds. The frequent, prolonged pressure on the head, neck, and spine can cause pain and disabilities that afflict children the rest of their lives. When girls carry water every day from a young age, it can seriously affect their physical development, sometimes resulting in pelvic deformities, making childbirth difficult later in life.

Because water is so often carried by hand or head, there is a limit to how much a person can provide for her family each day. This limitation prevents families from having enough water to stay hydrated, clean, and healthy.

Consider this – every day, for good health, a person needs:

• 2 gallons of water for drinking and cooking (weight: 16 pounds)
• 7-12 gallons for hygiene (weight: 58-100 pounds)

That adds up to 9-14 gallons of water per person per day. The weight of this water is 74-116 pounds. If a typical family has six members, they would altogether need 54-84 gallons per day, weighing 444-696 pounds.

However, the most a woman can carry in comfort is 4 gallons (33 pounds). If she fetched just the bare minimum for her family (2 gallons per person), she would need to carry 12 gallons (100 pounds).

It is clear why it is so hard for people in the developing world to stay healthy. The small amounts of water women and children are able to bring home must be used for drinking and food preparation. That leaves very little for basic hygiene activities, such as hand-washing, which are so important in preventing disease.

Lost Opportunities

Lack of water forces over 100 million children to miss out on eductaion.

Their water-collection duties rob women of time they would otherwise be able to spend on activities such as income-producing work, community or political involvement, recreation, and relaxation.

When children spend hours each day fetching water, they cannot attend school. Additionally, countless children are forced to miss school when they are sick from diarrhea or other waterborne illnesses.

Water is a vital element in empowering women in the developing world and in enabling children to get the education they need to escape the poverty cycle.

Solutions

Water Missions International recognizes the need for convenience when it comes to providing safe water. If a Living Water™ Treatment System is installed too far away from homes, many people will not walk to it for clean water. Knowing this, WMI makes every effort to place systems centrally in a community so that it is quick and easy for people to collect water. Some communities have come up with innovative ways of getting water to their residents. For example, in one Honduran village, a donkey-pulled water cart goes door-to-door to provide clean water for the community.

In addition to bringing water closer to people’s homes, WMI’s systems make the water completely safe to drink, which dramatically cuts down on waterborne diseases. The effects of having plentiful, safe water readily available are far-reaching. WMI’s safe-water projects are improving the health and lives of women and children all over the world.