AMREF believes that having access to safe water and basic sanitation is a basic human right but in Africa, the reality is stark:
• Over 40% of people living in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to safe drinking water.
• Households in rural Africa spend an average of 26% of their time fetching water, and it is generally women who are burdened with the task.
• A baby born in sub-Saharan Africa is 500 times more likely to die from diarrhoea than a baby born in Europe.
Thousands of children across Africa are falling ill because they have to drink dirty, parasite-infested water; they are suffering with diarrhoea because they don’t know that washing their hands before they eat could save their life; and they are dying because the health services and knowledge they need to treat the illnesses caused by dirty water and poor sanitation and hygiene are out of reach.
In the UK we take water for granted. We can drink, cook, wash, and even play with water on demand. Every home has a constant, unlimited access to water. Despite this, we spend almost £2 billion on the luxury of bottled water every year in the UK, yet almost 1 billion people worldwide do not even have access to safe water.
Diarrhoea, cholera, hepatitis A, dysentery, typhoid, intestinal parasites like hookworm and tapeworm, and trachoma are all the result of dirty water, or of not having access to clean water. The effects of these diseases range from stunted growth and malnutrition, to blindness or death.
Under the surface there are other wider repercussions; women are forced to spend large parts of their day collecting water, leaving them less time to engage in other domestic or income generating activities. The illnesses that children suffer often prevent them from attending school, and absenteeism is high. Children – and particularly girls – are likely to miss out on their education because their schools lack private and decent sanitation facilities. Poor farmers and workers are less productive due to illness, health services are overwhelmed, and national economies suffer. Without water, sanitation and hygiene, sustainable development is impossible and communities are condemned to a never ending cycle of poverty.
Joyce Abuko lives in Katine, a rural sub-county in Soroti district, eastern Uganda. Joyce is 30 and has five children of her own and looks after seven others. She also looks after her sister in law who has terminal cancer. Every day, Joyce used to collect water from the Atriri spring wells, which were 3 miles away from her home. ‘It usually took me more than three hours because of the queue’ explains Joyce. ‘The water was dirty and children frequently got sick’. In fact, the area often flooded, leaving the spring wells more like a swamp; stagnant and dirty, and infested with worms. Women collecting water attempted to filter out the worms through leaves and grasses, but were not always successful. For Joyce, and many other families in the area, this was the only source of water for drinking, cooking and washing. In response to this clear need, AMREF renovated 5 old wells and boreholes and constructed 8 new ones. These are being maintained by AMREF-trained community member pump mechanics, and their use is being overseen by the local water committees to ensure that they provide a sustainable source of clean drinking water to the community. Joyce’s family is just one of the many households that have benefited from AMREF’s work. ‘Since we started using clean water, the health of my children has drastically changed. The diarrhoea and stomach illnesses have stopped. They are never absent from school. Without having to worry too much about the children, I can focus on taking care of my sister in law and the homestead’.
Joyce’s story illustrates how vital safe water and basic sanitation are in creating healthy and productive communities. AMREF has many success stories like this across Africa, but without your help easily preventable diseases will continue to kill thousands of children across the continent daily.
Please help us to continue our vital, life-saving work. Donate today, or set up a regular monthly gift to help AMREF stop more African children from dying needlessly.