The Problem:
The world as we know it has a crisis impacting around 1 billion people. That crisis is a shortage of clean water for those billion people on this planet. It is a unique issue because water is the problem and water is the solution.
The Impact:
According to the United Nations, this crisis is so large, more people die each year from unsafe drinking water than those who die from all forms of violence, including war.
Unsafe water delivers numerous types of disease. E. coli, cholera, salmonella, and even hepatitis thrive in these unsafe conditions. With bodies that aren’t strong enough to fight off many forms of illness children in these areas lose their life at an alarming rate of 1 child every 15 seconds.
The search for clean water costs the people of the world 200 million hours a year. This work is usually done by women and young girls causing them to be inactive in their community and keeps them from gaining an education. With some of these women walking 3-4 hours a day to collect water, their families become neglected, are put at an increased risk of assault while alone in rural areas, and develop unusual back problems from carrying around 40-50 pounds of water.
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“Clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights…”
- United Nations, July 2010
“Water borne disease kills more children than AIDS/HIV, malaria & measles combined.”
- World Health Organization
“From water related diseases 1.4 million children die each year, that’s about 4,000 each day.”
- World Health Organization
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Our Solution:
During the summer of 2010 we spent time reading quote after quote like these. We decided we could either sit back in our easy chairs feeling bad about it, saying how we wish we could do something about it, or we could actually get up and do something. We knew there were many organizations out there that took this cause under their wing but we wanted to be different.
Water 10:42 was developed to use clean water installations to save lives and to institute change in the areas we work in. Water 10:42 raises money to install clean water wells in areas that need them, and in addition we use these wells as a vessel to complete much-needed projects and to provide life changing services.
Working solely through closely developed relationships with partners on the ground we are able to locate areas in need. Our wells and front line projects are built to save lives but at the same time located in strategic locations that help build and support local communities world-wide. Thus clean water becomes not only a life-giving resource but a catalyst for nation changing.