How Does My Water Well Donation Impact Lives?

Perhaps you’ve become aware of the global water crisis, in which 40 percent of the world’s population suffers from water scarcity and a billion people lack access to clean water.1 With some idea of the issue on a global scale, you may be wondering how a water well donation might impact lives on a personal scale.

For girls and women, a nearby well could save them an hour a day. In areas like Asia and Africa, many people are forced to walk 30 minutes or more to the nearest water source, and it’s typically females who carry this burden. In one day, according to water.org, these women collectively spend some 200 million hours collecting water.2 That’s time women could better spend earning income or caring for their families and time girls could better spend on their education.

Sadly, the water they collect is often contaminated. Water in developing regions frequently contains fecal matter, arsenic or other pollutants.3 This pollution brings a host of waterborne diseases, including diarrhea, typhoid, cholera and dysentery. Such diseases lead to approximately 1.8 million deaths every year, besides the millions who become seriously ill from unsafe water.4 Many of these illnesses, and deaths, are preventable.

For many of these people, drinking this contaminated water is their only option—but they need water to survive. For them, clean water could be the difference between a healthy life and one wrought with disease that keeps parents from providing for their families and keeps children from attending school.

Water can also impact income. According to the World Bank, 65 percent of the world’s poor in some way relies on agriculture for their livelihoods.5 They need water for their crops and livestock. But, considering 4 billion people experience water scarcity at least one month a year, there may not be enough to meet such needs.6 For these farmers, a reliable well can provide water for their livelihoods throughout the changing seasons and water levels.


Click here, to read more about this article.

Click here, to read more blogs in Gospel for Asia.Com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Do I Need to Know about the Global Poverty Rate?

Image
Statisticians are getting better at measuring the global poverty rate every year. The World Bank is one group working hard to accurately measure it so that the extent of the problem is fully known and so that progress can be measured. [1] Through governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), we can more clearly see the last decade of progress and the most recent effects driving poverty rates. Sub-Saharan Africa has been one area difficult to measure, but new data shows an overall reduction in the percentage of those in poverty. Unfortunately, there is an increase in total number of people living at or below the official poverty rate of $1.90 per day. [2] That doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. With good statistics and a clear view of the problem, countries and organizations can use the proven methods to regain any ground lost. Additionally, valuable lessons have been learned about how to protect the most vulnerable and how to prevent some of the worst effects. GFA World is un...
Read more

Generational Poverty: A Cycle Not Worth Repeating

Image
The cycle of generational poverty can seem impossible to break. Children inherit what their parents teach and show them. a joint report from Ascend: The Aspen Institute and Bernard van Leer Foundation affirms this. “What young children learn from the adults who raise and care for them lays the foundation for future social, emotional, language, and cognitive growth,” the report says. 1 Children raised in a generational poverty mindset often lack the tools they need to succeed or achieve a better life than that of their parents. As adults, these individuals often then raise their children in poverty similar to that of their own childhoods, and the cycle perpetuates. It’s a cycle not worth repeating, yet it does time and time again. For the 736 million people worldwide living below the poverty line, earning $1.90 a day or less, the focus is frequently on mere survival. 2 Children are disproportionately affected by extreme poverty, says UNICEF, as “children who grow up impoverished often...
Read more

What Is the Poverty Cycle?

Image
The question, “What is the poverty cycle, or cycle of poverty?” is one that must be answered to address and end poverty across the globe. Put simply, the term refers to the trend where the vicious effects of poverty and deprivation pass from one generation to the next, with no seeming way out. [1] Someone born into poverty has fewer opportunities than their wealthier peers. They must focus on survival above all, leaving little room for anything else. One illness can wipe out a family’s savings, but the unclean water sources and lack of protection available to them invite sickness. Walking to retrieve water can be time-consuming yet must be a daily priority, and many children must work alongside their parents for the family to afford food. Thus, school is often a far-off dream. Having had few opportunities to acquire skills, the kids grow up to repeat the cycle of poverty with their own children. This story was all too familiar for Nalah. His father worked in the tea fields, trying to e...
Read more