Water Aid – providing safe water around the world

February 7, 2010 by sue
Filed under Family, Featured Posts, Green Living

Here in the UK, we are very lucky to have clean, running water from our taps to drink and wash with, but not everyone is as fortunate as us. In some countries around the world, people don’t have running water in their houses and have to walk great distances to fetch water to use. Even then, the water may be not be safe for them to drink. Many don’t have toilets either, meaning that diseases can easily spread. These diseases particularly affect children as they are often too small to fight off infections.

Water Aid is a charity that’s working really hard to help these people. They believe that everyone around the world should be able to have safe water available to drink and wash with, and somewhere hygenic to go to the toilet. They work in countries such as Ethiopia, Nepal and India to help provide small villages and communities there with latrines to go to the toilet. They also help install pumps, wells and pipes to provide safe drinking water to these communities. Water Aid always works with the people it is helping and trains them so that they can look after the equipment and so keep providing water for themselves in the future.

If you would like to find out more about Water Aid, they have a great website designed especially for children, called Learn Zone. There are sections for primary and secondary children so there’s something for everyone. Why not have a look at Splish, Splash, Flush and find out just why toilets are so important? Or have a look at the people’s stories in The Work of Water Aid, to see how people are being helped around the world?

If you think your school would like to help Water Aid with it’s work, Learn Zone has lots of great fund-raising ideas. You could collect ‘Buckets of Pennies for Buckets of Water’ and ask everyone at school to fill buckets with pennies so that Water Aid can provide buckets of water to people who have no clean water. If you would like to help Water Aid, make sure you ask for help from your parent or teacher and then they can send off to Water Aid for a fund raising pack.

If you’d like to find out more about Water Aid and why clean water and proper sanitation are so important, have a look at this great video. Splish, Splash, Splosh is presented by Adam Hart-Davis. He will show you how Water Aid are helping the children in Bangladesh
to learn about hygiene and helping provide them with clean water and somewhere to go to the toilet.