WATER. WE DRINK IT, WE USE IT, WE NEED IT. YET CLEAN WATER IS UNATTAINABLE FOR AT LEAST 42% OF THE WORLD,
ACCORDING TO UNICEF.
Nearly half of the people in our world have to worry that the water they are drinking
could make them sick or even kill them. What some can get just by turning on their faucet, others in the
developing world have to walk for hours to gather. And it’s still not safe enough to drink.
Every year unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation takes more lives than war.
What do we do? We will make the water clean. Through capturing water sources, rain catchment systems, spring
protection and building wells, boreholes and latrines,and promoting hygiene, water can be turned from
something that can kill to something that can provide what it is meant to provide, life. People say water is
life.
Let it be that way for everyone.
Dusty feet tread upon the baked, red earth. Hands are suspended upwards, balancing a precarious load of newly collected firewood. The path diverges. Eyes scan the horizon. Nothing but trees and brush. The familiar line of smoke from a cooking fire or pointed arch of a hut do not dot the landscape. They haven't in nearly twenty years. Forced to live in displaced camps instead of villages, home has had to become more about community than place. Feet swivel and turn towards the beaten road.
Lacek camp is not like all the others. This one is new. And not because new fighting has forced more people to converge away from their land for safety. Lacek camp is a returnee camp; some of the first in Northern Uganda, where over 1.6 million people have been living in internally displaced person's camps for nearly twenty years due to an armed conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan Government.
A returnee camp is a smaller camp, set apart from the larger ones, an intentioned next step towards actually being able to return to one's own land. A step closer to home.
But with so many people crowded in a small space, sickness and disease can spread quickly. FH has built a borehole and 52 latrine structures, each servicing 10 households, which more than provides for the 1,521 people living in Lacek. Clean water. Access to basic sanitation.
It really is simple. The clean water will protect against disease and sickness. And people can look forward with anticipation to really going home.
what
+ Water Access and Behavior Change
+ Borehole Drilling
+ Latrine Construction
+ Hygiene Education
+ Water Catchments Systems
+ Wells and Spring Capturing
| + | Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation causes 80% of all sickness and disease | |
| + | 3,800 children die every day from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. | |
| + | Women and children often walk up to three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. These hours prevent them from working or attending school. | |
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