WATER SHORTAGES – THE EFFECT ON RURAL COMMUNITIES WITH NO DIRECT ACCESS TO CLEAN DRINKING WATER
“In many countries, women are responsible for finding and fetching water upon which their families depend for drinking, washing, cooking, cleaning. They walk many miles, carry heavy burdens, wait their turn for hours and often pay exorbitant prices. The task is back-breaking and all-consuming. Often the water is contaminated, even deadly. In these instances, they face an impossible choice – certain death without water or possible death from illness.
Once they are old enough, young girls are compelled to join this effort. They spend countless hours desperately trying to provide this basic necessity for life.
Women also struggle most from the lack of adequate sanitation, the often unspoken part of the water and sanitation crisis. The sanitation crisis for women can be summed up in one word: ‘dignity.’ Around the world, less than one person in three has access to a toilet. In many countries, it is not acceptable for a woman to relieve herself during the day. They wait hours for nightfall, just to have privacy. This has an impact on their health and puts their safety at risk. About half of all girls worldwide attend schools without toilets. The lack of privacy causes many girls to drop out when they reach puberty.
The dual aspects of the water crisis – lack of water and of sanitation – lock women into a cycle of poverty. They cannot attend school; they cannot earn an income.
Providing Hope for Generations Ahead
Around the world, women are coming together to address their own needs for water and sanitation. Their strength and courage transforms communities. With the support of Water.org and its local partners, women organize their communities to support a well and take out small loans for household water connections and toilets. They support one another and share responsibility. These efforts make an impact, taking us one small step closer to alleviating the global water crisis.
Bulk water storage reservoirs and water tanks for the containment of potable water offer a direct, affordable and easily implementable solution to the catastrophic water crunch worldwide. Above all, the requirement by humankind to store water in reservoirs such as those provided by Rainbow Reservoirs, offers hope, relief and salvation to the women and their daughters responsible for the daily provision of this precious, life-sustaining resource in water stricken areas.
Who would have thought that the simple practice of strategically installing a Rainbow reservoir will provide an entire community with access to schooling (an education!), clean clothes, cooked food, sanitation and protection from illness and disease? A reservoir also serves to alleviate poverty and to ease heavy labour.”
– By Q. Coetzee- re-scripted excerpt study/report: Water.org