2.3 billion people without a toilet
Clean drinking water for everyone, that is our mission. But did you know that in our projects we do much more than just realize access to water? For example, access to toilets is also essential for a healthy life.
2.3 billion with a toilet
There are still 2.3 billion people worldwide who do not have access to safe and clean toilets, ie one third (!) of the world’s population. (Source: World Health Organization)
Of these people, 892 million defecate in public, for example in gutters, in the bushes, or in open water. That is even more than the 771 million who have no access to water.
Not infrequently, children play between the stools and diseases can spread very quickly. These diseases mainly affect smaller children.
Water and sanitation
Our water projects are actually almost all WASH projects. WASH stands for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. We therefore not only install water supplies, but also provide toilets and provide information about hygiene.
Only this complete approach really improves health. Clean water alone is not enough to contain infectious diseases and give people a healthy basis in life.
The toilets we install are usually at the community level and not per household. On the right you see, for example, a drawing of a toilet block with changing room for girls at a school in Ethiopia.
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The toilet also caused us health problems. We sometimes literally took the worms home with us under our feet. We often had no choice but to ask if we could use one of the neighbors’ toilets.
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SDG 6
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals say, among other things, that by 2030 we want everyone to have access to safe drinking water and sanitation. (SDG 6)
Although a positive development is visible, we are not going to make it with the current effort. In fact, we need to do four times as much as in the past 5 years to get there if we really want to do it right.
Unfortunately, the countries where these people live are often unable to pay for or organize the water supplies themselves. That is why we give them a boost by financing the initial investments.
A drop?
Is our contribution then a drop in the ocean? Certainly not: in the past five years we have already managed to realize at least 10 billion litres of clean drinking water. With this we give at least 140,000 people permanent access to good facilities. That is therefore as much as the whole of Den Bosch and converted about 1% of the progress or this area worldwide.
A small contribution can make a difference: for just over 20 euros we can give someone permanent access to safe drinking water. And for only 2.50 you give someone enough clean drinking water for a year to drink, cook and wash!
Contribute?
Do you want to help with our mission: clean drinking water for everyone?
You can do so in more ways than you think.
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