Feel like helping others? Make a donation of clean water with the money you just saved by purchasing A&As!

www.water.org

2 reasons to contribute clean water:

1) The magnitude of the problem (almost a Billion people lack access to clean water) 
2) There are possible solutions to make real impact on peoples lives, right now!

Facts about water:

Image and facts: Water.org

• Close to 800 million people lack access to an improved water source; approximately one in nine people.(1)
• More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. 99 percent of them occur in the developing world.(2)
• "[The water and sanitation] crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns." (3)
• An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the average person in a developing country slum uses for an entire day.(3)
• Over 2.5X more people lack water than live in the United States.(1)
• More people have a mobile phone than a toilet.(1,4,5)
• Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death among children under five in the world. Around 1.5 million deaths each year - nearly one in five – are caused by diarrhea. It kills more children than malaria, AIDS, and measles combined. (6)
• Surveys from 45 developing countries show that women and children bear the primary responsibility for water collection in the majority of households. This is time not spent working at an income-generating job, caring for family members, or attending school.(1)
• It is estimated that nearly 10% of the global disease burden could be reduced through improved water supply, sanitation, hygiene, and water resource management.(7)
• In just one day, it is estimated that more than 152 million hours of women and girls' time is consumed for the most basic of human needs — collecting water for domestic use.(8,9)

Image and facts: Water.org

Solutions: 

Water.org is doing an amazing job on the subject, with a comprehensive approach that has been refined based on field experience gained over the past twenty years. Their program includes: 

• Building Local Partnerships
• Generating Community Ownership
• Using Appropriate Technology of Each Place
• Addressing Sanitation and Hygiene
• Measuring and Monitoring Success (Follow Up)
• An Innovative micro financing system empowering people to immediately address their water needs.

1. Estimated with data from WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation. (2012). Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water, 2012 Update.
2. World Health Organization (WHO). (2008). Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, benefits, and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health; Updated Table 1: WSH deaths by region, 2004.
3. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2006). Human Development Report 2006, Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis. 
4. International Telecommunication Union (ITU). (2011). The World in 2011 ICT Facts and Figures
5. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). (2011). State of World Population 2011, People and possibilities in a world of 7 billion
6. Estimated with data from Diarhhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done. UNICEF, WHO 2009 
7. UN Water. (2009). The United Nations World Water Development Report 3, Water in a Changing World.
8. WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation. (2010). Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water, 2010 Update.
9. World Health Organization (WHO). (2004). Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of Water and Sanitation Improvements at the Global Level.