POVERTY

World Water Day 2915

image.jpg

As simple as a glass of water: Compassion UK is cleaning up and sending thousands of children to school healthy.

 

It is estimated that each year, children lose a combined 272 school days to diarrhoea. The vast majority of them are children in the developing world where 4,500 children die each day because they don’t have access to safe water [i].

 

Child development charity, Compassion UK is committed to changing those statistics. Working through the local church, Compassion works with some of the poorest children in the world, ensuring that they are given the opportunity to reach their potential.

 

Dirty water, full of bacteria, nematodes and disease threatens to take that opportunity away. It’s why Compassion has provided over a hundred thousand families in the developing world with a water filter, and is looking to provide hundreds of thousands more.

 

Thirteen-year-old Eric Njuki collects water from the river near Mimponi village to carry home. He makes three trips every day to fetch water from the river. This water has caused him many trips to the doctor and days away from school because of typhoid.

 

This tiny, yet effective device costs just £50 but essentially eliminates contaminants from water and makes it safe to drink. And it lasts a lifetime; each filter can clean a million gallons of water; more than enough for the average human who consumes 14,600 gallons. That means the filter will provide not only for them, but their family, their neighbours and their friends down the road as well.

 

To find out more about how Compassion UK is cleaning up water:

http://www.blog.compassionuk.org/wateroflife/