Help team Waveney alleviate water poverty in Africa
Help team Waveney alleviate water poverty in Africa
Tara, Katie, Sophie, Suzanne and children are Team Weveney. Support their walk for water challenge.
3 mile trek carrying up 30 litres of water
Sometimes you realise just how lucky you are. Last year after walking my son to school questions just popped into my head. “What if I now had to walk and collect water for all the household needs?” “What if I had to do this everyday? The time it would take I wouldn’t get everything else done.” “ What if I sent the children to collect it instead? Would they be safe? Would they be scared?” I felt a panic rising in me. Returning home I did some research. The facts were very upsetting.
- Over 340,000 children under the age of 5 years die annually due to diseases caused byunsafe water, inadequate sanitation and hygiene.
- 263 million people spent over 30 minutes per round trip to collect water from an improved water source (figures by the UN for 2017).
- Some spending up to 6 hours every day collecting water.
- 159 million people only had access to surface water, ie water coming directly from a river, dam, pond, stream etc.
Access to water is a human right & SDG6
Despite the United Nations declaring in 2010 that access to safe water was a Human Right and extending this to include safe sanitation in 2015, there is a lot of work to do to achieve this as part of the WaSH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG -6).
Monday 30th July – Friday 3rd August 2018
Speaking with friends, Katie, Sophie and Suzanne, it was apparent they felt the same as I did. We needed to do something not only to raise money to help, but to create empathy and awareness in the younger generation (the decision makers of the future).
Since the task of collecting water around the world mostly falls to women and children we decided to mirror this by doing our own treks to collect water with our children and their friends. Team Waveney.
By the end of the week Team Waveney should have a real sense of the hardship faced by those having to undertake the daily necessity of collecting water. More importantly, money will have been raised to be used straight away on projects helping to bring clean, safe water closer to home for some families, freeing up time for the children to go to school and the women to do other work.
All money raised will go to Hope Spring ( www.hopespring.org.uk ) a UK charity working with African communities to establish sustainable sources of clean water and alleviate problems associated with the lack of access to clean water. Any donations are most gratefully received. The more we raise the more we can help others access the basic human right of clean, safe water. Thank you.
Monday 30th July – Friday 3rd August 2018
Team Waveney will walk every morning between Monday 30th July and Friday 3rd August 2018. Each day the distance will increase reflecting the varying distance the women and children of the Ivory Coast and Nigeria have to walk to their water sources.
The team will walk half way and collect vessels weighing equivalent to the water collected by Abike, Termin, Mariam and Olushola, who will be walking the distances for real on the same days as Team Waveney.
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263 million people spent over 30 minutes per round trip to collect water from an improved water source (figures by the UN for 2017).
Some spending up to 6 hours every day collecting water.
159 million people only had access to surface water, ie water coming directly from a river, dam, pond, stream etc.