Dawn hasn’t broken yet in West Pokot, Kenya, but five-year-old Cheru is already awake, drinking the last of her warm milk tea. She hands the tin cup to her mother Monica to wash, then stands on tiptoe to pull down the tea kettle hanging from their wood stand. Her older sister Dina waits impatiently, jerrycan in hand. Together with other neighborhood children carrying containers large and small, they set out on a journey they’ll repeat twice today—a three-hour walk for water across treacherous terrain to a dry riverbed where they’ll dig for contaminated water their families’ survival depends on. This isn’t a field trip or adventure. It’s Cheru’s everyday reality, the daily water journey that consumes her childhood and millions like her across Africa.
The numbers tell one story: women and girls worldwide walk an average of 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) daily to collect water, collectively wasting 200 million hours—not yearly but every single day. But statistics cannot capture what those 3.7 miles actually mean. They cannot convey the physical burden of carrying 44-pound containers on small heads, the terror of navigating unsafe routes where predators lurk, or the crushing time consumption that steals education, income, and simply being a child. Understanding how far people walk for water in Africa requires walking alongside Cheru, feeling the weight she carries, facing the obstacles blocking her path, and recognizing that every drop of water in her home cost hours of grueling labor that no child should perform.
This immersive journey explores what the average water collection distance actually involves—not just miles measured on maps but the lived experience of traversing unforgiving landscapes barefoot or in rubber sandals, climbing steep hills, circling thorn trees, avoiding snakes and aggressive animals, and returning home exhausted with water too contaminated to safely drink yet precious enough to have risked everything obtaining it. We’ll walk with Cheru and millions like her, experiencing their daily water walk through narrative that transforms abstract understanding into visceral recognition of what water poverty really costs families who have no choice but to pay it daily.
The Morning Departure: When Children Become Water Collectors
The Pre-Dawn Routine and Group Formation
The daily water walk begins before most of us wake. In communities across rural Africa, mothers rouse daughters while the sky remains dark, knowing that early departure offers the best chance of reaching water sources before the day’s heat becomes unbearable and before crowds form creating impossible waits. Cheru, like millions of African girls, doesn’t choose this schedule—it chooses her, dictated by water source limitations and family survival needs that recognize no childhood exemptions.
The group formation proves essential for safety on unsafe routes where children traveling alone face heightened risks. Cheru hurries to join other neighborhood children, their collective presence providing psychological comfort and practical protection that solo travelers lack. Research confirms that children as young as six regularly perform water collection, with 62% of child collectors being girls versus 38% boys—a gender disparity starting in early childhood that shapes entire lifetimes. These aren’t teenagers capable of defending themselves but small children whose safety depends on numbers and luck.
The containers they carry reflect family expectations and children’s physical capabilities. Smaller children manage 5-10 liter jerry cans or salvaged plastic containers, while older siblings handle 20-liter jerrycans that will weigh 44 pounds when full—roughly equivalent to carrying a six-year-old child on your head for miles. Some tie long scarves around handles to support weight with foreheads, others balance jugs on heads or shoulders, all preparing for burdens that will test physical limits on the long journey ahead.
The First Steps on Familiar Yet Dangerous Paths
The path out of the village follows routes worn by thousands of previous water collection trips, yet familiarity doesn’t equal safety. The early morning darkness conceals uneven ground, animal burrows, and thorny vegetation that can trip barefoot children or those wearing flimsy rubber sandals offering minimal protection. Research documents that water collectors walk over rough, rocky terrain with dense thorny vegetation while steering clear of obstacles and animal holes—descriptions understating the very real dangers children face daily.
Monica, Cheru’s mother, knows this path intimately. She walks it herself at least twice daily, covering approximately 8 kilometers (4 miles) with her baby on her back and toddler by her side. The water collection distance for her family totals 16+ kilometers daily—over 10 miles of walking simply to meet basic water needs. When multiplied across weeks, months, and years, this distance equals walking from Nairobi to Mombasa and back multiple times annually, all while carrying progressively heavier loads that punish bodies never designed for such sustained stress.
The landscape Monica and Cheru traverse offers no smooth sidewalks or paved paths. They walk through dry riverbeds where loose sand makes every step exhausting, climb over rocks that bruise feet and twist ankles, navigate steep terrain requiring upper body strength to pull oneself upward while maintaining balance, and detour around thorn bushes whose inch-long spikes can penetrate deep into flesh causing painful infections when medical care doesn’t exist. This isn’t a nature hike with proper footwear and emergency supplies—it’s survival labor performed in conditions that would horrify safety regulators anywhere infrastructure provides alternatives.
The Obstacles: What Lies Between Home and Water
Terrain Challenges: Hills, Valleys, and Treacherous Ground
Understanding how far people walk for water in Africa requires recognizing that water collection distance measured in straight-line miles radically underestimates actual difficulty. A three-mile journey becomes far longer when accounting for elevation changes, terrain obstacles forcing detours, and ground conditions multiplying physical exertion beyond what flat walking would require. Research examining water access challenges documents that terrain incline and environmental factors dramatically affect collection time—a three-mile journey might consume three hours when climbing steep hills or navigating valleys between village and water source.
The topography varies but universally proves challenging. Some children climb rocky hillsides where handholds become essential and where falling while tired on the return trip carrying heavy loads can cause serious injury miles from medical care. Others descend steep gullies requiring careful footwork to avoid sliding down loose soil and rocks that would leave them stranded at the bottom with no easy escape route. Still others navigate undulating terrain that looks manageable but accumulates exhaustion through constant elevation changes that demand leg and cardiovascular strength children’s developing bodies shouldn’t need.
The ground surface itself creates obstacles. Dry riverbeds feature deep, loose sand that swallows feet with each step, multiplying energy expenditure by forcing calf muscles to work continuously pulling feet from sand attempting to trap them. Rocky terrain demands constant visual attention to avoid twisting ankles on unstable stones or stepping into crevices that could trap and break limbs. During rainy seasons, the same paths become muddy quagmires where each step risks sliding, where footing becomes treacherous, and where the physical effort of pulling feet from clinging mud exhausts children before they reach halfway points.
Wildlife Dangers: The Predators Children Face
The unsafe routes dimension of water collection Africa extends beyond terrain into genuine life-threatening encounters with wildlife that views humans as either prey or threats. Research documents that water collectors travel through areas where hippos, crocodiles, elephants, leopards, hyenas, and snakes pose real dangers—not theoretical risks but actual threats claiming lives regularly in rural communities where water sources concentrate both human and animal populations seeking the same scarce resource.
Hippos kill approximately 500 people yearly in Africa—more than lions or elephants—with most conflicts occurring when humans unknowingly block hippos’ paths to water or encounter them during riverside water collection. These three-ton animals charge at speeds reaching 19-25 miles per hour, easily outrunning terrified children whose only warning might be sudden movement in vegetation near riverbanks. Their massive jaws can crush bones with bites powerful enough to split wooden canoes, and their territorial aggression means they attack not for food but to defend perceived invasions of space they consider theirs.
Crocodiles present equally deadly threats at water sources. The Nile crocodile, Africa’s largest freshwater predator, waits submerged near riverbanks where people collect water, using patience and ambush tactics perfected over millions of evolutionary years. These reptiles can hold breath for up to two hours while waiting motionless, then explode into action when prey—human or animal—approaches water. Their bite force exceeds 3,000 pounds per square inch, and once jaws close on victims, escape becomes nearly impossible. Studies confirm that attacks on humans occur in areas where people depend entirely on waterways for daily needs—precisely the situations rural water collectors face twice or more daily.
The Human Threats: Robbery, Violence, and Exploitation
Beyond wildlife dangers, unsafe routes include human predators whose threats prove equally terrifying for women and girls traveling isolated paths. Research documents that water collectors face risks of sexual violence, especially when traveling far from home or along isolated paths where no witnesses exist to deter attackers. Kenya studies found 77% of women worried about safety while fetching water—yet societal expectations demand they continue despite recognized dangers.
The early morning and evening collection times that help avoid daytime heat simultaneously increase vulnerability. Walking in darkness or twilight means limited visibility for detecting threats, reduced ability to run effectively over uneven terrain, and fewer other travelers whose presence might deter criminals or assailants. Girls and women report incidents of robbery where attackers steal collected water forcing victims to repeat dangerous journeys, sexual harassment and assault that traumatize survivors and terrify entire communities, and demands for money or sex in exchange for accessing water points controlled by individuals who’ve essentially privatized communal resources through intimidation.
Young girls prove particularly vulnerable. Research reveals some girls engaging in transactional sex to obtain water or money for water purchases—desperate strategies exposing them to HIV infection, unwanted pregnancy, and exploitation that destroys childhoods while perpetuating cycles where water poverty forces choices no human should face. The psychological trauma extends beyond physical violations into chronic fear and hypervigilance that prevents girls from ever feeling safe during water collection yet provides no alternative to continuing the very journeys causing their terror.
The Physical Toll: Carrying Weight That Crushes
Understanding the 44-Pound Burden
The physical burden of water collection becomes tangible when recognizing that a standard 20-liter jerrycan weighs approximately 19.5 kilograms or 44 pounds when full. Comparative context helps: that’s less weight than a typical six-year-old child but far heavier than what ergonomics experts consider safe for adults to carry for extended distances, much less children whose bones, muscles, and joints remain developing and vulnerable to permanent damage from repeated strain.
Women typically carry water containers on their heads—a carrying method imposing sustained compressive forces on cervical spine, neck muscles, and the entire spinal column. Research documents that 69% of water carriers report spinal pain, with 38% experiencing back pain severe enough to limit daily functioning. Regular head loading has been directly linked to cervical spondylosis (degenerative arthritis of the neck), and very heavy cervical loading can cause severe trauma including spinal cord injuries that result in paralysis or death when carriers lose balance on uneven terrain or when existing injuries suddenly fail under load.
The weight distribution proves crucial. Carrying 44 pounds balanced carefully on the head differs dramatically from carrying the same weight in a backpack distributing load across shoulders, back, and hips. Head loading concentrates force directly on the cervical spine, creating compressive stress that multiplies with each step, each stumble, each moment of carrying. Over hours, over days, over years, this repeated compression causes progressive damage: herniated discs, bone spurs, nerve compression, chronic inflammation, and pain that becomes constant companions for women whose only crime was being born into poverty requiring such labor for family survival.
The Return Journey: When Weight Multiplies Suffering
The return portion of the daily water walk transforms already difficult journeys into genuine tests of physical and mental endurance. Where the outbound trip carried only empty containers weighing perhaps 1-2 pounds, the return burdens children and women with full loads they must transport without spilling (wasting precious water) and without stopping so frequently that they’ll arrive home after dark. Research confirms that on the way home from water sources, carrying becomes even harder than the already-challenging outbound journey.
Fatigue compounds weight’s effects. Muscles already exhausted from hours of walking must now support additional load while maintaining balance on the same treacherous terrain that challenged them when unencumbered. The cardiovascular system, already stressed, must work harder pumping blood to muscles demanding oxygen and nutrients. Joints bearing repetitive impact all day now face additional pressure from carried weight, accelerating cartilage wear that causes early arthritis. Children in every shady spot along return paths stop to put down heavy jugs and rest—brief respites that prove essential yet delay arrival home and extend total journey time toward or past three hours each direction.
The psychological dimension intensifies physical struggle. Carriers face the discouraging reality that all this effort—every painful step, every moment of fear on unsafe routes, every ounce of physical exertion—delivers water that’s often contaminated and will be consumed in hours, necessitating repeating the entire ordeal tomorrow and every day after indefinitely. Unlike a hard day’s work that produces lasting results, water collection offers only temporary relief from thirst before the cycle begins again. This Sisyphean quality—endless repetition without progress—crushes spirits while breaking bodies.
The Time Consumption: Hours Vanishing Into Survival
The Three-Hour One-Way Reality
When organizations advocate “Walk for Water” events asking participants to walk 3.7 miles, they typically frame this as taking one to 1.5 hours at a normal walking pace on flat, clear paths. But the time consumption of actual water collection Africa extends far beyond simple distance-to-time calculations because collectors don’t walk on cleared sidewalks, don’t travel during optimal temperature conditions, and don’t move at the brisk pace of healthy adults unburdened by fear, exhaustion, or heavy loads.
Cheru’s three-hour journey to water illustrates reality. The average water collection distance of 3.7 miles extends to three hours each way not because children walk slowly by choice but because terrain obstacles slow progress, required rest stops prevent continuous movement, and safety considerations—traveling in groups that move at the pace of youngest members, avoiding dangerous shortcuts, and watching for wildlife—add substantial time beyond what solo, route-optimized walking would require. When the journey home with heavy loads adds another three hours, families sending children for water essentially lose those children to collection from pre-dawn through mid-morning or longer.
The time consumption multiplies when families require multiple daily trips. A single 20-liter container provides perhaps half a day’s water for a family of five using WHO’s minimum 20 liters per person daily standard—and meeting only drinking and minimal cooking needs while skipping adequate handwashing, bathing, and cleaning water. Collecting sufficient water for genuine hygiene and health requires multiple trips, potentially consuming 8-12 hours daily when collection sources sit distant from homes. This time poverty eliminates any possibility of education, income generation, adequate childcare, or rest that human beings require but water scarcity denies.
The Multiple Daily Trips and Seasonal Variations
The single-trip narrative of daily water walk experiences understates reality for many families facing more extreme situations. Research across sub-Saharan Africa found that some families make three, four, or even more daily trips depending on family size, water source distance, container size, and seasonal availability. Six-year-old Celestine in Kambu, Kenya, walked 2 miles roundtrip daily—but that calculation assumes optimal conditions with water available at expected locations. When dry seasons force families to seek more distant sources, that 2-mile journey might double or triple.
Monica explains that “when there’s no water here, we go to the dam”—walking more than six miles to take water from a crocodile-infested river. This seasonal variation in water access challenges means that just when agricultural labor demands peak and when food insecurity creates nutritional stress, water collection time also increases as nearby sources dry up and families must travel progressively farther. The compounding stresses—increased physical exertion when already malnourished, greater injury risks from exhaustion, and expanded time poverty during seasons when agricultural work could generate income—create perfect storms devastating rural communities.
The waiting time at water sources compounds travel time. When hundreds of families depend on single water points, queues form creating waits that can extend hours beyond actual walking time. Children might walk two hours to water, wait three hours in line, then walk two hours home—a seven-hour ordeal for a single day’s water supply. The unpredictability proves particularly cruel: families can’t know whether today’s collection will require three hours total or eight hours, making planning impossible and ensuring that every day involves hoping rather than knowing when water collectors will return home.
The Stark Contrast: Cheru and Kamama Live 16 Miles Apart
Cheru’s Three-Hour Struggle for Contaminated Water
Cheru’s daily reality encompasses everything described: the pre-dawn departure, the three-hour walk across dangerous terrain, the digging in dry riverbeds for water that looks “like oil” according to residents, the heavy container carried home during another three-hour return journey, and the knowledge that she’ll repeat this tomorrow and every day indefinitely. Her daily water journey steals her childhood, prevents school attendance, damages her developing body, and exposes her to risks no child should face—yet her family has no alternatives when survival demands water and water demands these sacrifices.
The water Cheru collects after such enormous effort isn’t even safe. Her family drinks, cooks, and washes with contaminated water from polluted sources because the hours of labor required to collect it make refusing to use it unthinkable despite knowing it causes illness. This reality—suffering dangerous, exhausting journeys for water that will make family members sick—captures water poverty’s cruelty: even tremendous sacrifice doesn’t deliver safety, only temporary relief from thirst that comes at enormous cost.
Her father Samson understands they have no good choices. Sometimes there’s water for digging at the nearby source. Other times, bees infest the area making collection impossible. And when those sources fail entirely, “we go to the dam”—walking over six miles to take water from crocodile-infested rivers where collecting water means accepting death risks. The family’s water insecurity means chronic stress about whether tomorrow will bring water, how many trips will be required, and whether their daughters will return safely from increasingly desperate collection journeys to progressively more dangerous sources.
Kamama’s Seven-Minute Stroll to Clean Water
Barely 16 miles from Cheru lives Kamama, another five-year-old Kenyan girl whose life proves radically different because her community has infrastructure Cheru’s lacks. In 2015, World Vision and community members including Kamama’s mother Julia tapped a mountain spring and piped water down to their village. That infrastructure investment transformed everything. Kamama walks seven minutes to the nearest kiosk where clean, safe water flows from taps requiring no digging, no dangerous river access, and no exposure to contamination that breeds disease.
The transformation extends beyond time savings into comprehensive quality of life improvements. Kamama’s family experiences fewer illnesses because their water is safe. Her older siblings attend school consistently because collecting water no longer consumes their days. Julia can operate small businesses with time previously lost to water collection. The entire community benefits from health improvements, educational gains, and economic opportunities that infrastructure enabled. Kamama’s childhood includes play, laughter, and dreams about what her future holds—possibilities Cheru cannot even imagine while trapped in daily survival labor.
The 13-mile gravity-fed pipeline serving Kamama’s village provides water to 15 kiosks serving 880 households plus schools, churches, and a health center. World Vision runs the system, but local committees manage kiosks and are preparing to assume full maintenance responsibility funded by small monthly fees users pay—ensuring sustainability beyond donor presence. This model demonstrates that permanent solutions exist, that they work, and that they cost far less than the perpetual suffering communities endure without them. Kamama and Cheru live just 16 miles apart, yet they inhabit completely different worlds separated by infrastructure investment.
Frequently Asked Questions About Walking for Water in Africa
Women and girls in Africa walk an average of 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) daily for water collection, though this average conceals enormous variation. In Mauritania, Somalia, Tunisia, and Yemen, single trips exceed one hour each way. Research across 24 sub-Saharan countries found nearly 17 million women and children (predominantly girls) responsible for hauling water from sources requiring over 30 minutes per trip. Individual realities prove more extreme: Monica in Kenya walks approximately 8 kilometers (4 miles) at least twice daily, totaling 16+ kilometers, while her neighbor’s 13-year-old daughter in Afar, Ethiopia, reports eight-hour daily water journeys. The average water collection distance measured in straight-line miles dramatically understates actual difficulty when accounting for terrain obstacles, elevation changes, waiting times at sources, and the need for multiple daily trips. A three-mile journey becomes three hours each way when climbing hills, navigating rocky terrain barefoot, traveling in groups moving at young children’s pace, and making safety detours avoiding wildlife.
The unsafe routes dimension encompasses multiple life-threatening dangers making walk for water journeys genuinely deadly. Wildlife threats include hippos killing ~500 people yearly (most near rivers where water collection occurs), crocodiles ambushing people at riverbanks, elephants charging when humans block their water access paths, and snakes hiding in vegetation along paths. Research documents water collectors traveling through areas with thorny vegetation, animal holes that twist ankles, steep terrain risking falls, and obstacles requiring constant vigilance. Human threats prove equally terrifying: 77% of Kenyan women report worrying about safety while fetching water, with documented risks including sexual violence on isolated paths, robbery forcing victims to repeat journeys, and exploitation where individuals demand money or sex for water access. Early morning and evening collection times that avoid daytime heat simultaneously increase vulnerability through darkness limiting visibility and reducing witnesses who might deter attacks. Young girls face particular exploitation including transactional sex demands exposing them to HIV, unwanted pregnancy, and trauma that destroys childhoods while society offers no alternatives to continuing the journeys causing their terror.
The physical burden of water collection centers on 20-liter jerrycans weighing approximately 19.5 kilograms (44 pounds) when full—less than a six-year-old child but far heavier than ergonomics experts consider safe for adults to carry extended distances, much less developing children. Research documents that women typically carry these containers on heads, imposing sustained compressive forces on cervical spine that cause 69% of carriers to report spinal pain and 38% to experience back pain. Regular head loading has been linked to cervical spondylosis (degenerative neck arthritis) and severe trauma including spinal injuries causing paralysis or death. The weight distribution concentrates force directly on cervical vertebrae, creating compressive stress multiplying with each step over hours of carrying. Young children manage smaller 5-10 liter containers, but even 10 liters weighs 22 pounds—substantial burden for small bodies. The return journey proves particularly brutal as muscles exhausted from outbound walking must now support additional load while maintaining balance on treacherous terrain, with every shady spot becoming rest opportunity where children temporarily escape crushing weight before resuming their burden.
Children performing water collection reflects multiple intersecting factors rather than single causes. First, the sheer time consumption—often 6+ hours daily when accounting for multiple trips—means families cannot spare only adults who must handle agricultural work, income generation, childcare, cooking, and other survival labor. Second, gender norms assign water collection to females regardless of age, with 62% of child collectors being girls versus 38% boys—socialization starting in early childhood. Third, in large families, multiple collectors prove necessary to meet household needs, requiring children’s participation. Fourth, the physical capability dimension means older children (7-14) can carry substantial loads, making their labor economically rational for families facing impossible survival calculations. Fifth, education access deficits mean that when families must choose between schooling and water collection, girls’ education receives lower priority than boys’, freeing girls for collection duties. Research confirms children in 25 sub-Saharan countries spend four million hours daily fetching water instead of attending school—each hour representing instruction never received and opportunity never realized. The tragedy lies not in families “choosing” to send young children on dangerous, exhausting journeys but in water poverty creating conditions where families face impossible choices between children’s wellbeing and household survival.
Eliminating daily water walk burdens requires comprehensive infrastructure investment providing water access within households or community standpipes requiring maximum 30-minute roundtrips. The World Bank estimates achieving SDG 6 universal water access by 2030 requires African nations allocating approximately 1.7% of GDP annually—roughly $50 billion yearly across the continent. For Nigeria specifically, this represents $7-10 billion annually in sustained investment. While substantial, this pales compared to the $170 billion annual economic losses Eastern and Southern Africa experiences from water-related issues. Successful models exist: Kamama’s village transformation through 13-mile gravity-fed pipeline cost far less than perpetual suffering Cheru’s community endures, while delivering clean water to 880 households plus institutions. Technical solutions include drilling boreholes accessing groundwater, installing piped systems from protected sources, implementing rainwater harvesting, and ensuring proper maintenance through community management funded by modest user fees. However, infrastructure alone proves insufficient without addressing cultural norms assigning collection to women, ensuring girls’ school attendance receives priority, and building governance systems managing water resources sustainably. The fundamental recognition must shift: water poverty isn’t women’s problem to manage through superhuman effort—it’s society’s problem requiring collective solution through infrastructure investment, cultural transformation, and sustained political commitment prioritizing female time, health, and opportunity with seriousness accorded male needs.
The Vision: No Child Should Walk for Water
Cheru deserves what Kamama has: water accessible within minutes, safe enough to drink without illness, and delivered through infrastructure requiring no three-hour journeys across dangerous terrain carrying crushing loads. The 200 million daily hours women and girls collectively waste on water collection could transform into education preparing children for futures they can currently only dream about, income generation lifting families from poverty, or simply childhood—play, rest, laughter, and freedom from adult survival burdens imposed on small shoulders.
The distance between Cheru’s three-hour struggle and Kamama’s seven-minute stroll measures just 16 miles geographically but represents entirely different life trajectories. Kamama will likely complete education, develop skills, and pursue opportunities her infrastructure-enabled childhood made possible. Cheru, unless circumstances change dramatically, faces chronic health problems from carrying water, educational deficits from missed schooling, and perpetuation of water poverty into the next generation when her daughters inherit her burdens. This 16-mile infrastructure gap determines futures more powerfully than individual talent, effort, or ambition—demonstrating that development fundamentally involves providing infrastructure liberating human potential rather than expecting superhuman effort overcoming inadequate infrastructure.
The solution exists. The technology is proven. The economics justify investment through health improvements, educational gains, and economic returns that vastly exceed costs. Organizations like World Vision, Water Wells for Africa, UNICEF, and countless others demonstrate daily that communities receiving proper water infrastructure transform comprehensively and sustainably. What’s required isn’t inventing new solutions but summoning political will to invest at scale matching the crisis’s urgency, sustaining commitment across electoral cycles and funding uncertainties, and centering women and girls in planning recognizing that those bearing water burden deserve voices in designing solutions.
Every walk for water Cheru makes—every painful step, every moment of fear, every ounce of exertion, every hour stolen from childhood—represents a choice societies make to tolerate injustice rather than invest in solutions. Every day Kamama walks seven minutes rather than three hours represents what’s possible when communities receive the infrastructure all humans deserve. The question facing development partners, governments, and global citizens is straightforward: How many more children will walk three hours for contaminated water before we finally provide the infrastructure that could liberate them today?
The daily water journey continues for hundreds of millions. The physical burden crushes bodies and spirits. The unsafe routes claim lives and traumatize survivors. The time consumption steals futures. But none of this must continue. Clean water infrastructure works. Communities transform. Children thrive when freed from water collection. The possibility exists to ensure no child walks hours for water, to liberate 200 million daily hours for better uses, and to recognize that meeting basic needs isn’t charity but fundamental justice every human deserves.
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Cheru is walking right now, her small form struggling under weight, her feet navigating dangerous terrain, her childhood evaporating into survival labor. She deserves better. Every child like her deserves better. And we possess the means to provide it—if we finally summon the will to act.
