Water.org

Women are linked with water all over the world, and wherever there are water access and sanitation issues women feel the impact first. They are most often the water handlers, finding it, fetching it and carrying it home. Their traditional duties of cooking, cleaning, and laundering also require the most water. And women shoulder the burden of caring for those who fall sick from dirty water, most often their own children.

It is estimated that on an average day women and girls in poor countries walk four miles and carry approximately 44 pounds of water back to their families. The water carried often equals 70% of the carrier’s body weight, which takes a heavy physical toll and burns up much of the calories from their meager dietary intake.

The time spent fetching water could be used to care for children in the home, to do income-generating activities, or to simply rest. For girls, the task of carrying water, combined with lack of sanitary facilities in schools, often stands in the way of their education. The World Health Organization reports that over 40 billion work hours are lost each year in Africa to the long-distance gathering of drinking water, and Ethiopia is no exception.

Decreasing the amount of time women and girls spend collecting water, reducing their walking time from several hours a day to 15-30 minutes, supporting water and sanitation for schools, and creating a child/girl friendly environment, are major objectives of Water.org project in Tigray, Ethiopia. Improving health outcomes for all communities and increasing girls’ enrollment in schools are the expected results.