Ninety days after water generated horror and headlines around the globe, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said that 400 million children – almost one fifth of all children – lack even the bare minimum of safe water they need to live.
At least 20 litres of safe water per day (about two buckets) are essential to enable children to drink, wash hands of disease-bearing dirt and cook a simple meal. Without it, children become easy prey for a host of life-threatening afflictions carried in dirty water and on unwashed fingers.
According to UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2005, 21% of children in developing countries are severely water deprived, living without a safe water source within a fifteen minute walk of their homes. In addition, a staggering 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. These deprivations cost many their lives and account for at least 1.6 out of 11 million preventable child deaths every year.
This is a culture of life.