One of Africa’s largest countries, Tanzania has a population of more than forty-seven million, but one out of every three of those people lives on less than one dollar a day. Almost half of the population lives without access to clean water. Tanzania has experienced some population growth recently and as a result the need for clean water and sanitation is more pressing now than ever.
Right now, many women and children have to walk miles to the nearest river or pond, fill up five-gallon jerry cans with dirty and sometimes diseased water, and then lug that water back home (a gallon of water weighs eight pounds, so each jerry can weighs forty). Kidnappings and rapes on these water-gathering journeys are tragically routine. Without easy access to water, the livelihood of entire communities is put under a constant strain.
One of Africa’s largest countries, Tanzania has a population of more than forty-seven million, but one out of every three of those people lives on less than one dollar a day. Almost half of the population lives without access to clean water. Tanzania has experienced some population growth recently and as a result, the need for clean water and sanitation is more pressing now than ever.
Right now, many women and children have to walk miles to the nearest river or pond, fill up five-gallon jerry cans with dirty and sometimes diseased water, and then lug that water back home (a gallon of water weighs eight pounds, so each jerry can weigh forty). Kidnappings and rapes on these water-gathering journeys are tragically routine. Without easy access to water, the livelihood of entire communities is put under a constant strain.
Our Water Challenge partner, charity: water has been working in Tanzania since 2007. Their projects in Tanzania come in three very different, very neat forms: piped-systems, rain catchments, and latrines. A lot of communities already have water wells dug—but for a number of reasons those wells may have either dried up or fallen into disuse. By fixing up the wells, laying pipe networks and erecting community taps, they can make sure everyone has enough water and take the danger and the toil out of the water collection process. And that’s such an enormous burden lifted for a lot of people.
Sometimes there isn’t groundwater available though, and digging wells just isn’t possible. Thankfully, it rains a lot in Tanzania. So charity: water affixes special gutters to houses and community buildings, and rainwater collects in cement tanks. The tanks are sanitized and turn Tanzania’s six hundred inches of rain per year into a source of drinking water. With a little creativity, you can bring clean water to anybody.
A sad fact: diseases from dirty water kill more people each year than all forms of violence, war included. Think about that. Dirty water kills more people than war! And one of the major breeding grounds for those diseases is an unsanitary outhouse. Building sanitary latrines does more than grant a community privacy and dignity—it improves the overall health of the community by no small margin.
Whenever charity: water builds new structures or introduces some weird new gadget into a community, they always provide extensive training exercises so that the equipment is used to its maximum potential. That way the impact is felt for many years to come and way down the line some kid will hear about how his grandparents used to gather water from a dirty river using jerry cans and find that crazy. Because the global water crisis is crazy. But we can fix it.
After implementing all these changes, instead of gathering water, the students can study; the mothers can keep home and feel beautiful; the fathers can rest assured that their families’ health is not at risk. A simple fact: clean water radically improves quality of life. There are still 800 million people that lack access to water in places like Tanzania, but the problem is a solvable one.
