Wateraid - UK-based charity dedicated exclusively to the provision of safe domestic water, sanitation and hygiene promotion to the world's poorest people. An excellent site with masses of information and educational resources including a though-provoking interactive game for the primary school age group.

UK Government's Environment Agency - UK information and useful ideas on water saving

The Water Page - independent page with lots of useful links

Babymilk Action - UK-based group campaigning to promote breastfeeding and stop companies from pushing their milks

UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund site - lots of information and statistics about child health around the world

Cycle to the Summit Follow the journey of four British cyclists who left London in November 2001 to cycle to the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their cycling marathon is raising money for the development charity WaterAid. Join their e-mail list or pay regular visits to their web site to follow their progress. Send them a message of support!

Give Water Thames Water's web site. For every visitor they get each day, the water company will make a donation to WaterAid. Their aim is get 2 million visitors.

The Progress of Nations 2000 UNICEF's annual report includes articles on immunisation programmes and street children. Lots of useful statistics too and a quiz for young people about Polio

Ecopod H20 2020 is an interactive space age game challenging you to use water wisely in the 21st Century. From the UK Government's Environment Agency.

Imagine that the most basic necessity of life and health - water - is not on tap in your home but must be fetched from a muddy hole in a dried-up river bed
several miles away.

100,000,000
people in the world
don't need to imagine because
they have to do it every day.

Children and water

Many children throughout the world suffer serious health and education problems as a result of unclean or scarce water.
In many countries children, particularly girls, are responsible for the collection of water. Girls as young as 10 years old are often responsible for collecting the family's water. Each litre of water weights one kilogram and may have to be carried for three or four miles.

Carrying such heavy weights can seriously damage a child's growing body. In particular, there can be damage to the head, neck and spine and even cause deformity of the.
Collecting water is not only physically tiring but also very time consuming. Often this prevents girls from attending school.

Children are most vulnerable to the diseases which result from both lack of water and dirty water. In developing countries each child has an average of ten attacks of diarrhoea before the age of five and one in ten children die of diarrhoea and dehydration.*

The number of infant deaths are even higher in places where food companies use aggressive marketing techniques to sell baby milk powder. When mixed with dirty water the milk powder becomes a potentially lethal potion. One and a half million babies die every year because they are not breastfed, according to UNICEF. Millions more become seriously ill.

* Figures from the Institute of Child Health.

Clean water

Once people have safe water to drink, effective sanitation and knowledge of good health practices they are able to take control of their lives. They can then construct good housing, have time to go to school, grow extra food for their families and undertake other activities to generate income. Safe water means healthier lives and better futures.

How we use water in the home

Did you know?

• It takes over 5000 litres of water to process a meal of a Quarter-pound Hamburger, French fries, and a soft drink.
• Nearly one half of the world's population lacks access to clean water for sanitation, drinking and other human needs.
• One newspaper a day means the use of 250,000 litres of water a year.
• A leaky tap can waste up to 380 litres a day.
• It can take up to 45 minutes for a water supplier to produce one glass of drinking water.
• It takes approximately 6 litres of water to produce 1 litre of petrol.
• Washing your car with a hose can use the equivalent of 33 buckets of water.
• The average person in the UK uses 334 litres of water per day.
• In Africa the average domestic use per person per day is 47 litres and in Asia it is 85 litres per day. In contrast in the United States people use 578 litres per day each.

• Population Reports, Volume XXVI, Number 1, September, 1998
  published by the Population Information Program, Center for Communication Programs, The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202-4012, USA