What is the Water Crisis?
Water is a basic human need. Yet, according to The Water Project, 783 million people spend many hours each day searching for clean water. In Africa alone, 40 billion hours are spent each year walking to find water (charity: water). Children and women in particular bear the burden of walking many miles to collect water, which often is contaminated. A typical jerry can used to collect water weighs 40 pounds when completely filled. This contaminated water causes disease and illness that could be prevented simply through access to clean drinking water.
Clean water changes everything—especially by reducing illness. The time spent walking to find water and recovering from water-borne diseases results in time lost at work, school, and caring for their family. Further, women and children are subject to harassment and assault along their walk to get water (charity: water).The statistics are daunting: each year water-related diseases cause nearly one of every five deaths that occur in children under five, and 443 million lost school days (The Water Project).
This is the water crisis that Billikens for Clean Water is actively trying to help address. Many areas of the world suffer from "Economic Water Scarcity", meaning that the water is present, but the people cannot access it due to the high costs. The technology to solve this crisis has already been invented, it simply needs to be implemented in the areas that need it.
What Can I Do?
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Join B4CW and start your own fundraiser, or come join some of ours!
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Show solidarity with needy communities by reducing your personal water consumption by taking shorter showers, turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth, and fixing your leaky faucets.
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Old toilets can use 3-7 gallons of water per flush. (ConserveH2O.org) While it's difficult to ask people to fully replace their toilets with a newer 'low flow' or 'no flow' version (if you can, you should!), you can also flush your toilet less frequently--follow the rule "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down". This rule will save great amounts of water in the long run!
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One of the biggest ways to reduce water consumption is to eat less meat. Producing meat requires hundreds of gallons of water. Simply choosing to observe "meatless mondays" or only having meat at dinner, rather than lunch or breakfast, can really make a big difference.
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Most importantly, the best way to reduce water consumption is to understand how much you're really using. Calculate your water footprint here and see where you can save: Water Footprint Calculator
