march 22 is world water day. globally, 783 million people lack access to clean water, and 3.6 million people — including 1.5 million children — die every year from water related illnesses. as un secretary general ban ki-moon said, “these deaths are an affront to our common humanity, and undermine the efforts of many countries to achieve their development potential.”
1. photo by chris steele=perkins in bangladesh, of a well which offers clean water for those who make the trek. in impoverished african and asian communities, the walk to get water is 3.7 miles on average.
2. photo by tom van cakenberghe of women carrying water from an unsafe source up a steep mountainside in tosramkhola, nepal. women and children (girls twice as likely as boys) bear primary responsibility for water collection in most of the world’s households, which is time not spent earning income or attending school.
3. photo by altaf qadri in amritsar, india, where there is no direct supply of potable water to homes in most of the poor neighborhoods. people depend on a regulated supply of water from public taps erected on roadsides, with a single tap catering to hundreds of households. during particularly hot summer months, these taps often dry out.
4. photo by mohammadreza momeni in iran. contaminated water is leading cause of death in children under the age of five. 443 million school days are lost each year due to water related illness.
5. photo by asim hafeez in gul hasan shaikh village, pakistan. pakistanis are facing a shortage of clean drinking water due to the low level of water in the country’s dams. in pakistan alone, 38.5 million people lack access to safe drinking water
6. photo by kate holt in nigeria. only 57% of people in sub saharan africa have access to clean water. by 2050, the world’s population is expected to pass 9 billion, and 7 billion will face water stress or scarcity conditions.
7. photo by tatan syuflana in the slums of jakarta, indonesia. people living in slums often pay five to ten times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city.
8. photo rudi dundas in the samburu province of kenya. the samburu are historically a nomadic people and the presence of a well has offered them the opportunity of growing their own food for the first time.
9. photo by pavel rahman in dhaka of bangladeshi girls who, in observance of world water day, carry water pots that read “safe water right for all” in bangla.
