Pure Water for the World (PWW) provides access to sustainable, safe, clean drinking water for people in rural or underserved areas of developing countries. Through teacher training, hygiene education, implementation of sustainable household water treatments, and sanitation, PWW is working to meet the basic human need and right for safe water in the 21st century.
Billions of people worldwide have no choice but to drink contaminated water daily. The effects of unclean water are chronic diarrheal disease, malnutrition, and impaired growth and development. Waterborne illness, an entirely preventable disease, is a leading cause of death in children, claiming the life of a child every twenty seconds (over 5000 children each and every day, over one million children each year). Waterborne disease claims more children’s lives annually than malaria and tuberculosis combined.
While the number of yearly deaths caused by drinking contaminated water is staggering, PWW believes in hope. With proper education, sanitation, and hygiene as well as the tools to make water safe, these deaths can be prevented.
In the face of such human tragedy, the words from Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner take on fresh meaning and new poignancy: “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.”
PWW’s mission is to reduce the suffering caused by waterborne illness by establishing sustainable water and hygiene education programs in schools, homes, clinics and orphanages. Our projects in Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Malawi have reached over 750,000 people, and PWW continues to build global partnerships to expand its capacities and impact.
To learn more, visit www.purewaterfortheworld.org.
