charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. The solutions they provide include hand-dug wells, drilled wells, rehabilitations, spring protections, rainwater catchments and BioSand filters. They use 100% of public donations to directly fund sustainable water solutions in areas of greatest need. Just $20 can give one person clean water for 20 years.

It’s easy for those of us in developed nations to forget that something as simple as clean water is not readily available to everyone in the world. You would think, in this day and age, that the billion people who don’t have it would have access to clean water by now. 90% of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are to children under five years old. Many of these diseases are preventable.

In addition to sanitation, clean water also contributes to education, gender equality and poverty alleviation. The hours saved by not having to walk miles for water are put toward education. Women are often elected as officials of the Water Committee which is responsible for overseeing the functionality of the water point installed in a village. This empowerment helps restore equality to community members. Members of a village often use the water to grow small gardens to secure their own food supply and become more self-sufficient.

charity: water served its first one million people at the end of 2009 and they will not stop until every person has safe water to drink.

To learn more or get involved visit http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/