Clean Water and Sanitation Crucial to Development
One of GOYA's top priorities is helping find and provide clean water and a proper sanitation system for the people of Mitumba. Access to clean water ( and removal of contaminated water ) dramatically changes lives, especially in developing countries where diseases such as malaria, cholera, and diarrhea claim countless victims - the majority of them being children. Something as seemingly simple, and often taken for granted, as a flushable toilet and a system of covered pipes which brings in clean water carries away the polluted, can save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Recently, an article published by the Associated Press highlighted the importance of flushable toilets and their impact in developing countries. [They] are an easy and affordable way to reduce the number of childhood deaths and enhance developmental sanitation. The U.N. Development Program's annual report cited that lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation has killed nearly 2 million children each year. Broken down, that comes to almost 5,000 deaths per day - most of them preventable.
"No access to sanitation is a polite way of saying that people draw water for drinking, cooking and washing from rivers, lakes, ditches and drains fouled with human and animal excrement," said Kevin Watkins, the main author. "The toilet may seem an unlikely catalyst for human development, but the report provides abundant and powerful evidence to show how it benefits people's well being."
To read the full AP article, please click here.
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