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  • Water.

  • It's life's most basic need.

  • But there's a water crisis in our world right now.

  • Seriously, a crisis.

  • Nearly one billion people live without clean drinking water.

  • It's happening all over the world, especially in developing areas, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

  • It's a water crisis because it starts with water.

  • But water affects everything.

  • Education, health, poverty and especially women and children.

  • Let's look at a family caught in the water crisis.

  • It's likely they live on less than a dollar a day.

  • When they're thirsty, they can't just turn on the faucet for a nice cold glass of water.

  • They don't have a faucet.

  • Instead, the women and children go off to collect water.

  • Many walk up to three hours a day to the nearest swamp, pond or river to gather water.

  • That's been sitting out in the open, exposed to all kinds of germs.

  • Time spent gathering water is time they can't spend learning to read, write, earning income or take care of their family.

  • Some women in Sub-Saharan Africa spend more time collecting water than any other activity they do in a day.

  • And the walk isn't just hard. It's dangerous.

  • The women are alone and burdened with forty pounds of water.

  • Many get hurt. Sometimes they're even attacked.

  • When they make it home, the little water they've collected isn't clean.

  • Some families know their water is contaminated with germs that cause diarrhea, dehydration, even death.

  • But what choice do they have?

  • Kids, especially babies, are affected most by these germs.

  • About every nineteen seconds, a mother loses one of her children to a water-related illness.

  • And each day, almost a billion people are living this way.

  • Until they get a little help.

  • The water crisis is solvable. There are solutions.

  • Some are brand new and innovative like water filtration systems.

  • Some are age-old like drill or hand dug wells.

  • These solutions bring clean water much closer to the people who need it.

  • A safe water project near a village restores hours each day to a person's life.

  • This time, it's opportunity. It's freedom to go to school and get an education, to work or start a business, to raise a family.

  • Africa alone could save forty billion hours each year.

  • That's the entire annual workforce in France.

  • Clean water means less disease. That's less money spent on medicine,

  • which means more money for books and school uniforms.

  • And if the water project is built near a school, it can increase attendance, especially among young girls.

  • The water crisis is vast, but we can solve it.

  • Just twenty dollars can provide one person with access to a clean water project in their village.

  • And this will mean more than clean water.

  • Because water changes everything.

  • Join us.

Water.

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