Consider these sobering facts as reported by the World Health Organization and other United Nations agencies:

• More than one billion people worldwide have no access to safe drinking water (that's four times the U.S. population).
• More than 2.5 billion people worldwide have no access to adequate sanitation facilities.
• More than 8,000 children die every day (nearly one child every 10 seconds) from illness linked to substandard water supply and waste disposal in poor countries. Nearly all of this illness is preventable.
  

• Improvements in water supply and sanitation reduce infant mortality by an average of 55%.
  
• In Latin America and the Caribbean 45% of all rural people have no safe water supply. That's more than 55,000,000 persons.
• In Latin America and the Caribbean 68% of all rural people have no sanitation facilities. That's more than 84,000,000 persons.

These are alarming statistics. The twenty-first century is upon us and still one of every six persons on earth faces a daily, life threatening challenge - the challenge of finding water fit to drink. Women still walk for hours to lug home tiny amounts of untreated water.  Children still suffer repeated bouts with intestinal parasites that stunt their development or kill them.  Families are denied the precious gift of water because no funding is currently available to buy some plastic water pipe or a few sturdy handpumps.

 

The Good News

Through the provision of clean drinking water and waste disposal systems, American Water Relief helps improve the quality of life for rural inhabitants in the less developed countries of Latin America. The needy can begin to lead healthier, more productive lives by possessing the most powerful and effective public health tool ever known - clean water.

As a non-political, non-sectarian, non-profit organization we believe that it's a basic human right to drink safe water. And together we can help ensure this right by financing drinking water and sanitation projects in the small rural communities most often overlooked by their own governments, large-scale development organizations, and international money-lenders.