What is the Global Water Crisis?
Simply put, water is life. There’s nothing more essential to it—and us humans—than water. After all, we need it for all of life’s basic necessities such as drinking, bathing, cooking, handwashing, growing crops, you name it. Yet, unfortunately, the world is in the midst of a global water crisis. Areas currently struggling from accessing both the quantity and quality of water necessary for life include Cape Town, South Africa; Flint, Michigan; rural, sub-Saharan Africa; and urban Asia. Overall, that’s over 700 million people currently caught up in the tragic crisis.
What are Three Causes of the Global Water Crisis?
- Climate change, such as altered weather patterns including droughts or floods
- Increased pollution
- Increased human demand and overuse of water
Embrace Relief Water Crisis Solution
Fortunately, Embrace Relief has tossed its hat into the mix to try to alleviate this crisis as much as possible. Currently, we have set our sights on the millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa who are collecting unsafe water from lakes, rivers, and ponds on a daily basis, infecting themselves with waterborne illnesses that either result in death or make them too sick to work or pursue an education.
Many of them also spend up to six hours a day obtaining this water, especially women and young girls, forcing them to face danger and extreme weather conditions. Unfortunately, this daily practice also steals valuable time they could be using to work or pursue an education. The fact this vastly impacts women and young girls is particularly noteworthy because studies show females contributing to the workforce and pursuing education increases gender equality, which in turn leads to economic growth. Therefore, due to Africa’s lack of access to clean water, millions are suffering greatly from poor health and poverty, just like in other areas of the world impacted by the global water crisis.
How to Improve this Situation
Fortunately, Africa houses a substantial amount of clean water underground, possibly 20 times more than the 8,000 miles of visible water in its lakes and ponds. Even more fortunately, Embrace Relief stepped up to the plate in 2020, building 409 water wells throughout Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria. We also plan on building hundreds more throughout the region, as well as in Nigeria. The current wells supply clean water to over 400,000 people on a daily basis, are constantly monitored to ensure peak performance, and are guaranteed to last at least five years.
Fountains of Hope
Embrace Relief also plans to reconstruct hundreds of non-functioning water wells throughout Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria with its Fountains of Hope campaign, and has already successfully started the reconstruction process in Chad and Cameroon. Each reconstructed well receives the same advanced features as ones Embrace Relief fully constructs, so they’re sure to provide clean, sanitary water for hundreds of thousands more people.
Please Donate Today
Embrace has already provided clean water for so many people in Africa, but there are still so many more who desperately need help. Please consider donating to Embrace Relief today to help us kick the global water crisis and improve overall health, sanitation, gender equality, and economic growth in the vulnerable sub-Saharan Africa region.
