Women, Water, and the Quest for Hope

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Aishwarya

This is a guest post by Barbara Goldberg, Founder and President of Wells Bring Hope, an organisation working to deliver safe drinking water in West Africa. Listen to our interview with Barbara from 2012 and learn more about her and the organisation.

I didn’t know anything about the water crisis in West Africa. I didn’t know about the hardships of women and girls who walk miles every day to get water. I wasn’t alone. The fifty or so very smart and worldly women who were with me the night of what I’d call our “awakening” knew nothing either. How could this be?

In 2008, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti gave a talk to “Salon Forum,” a group that I founded twenty years earlier which brought women together for personal enrichment and connection. Through his words and powerful photographs, Gil conveyed the dire need for safe water in West Africa and the plight of women and girls who toil endlessly to get it. When we heard that one out of four children never reach their fifth birthday, we were too stunned to speak. Mothers who have to give water to their children that could result in their deaths? Girls who don’t get an education because they have to spend most of their day getting water? How could this be?

,The energy in the room was palpable. Shock was followed by anger; anger that women had to bear such hardship. We saw them as our sisters, mothers who wanted the same thing for their children—good health and an education.

On a rational level, we said, “This is a simple problem with a simple solution: drill a borehole well tapping into aquifers underground and give people safe water.” Many of us were businesswomen, used to solving problems and this seemed like one we could solve.
The next day, without thinking about the consequences of what I was about to do and the impact it would have on my life, I sent out an email to those in attendance asking, “Should Salon Forum take up this cause?” I got back a resounding, “Yes!”

Others not only said “yes,’ but also “I want to be involved. I want to be a part of this effort.” It was a cause that arose from passion, passion to help other women and girls, a determination to bring about dramatic change in the lives of villagers who deserved safe water and the opportunity for healthier lives. The women who joined me were part of a Task Force of fourteen women who, a little over two years later, would become the nonprofit organization, Wells Bring Hope.

We made some wise choices at the beginning and had the support of some great people. Our initial donors were the women of Salon Forum, to whom I’d make a pitch before almost every event over those first years. We partnered with World Vision to do our drilling and we chose to work in Niger, West Africa, the poorest country in the world at the time (it is now the second poorest country).

In less than a year after we started, I and five other women went to Niger to visit remote rural villages where many had never seen white people. We visited villages with and without safe water and we came back with a reinforced belief in what we were doing. I met a woman named Halima who lost 11 out of 12 children. Sadly, it is not unusual to lose a child in West Africa, but all but one of them? I saw Halima again three years later and while she will never grasp or get over the depth of her loss, she was thankful for her one remaining child and her brother’s child who lives with her to help with chores.

Source: Wells Bring Hope

Source: Wells Bring Hope

We made a video to help us with fundraising, to let people see what conditions are like in Niger and the hope that a well can bring. Best of all, we were able to speak about our cause based on personal observation and from talking to many women and girls to understand their needs, hopes and vision. We came back saying, “How could we not do this work?”
Over the years, our organization has expanded to include men as donors and volunteers and it is comprised of people from all over the country, many of them under 30. We speak to schools to generate awareness of the water crisis in Africa and many of them start “Water Circles” on our website to support us.

We are one of the few water causes that give micro-loans to women to start small businesses of their own. That is part of our project because we believe strongly that when 50% of a woman’s time is freed up from walking to get water, she needs to be able to work productively and earn money to contribute to the economic welfare of her family. We are strong advocates for the incorporation of micro-financing into the WASH formula, just as nutrition has been added by some to bring about a more dramatic positive impact. We believe that drilling a well is only the first step in improving lives. It is micro-financing for women that enables the transformation of lives for generations to come.

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Empowering Girls Influences Health and Education Programming in Ghana

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

Guest post by Amy Henderson Riley, Summer 2013 Girls Empowerment Volunteer Coordinator, from www.GHEI.org.  Amy will be beginning her Doctor of Public Health work in Community Health and Prevention at the Drexel School of Public Health in the fall of 2013.  She hopes to always use the gender lens that GHEI has upheld since its founding, in her future research and community-led health promotion and communication practice.

Short-term volunteer opportunities in the developing world can be a life changing experience.  It certainly was for me.  As a Ghana Health and Education Initiative volunteer last summer, I was thrilled to be asked to return to work for this summer as the Volunteer Coordinator for the Girls Empowerment camp as well as a malaria evaluation session.

The Ghana Health and Education Initiative (GHEI) is a non-governmental organization located in the Western Region of Ghana.  The mission of GHEI is to enable communities in the Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai District of Ghana to improve their children’s health, learning success and opportunities by building local capacity and providing necessary resources and support.  GHEI was founded with four core ideals: human rights, respect for cultural beliefs, fiscal responsibility, and to always maintain our presence as a program that empowers.  All of our health and education programs are designed and implemented with sustainable international development principles.  Our organization operates via a network of three program coordinators, local staff, and short-term volunteers and interns as part of our Summer Serve and Learn program.

Photo credit: Adrian Gregorich and Mandy McConaha

Photo credit: Adrian Gregorich and Mandy McConaha

One part of our summer programming is our annual Girls Empowerment Camp, which we have conducted since 2006.  During this intensive two-week session, volunteers travel to GHEI to work with local middle-school-aged girls to develop leadership and life skills, including health issues relevant to young women.  This camp gives girls the opportunity to think about their futures and to see themselves in a new and broader context.  This camp is a rewarding learning experience for both the volunteers as well as the girls, as both groups actively reflect on what they are learning and about issues that affect women globally.

Young girls, in particular, have thrived on and benefited greatly from these experiences.  Many of the girls have gone on to articulate their goals, apply for scholarships, and find a new sense of pride in themselves and what they can do for their community and immediate family.  As an organization, GHEI strives to empower females year-round by targeting girls in our education programs.  At least 60% of our scholarships go to young women and we offer tutoring and study space at our community library, including one night a week that is deemed “Ladies Night” where female students can ask questions and work alongside female instructors in a safe and supported space.

Photo credit: Adrian Gregorich and Mandy McConaha

Photo credit: Adrian Gregorich and Mandy McConaha

GHEI believes educating and empowering girls has an effect on her family and community and if she is given the opportunity to pursue her education, she is more likely to earn a better income and have fewer, healthier children when she decides the time is right.  All of our health and education programs support these ideals. Other programs we conduct include handwashing with soap, malaria prevention, sexual and reproductive health, and community initiatives including our recent polytank (tanks that collect rainwater) projects to provide water for handwashing as well as mechanizing the main borehole used in the village.

You can learn more about GHEI by visiting our website, “liking” us on Facebook, following us on Twitter @GhanaGHEI, or joining our summer volunteer programs yourself.

 

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Women, water and what it means to ‘have it all’

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

Guest post from , founder and Executive Director of Water1st International, a Seattle-based non-profit devoted to helping the world’s poor meet their needs for safe water.  Marla has overseen the implementation of over 600 community water projects in Latin America, Asia, and Africa benefiting 250,000 people.  This blog is cross-posted on The Seattle Globalist.

by · March 22, 2013

The author and Mari Tuji in Kelecho Gerbi, Ethiopia. Before a water system was built by Seattle Nonprofit Water 1st, Mari walked four hours each day to collect water for her family. (Photo by Marla Smith-Nilson)

 

For millions of women and girls in poor countries, collecting water for their families each day is not just a chore—it’s a symbol of gender oppression.

I wonder what Mari Tuji would say if I asked her what it means to “have it all”?

Mari is a young mother of three and until last year, like every mother in the community Kelecho Gerbi, Ethiopia, each day she was the first in her household to wake up and get a jump on her main chore—carrying water.

Mari’s community built a new water system in 2012, but before that, when her children were babies, she carried them on her back two hours to the river with the jerry can in her hand. And then after fetching water, she carried the full, 40-pound jerry can on her back and her babies in her arms all the way home.

Mari’s marriage was arranged when she was a child. She tried to get out of it, running away from home as a teenager to work as a maid in the capital of Addis Ababa—the only job she could find as an illiterate young woman. But her family convinced her to return and fulfill the promise they had made to her husband’s family.

When I talked to Mari before her community had started building their new system, she was excited to end her daily walk for water, but also felt that the project “will bring more peace in my home.” She explained that if she didn’t collect water before her husband returned from the fields, he would become very angry with her, saying, “This is your responsibility! Why didn’t you go earlier in the morning?”

She didn’t say it, but I suspect his anger turned violent.

Before a water system was built with the help of Seattle Nonprofit Water 1st, Mari walked four hours each day to collect water for her family from this small river. (Photo by Marla Smith-Nilson)

The river where Mari found water for her family was not just a water hole for humans. They shared it with cattle and goats, as there was no other option for local villagers. When Mari’s children became ill from drinking water, she carried them on foot several miles to the nearest clinic in a town called Busa. Sometimes, the medicine to treat her children’s diarrhea was too expensive, or the clinic would run out of it, so Mari would walk back home with her sick child and hope the illness resolved on its own. As Mari pointed out, they would always get sick again. Nothing had changed. Mari said she felt she would have “everything” if she had water in her home.

A World Apart Yet Not So Different

A few weeks ago, our household’s dinnertime conversation turned into a discussion inspired by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and what “having it all” means to women. My 12-year-old son, a master in recognizing discrimination, quickly chimed in, “What about men having it all?” From there, we talked a little about why this question is directed at women in the first place.

It’s not an easy conversation to have with your children because you love them. They are without hesitation my favorite thing about my life. But being a working mother and wife isn’t what I imagined it would be for me.

My husband, Jim, is awesome. He is all the clichés - my best friend and co-parent and involved father. He supports me in everything I do in my career, even becoming a house-husband for a year when I had a job in Egypt. The Egyptian women I worked with at the time were in shock when I told them Jim packed my lunch every day. My male colleagues told him more than once, “Don’t worry, you’ll find work,” but he wasn’t looking.

Nevertheless, something changed in our relationship when we became parents, and I’m still trying to comprehend if I’m okay with that. Given the job that I have—working with extremely poor families like Mari’s—it sometimes feels wrong to want something more for myself. But especially on nights when I’m up and down the stairs carrying baskets of clothes, I think, “How did it happen that I do the majority of the laundry in our house?”

It feels so petty to even say it. When I compare my life to Mari’s, I was born having it all.

The Luck of the Draw

My grandmother was a single mom. Her husband left her for another woman when she was pregnant with my mother. These days, we have a name for that: deadbeat dad.My mother and grandmother gifted that to me.

But that was a different time and place, and so in order to keep her job as an elementary school teacher, my grandmother lied about her absent husband, saying he died in World War II. My mother didn’t know the truth until she was twelve, when my grandmother remarried. And the only time my grandmother talked about my biological grandfather to us was after she had a little too much wine one night, his name was mentioned and she hissed, “That bastard!”

The author with her grandmother, who she says paved a path of greater gender equality for her. (Photo courtesy Marla Smith-Nilson)

Based on her childhood experiences and longing for a father, my mother fought for her marriage, staying in a relationship that didn’t always make her happy. She made it clear to me from the time I was a teen that I should expect more from my marriage than she did. And I do.

But my mother was a trailblazer in other parts of her life. I vividly remember the day she and all the other female school-teachers decided to wear banned pant-suits to school instead of skirts.

My mother and my grandmother were stubborn and determined, and they told me I could do and be anything I wanted to be. At one point, when I was about twelve and living in the small rural town of Benson, Arizona, I decided I wanted be an astronaut, and my mother, truly believing I could actually do it, enrolled me in a science day-camp for budding astronauts at the University of Arizona. The camp was thrilling, and convinced me that I was truly positioned to be the first American female astronaut.

But later that same summer, when we were on a family vacation, camping and water-skiing on a lake in rural Mexico, something I saw changed me. It was a girl, my age, carrying water home to her family. She clearly didn’t have it all and it was the first time I had considered how time and place are major determinants of outcomes in life. As I said to my mother then, it just wasn’t fair.

It seemed logical to me then, and now, that extremely poor women could never have the slimmest shot at having it all if their waking hours were consumed in the back-breaking task of carrying water, a job I only see men perform with the help of a donkey.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for Kelecho Gerbi’s new water system, funded by Seattleites through Water 1st. (Photo by Marla Smith-Nilson)

A Hopeful Future

I attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Kelecho Gerbi’s new water system last year and found out that Mari Tuji had been selected to be on the management committee, responsible for operating and maintaining the piped water network.

She told me that initially she was nervous about taking the position, because she had never been to school. But during the training sessions she realized she was just as capable as her more educated, male counterparts, and that she truly enjoyed learning new things.

With an extra few hours in her day not spent carrying water, Mari now has the time and energy to make new heights of leadership and community participation possible for women in her area. She is determined that her daughters will attend school and be literate now that they have no need to carry water. I predict that her daughters and granddaughters will be grateful for her brave actions that will enable them to take a different path, just as I am for my mother’s and grandmother’s perseverance.

She imagines telling her grandchildren about how lucky they are to be born in a time when they have piped water in their homes. I told her that I’d like to take that dream a little further, and imagine her smile when she sees her grandson doing the laundry for their family. With that statement translated, Mari covered her mouth with her hand and giggled.

Hear more from Marla Smith-Nilson on the Humanosphere Podcast with Tom Paulson

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Reflections on World Water Day: No women, No water, empowering women to manage water

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

Guest post by Julia Collins. This blog is cross-posted on Global.Gender.Current.

women and water

photo courtesy of Women and Water in South and Central Asia

 

Accessing and managing one of the most basic, and yet most crucial, life-sustaining resources is a big deal.  On World Water Day, we take a moment to consider what a large role water plays in security, development and conflict around the world and how crucial women are to this important resource. You name it, water affects it: gender, health, security, poverty, sanitation, hygiene, policy.

The Elliott School of International Affairs interdepartmental project, ‘Women and Water in South and Central Asia’, has identified 4 challenges related to water that women face in South and Central Asia.

First, the domestic use of water is generally viewed as women’s concern in the region and the physically demanding task of water collection and water management in the household falls to women and girls. Because of this household water responsibility, women’s health is adversely affected by the physical strain of water carrying, water-borne diseases and poor sanitation and hygiene conditions.  Further complicating the issue, the water supply is projected to decrease due to climate change, which will likely exacerbate tensions and fuel conflict. Lastly, and despite their integral involvement in all things water, women do not often hold water/property rights nor do they have decision making power to distribute or manage water.  This results in a decision-making gap where preferences of women and girls aren’t considered in allocating the precious resource.

What can be done?

Treating women as partners, not passive recipients of aid is a start.  The idea is to empower women to work together with men on water decision making and planning.  It is also important to tailor women-empowerment programs to fit the local needs of the community because ‘one-size’ does not fit all. More information on WASH’s events, reports, videos, blogs, and more on women and water can be found here.

More about the project

The Global Gender Program, Sigur Center, and Central Asia Program’s joint project – Women and Water in South and Central Asia – brings together women social entrepreneurs and activists from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, to discuss their experiences and innovative solutions on community-level water management, enhance their competencies and leadership skills, and expose them to U.S institutions and the policy community working on water management and gender issues.  This project, funded by the State Department, will support Track II diplomacy (people-to-people relations) and enhance capacity on water resource management as a key element in enhancing stability and prosperity in Central and South Asia.

Photo courtesy of Julia Collins

Julia Collins is a Research/Program Assistant for the Women and Water, South and Central Asia Project at the Elliott School and a 1st year Master’s Candidate studying Conflict Resolution and Security Policy Studies. Particular areas of academic interest include Post-conflict reconstruction, memory politics and dealing with the past, and promoting good governance in transitional democracies – Myanmar in particular.

She graduated from UCLA in 2009 with a BA in Political Science, and minors in Environmental Geography and German. Julia has worked on Guam, lived in Hungary, taught along the Thailand-Myanmar border at a political training school for Burmese democracy activists, and advocated for refugees at a Californian refugee resettlement agency.

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Celebrate Solutions:Safe Water and Toilets:The Foundation for Empowering Women

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

Guest post by Nicole Wichenhauser from Water.org.  This blog is cross-posted on WomenDeliver.

What would your life be like if you had to walk 3.7 miles each day for water and wait for the cover of darkness to relieve yourself? It’s hard to even imagine. Yet this is today’s reality for millions of women and girls in developing countries around the world. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. Solutions are simple, affordable, and available now. Since 1990,Water.org has been working in partnership with women around the world, empowering them to take control of their own water and sanitation solutions.

Globally, one in eight people lack a reliable, safe source of water. More than twice as many people don’t have a sanitary toilet. While this crisis affects everyone, the burden falls overwhelmingly (and literally) on the shoulders of women and girls. They are the ones walking miles or waiting hours in line for water which is often not safe, carrying vessels that weigh up to 44 pounds. As a result, women are unable to earn an income, girls are unable to attend school, and the cycle of disease, poverty, and lost opportunity continues.

woman1At Water.org, our vision is universal access to safe water and sanitation – in our lifetime. Recognizing that philanthropy alone will not get us there, Water.org pioneered a novel approach called WaterCredit in 2003. WaterCredit brings together microfinance and water and sanitation. By facilitating small loans for water connections and toilets, WaterCredit not only empowers people as customers and owners of their own solutions, it also exponentially increases the amount of funding available to help people obtain these two basic necessities.

To date, more than 104,600 WaterCredit loans have been made across three continents, benefitting 590,000 people. Global repayment rates are 99 percent. More than 89 percent of borrowers are women.

One of these women is Surbani, who lives in Salepur slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with her husband and four daughters. Previously, she collected water two to three times per day from a public standpost; each trip took an hour or more. After learning about WaterCredit from Water.org’s local partner,DSK, Surbani played an instrumental role in forming a community-based organization in order to take out a loan. Eight months from the loan application, the new tubewell was complete, and life was forever changed for Surbani and her four daughters. Today, Surbani has time to work, generating income that can help pay for school for her daughters, and she has new respect in her home and in her community. surbanis_new_pump

Thanks to the support of organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, Catapult, and countless caring individuals, Water.org has empowered more than one million people around the world with safe water and sanitation. In the process, this has provided the most essential and basic foundation for women’s empowerment. I invite you to join us.

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Community-based technology benefits women

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

Henrietta Miers is a senior associate of WISE Development, a consulting company focused on boosting economic opportunities for poor women.  Her article, “Focus on Gender: Small-scale tech can transform women’s lives” explains the important role of technology in the lives of women living in poverty.  Specifically she sites Practical Action as an NGO that supports community-operated technology and discusses community-based systems in Pakistan that allow women the opportunity to benefit from small-scale technology.  Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP), the NGO responsible for introducing micro-hydroelectric technology to the area, promotes the active role of women in its implementation and installation.

To read more about the benefits of this technology and others like it read Henrietta Miers’ full article on SciDev.net here. 

 

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What access to clean water means for women and girls in Bogu, Ghana

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

Guest post by Jordan Teague, Research Assistant at WASH Advocates.  This blog is cross-posted on WASH Advocates and Maternal Health Task Force.

WASH_stamp-3

When I arrived in the village of Bogu in the Northern Region of Ghana, the first thing I saw was a group of women and girls with metal buckets on their head, walking toward us. They were returning from an hours-long walk to collect water from the government-built dugout. The water in the dugout is very turbid, or cloudy, which is a common sign of contamination; and it is contaminated with both human and animal waste. Yet Bogu’s women and girls must use it for all of their households’ drinking, cooking, cleaning and other needs.

More than 780 million people around the world lack access to safe drinking water, and seven million of them live in rural Ghana. Women and girls worldwide collectively spend 200 billion hours each day walking to collect water – time that could be spent in school or in income-producing activities. Many girls drop out of school or miss one week each month when they start their periods because of their schools lack toilets and menstrual pads. Collecting water not only takes up a great amount of women and girls’ time, it also exposes them to the adverse health effects that come with carrying an average of 44 pounds of water on their heads. Without access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), women and girls are exposed to infections, a lack of dignity, and a higher risk of maternal mortality.

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Photo used with permission from Smitten and Hooked: http://smittenandhooked.com/

Access to WASH improves maternal, newborn, and child health in a multitude of ways and has effects that can last for generations. Clean water and hygienic practices are critical to keeping mothers and infants healthy during and just after birth. As they grow, children benefit immensely, as the life-threatening water-related diseases that disproportionately affect them decline.  In addition, hand-washing by children results in gains in global development quotients such as height, weight and social skills. Girls are able to stay in school, getting an education that opens new economic opportunities for them and their families, enables them to delay marriage, and  not only improves their health, but raises the chances that their children will be healthy as well.

Community Water Solutions (CWS) uses an innovative approach to empower women to launch sustainable water businesses in rural Ghana. Throughout my few weeks in Bogu, my team and I worked with two women of the community, Zaba and Zuira – training them in the CWS method of water treatment and in financial management. When we left, Zaba and Zuira were successfully running a water treatment center that provides clean drinking water to the community, uses local products, and generates income for the two women. The women and children of Bogu now have reduced risk of water-related disease from drinking contaminated water, and new mothers and infants are more likely to have access to clean water. WASH has changed the lives of the women and girls of Bogu, and is doing so around the world.

This blog is part of the ongoing WASH and Women’s Health series coordinated by WASH Advocates for the MHTF blog. For more posts in the series, click here.

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Water is Life: Women and Water in the Kibera Slum

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

The Pulitzer Center’s WATER IS LIFE illustrates the importance of this precious resource for women in Kibera.  Explaining that “the burden of responsibility for water falls disproportionately on young women and girls,” the video details the effects of water scarcity on domestic activities, education and safety.

Find out more at Water Wars: Ethiopia and Kenya.

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Getting Water to Women: AMREF’s Mkuranga District WASH Project, Tanzania

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

Guest post by Koronel Mashalla Kema, Programme Manager and Technical WASH leader with AMREF Tanzania. Based in Dar es Salaam, he is also a Paul Harris Fellow with Rotary International.  This blog is cross-posted on Maternal Health Task Force and WASH Advocates.

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Photo by Rebecca Fishman, WASH Advocates

As an engineer with a public health focus working with the African Medical & Research Foundation (AMREF), I am interested in addressing challenges faced by communities in need, especially women and children.

I joined AMREF in April 2003 as Project Manager for the Mkuranga water, hygiene, and sanitation (WASH) project. In 2006, I became the Program Manager and WASH Technical Lead, with responsibility for overall leadership, management, policy and technical guidance. My vision is to realize equitable and sustainable development achieved by empowering individuals and families to make changes in their lives supported by responsive health systems.

For example, AMREF helped construct a shallow well in their area so the women of Mkuranga no longer have to share their water with pigs and baboons. “We are very happy,” says Amina, a local resident.  “Now we have a clean supply of water throughout the year, and we don’t have to worry about the animals. The well is covered, so they can’t dirty the water, and there is enough for everyone.”

Under the five-year Mkuranga District WASH Program, AMREF constructed 117 shallow wells and 21 boreholes, increasing access to clean and safe water to 85 percent in the project areas. AMREF provided the equipment, materials and technical expertise to construct the wells, while the communities provided the labor.

Besides making the search for water easier and safer, the construction of the wells also reduced the time women use in looking for water, leaving them free to engage in economic activities and take better care of their children. Enrollment in primary schools has gone up too as children now have time to attend their lessons. The availability of clean water (voluntary community workers emphasize that the water must be boiled, even if it is from a well) has also led to a dramatic decrease in water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid and intestinal worms.

Following the success of AMREF Tanzania’s Mkuranga WASH project, best practices were applied to the expansion of that program to Serengeti, Mtwara, Musoma and Makete rural districts.  To achieve the desired results and outcomes, AMREF works closely with the government of Tanzania, alongside the targeted communities and their respective leadership.

Our future focus is on the integration of WASH with other cross cutting sectors, so as to holistically address the needs of women and children in African communities.

 

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Introducing WASH and Women’s Health: a blog series coordinated by WASH Advocates

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Danielle Gambogi

This guest post by Rebecca Fishman, Director of Operations and Special Projects at WASH Advocates, is the first in the series WASH & Women’s Health, which WASH Advocates is coordinating for the MHTF blog.  This blog is cross-posted on the Maternal Health Task Force and WASH Advocates.

WASH_stamp-3

Access to clean water is not only one of the world’s most urgent health issues, but it is also a key to boosting progress in developing countries. Women and children are disproportionately affected by inadequate water, sanitation and, hygiene (WASH), and they shoulder the largest burden in collecting drinking water. What is more, when the needs of women and girls are not taken into account, the effects are felt far and wide, reaching across the education, health, security, and economic sectors.  On the other hand, improving WASH can have positive impacts throughout a girl’s life, and can even extend across generations. As we know, when women thrive, so do their communities.

In this spirit, WASH Advocates is excited to collaborate with the Maternal Health Task Force to highlight the positive impact WASH and women. The blog series will be published ahead of International Women’s Day(March 8), World Water Day (March 22), and during this United Nations-designed International Year of Water Cooperation. The authors, who include colleagues involved in WASH programming around the world, will comment on the value of WASH through a woman’s life cycle and the extensive connections to health, economic empowerment, and education.

I manage the women and girls portfolio for WASH Advocates and recently presented a poster on WASH and MNCH linkages at the Global Maternal Health Conference (GMHC2013) in Tanzania. My colleague, Lauren Herzer, of the Woodrow Wilson International Center also attended and penned a terrific blog post for the Maternal Health Task Force exploring the potential for synergies between WASH and maternal health efforts. In addition, I am pleased that this series will include blog posts from some of the many excellent partners I visited in Tanzania after the conference.

A nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy initiative, WASH Advocates strives to increase awareness of water, sanitation, and hygiene issues and solutions and to increase the amount and effectiveness of resources devoted to those solutions throughout the developing world.

For more information about this topic and any of the posts, contact Rebecca at rfishman@WASHadvocates.org. 

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