World Water Day 2021: What water means for Abete Community residents
WASH Track: Informal settlements still lack structure for clean water supply
Valuing water
Woman Community Leader, Alhaja Raliat Adebisi Bello, tells us that at the heart of daily living is water. She knows that water is needed for everything they do from cleaning to bathing, washing, cooking and overall health maintenance. But, the challenge of lack of access to clean and safe water lives with the community daily.
Families buy water from water vendors, who have some water stored in tanks. As the situation got even tougher in the last two months, the dug-up wells are dried up and they manage to get water from itinerant water suppliers. Though they may not very sure how clean the water is.
As limited access of lack of access to clean water is a problem in Abete and other informal settlements, the worry remains that health of under-five children remains threatened because water plays center role in ensuring adequate sanitation. How people get water for regular handwashing after using the toilet becomes a challenge, especially when they are nursing young children.
We encourage you to take a closer look and consideration of the SDG 17, which is partnership. Work with us to make the much needed difference and a long-lasting change.
Every 22 March, The World Water Day celebrates water and raises awareness of the global water crisis, with core focus to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 6 – water and sanitation for all by 2030(UNWater).
The 2021 theme of the World Water Day is ‘valuing water’ and according to the UNWater, it is much more than just the price of water. The organisation raises the attention to the fact that water has enormous and complex value for our households, food, health, culture, education and economics, and the integrity of our natural environment. And this demands that we give depth in the understanding of how valuable water is to livelihood.
In developing countries, while a few privileged people celebrate the access to safe piped water to support quality health, others like people in urban slum communities continue to deal with the water crisis on a daily basis.
The crucial concern is that while limited access to safe water, improved sanitation and hand washing facility has a strong connection to disease burdens resulting in diarrhea, a leading cause of under-five mortality, there are still huge gaps – very weak structure for ensuring availability of clean and safe water and sanitation systems.
#AtTheMarinaToday, #WashTrack
