Tagged "Water"

WORLD WATER DAY - March 22, 2013
Drinking water is fundamental to human life. Yet, thousands of children die every day from diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases because of limited access to safe water.

As the world observes World Water Day on 22 March, we look at the Loreto region of Peru. Although the Amazon, the world’s largest river, flows through this part of the country, safe water here is limited.’

You can read more about World Water Day here

A WELL OF HOPE

Join UNICEF correspondent Thomas Nybo as he reports on a programme that is bringing hope to a drought-stricken community in northeastern Kenya.

For more information, visit: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/kenya_66935.html

That’s my toilet!

Alka, 7, walks out of the her family’s new toilet and wet room in Kali Hardia. The toilet and wet room were built as part of the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program in Rajasthan, India.

World Toilet Day is observed annually on 19 November. This international day of action aims to break the taboo around toilets and draw attention to the global sanitation challenge.

Learn more: http://www.worldtoiletday.org/

THAT’S MY TOILET!

Can you imagine not having a toilet? Around the world, 1.1 billion people defecate in the open, contaminating their environments and water sources and spreading diseases like diarrhoea, which kills 2,000 children under 5 every day. In the run up to World Toilet Day on November 19, we’ll be sharing images and facts like these.

Pictured, girls walk towards newly constructed toilets in Mhondoro district, Zimbabwe.

Clean water for Syrian refugees

As more and more Syrians fleeing conflict arrive in Lebanon, UNICEF and partners are mobilizing to rush clean drinking water and other urgent supplies to the Bekaa Valley.

Children wear cat masks as they play near the rubble of destroyed homes in the neighborhood of Zeitoun in Gaza City in Occupied Palestinian Territory. The masks were distributed to children by the UNICEF-supported Palestinian Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, a community-based local NGO.

UNICEF is taking the lead role in coordinating humanitarian and recovery assistance in the sectors of child protection, education (together with the international NGO Save the Children), psychosocial support and mental health (with the World Health Organization), as well as water, sanitation and hygiene.

http://www.unicef.org

Changing rural environments in Bangaldesh

A woman holds her son, in the entrance to their recently built hut, on the newly emerged Khaser Char, off the banks of the Brahamaputra River, in Chilmari, an ‘upazila’ (sub-district) of the northern Kurigram District. After losing their previous char to erosion, her family migrated to Khaser Char. Materials from nearby fields, gathered to build a kitchen in their home, lie on the roof.

Lacking alternate places to live, char inhabitants farm or raise livestock, occupations that are highly vulnerable to seasonal monsoon flooding. Char schools are also threatened by impermanence and attendance is often low; domestic obligations, essential to their families’ well-being, take precedence over children’s education. Survival itself is precarious. UNICEF programmes in Bangladesh – in health and nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, education and child protection – must also increasingly address the mounting effects of climate change.

http://www.unicef.org

VIDEO REPORT: Catastrophic floods hit the Niger

Amidst ongoing food crisis and a cholera outbreak, heavy rains have destroyed homes and croplands in the Niger.

UNICEF is working with the Government of the Niger and partners to identify and prioritize needs, and to order life-saving supplies to continue assisting communities affected by the floods. UNICEF and its partners are calling on the international community to mobilize more resources to help people recover and to restore their self-sufficiency.

VIDEO REPORT: Sanitation campaign starts in preschool

Mobilizing women and children, the small village of Lalapur in Uttar Pradesh, India, halts the practice of defecating in the open.

A girl toddler is carried by an adult in Méguet Village in Ganzourgou Province in Plateau-Central Region of Burkina Faso. The village is ruled by a ‘Naba Saaga’ (the traditional Mossi chief of an area), who supports the EU-assisted UNICEF WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) pilot project, including to build latrines and provide safe water in the area. The Mossi are the country’s largest ethnic group.

http://www.unicef.org