Water.org is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries.

We envision a day when everyone can have safe water. How far will you go?

Water

• 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people. (5)



• 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease. (11)
• The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. (1)
• People living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city. (1)
• An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day. (1)

Sanitation

• Only 62% of the world’s population has access to improved sanitation – defined as a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact. (5)



• Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection. (9)
• 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who have no facilities at all. (5)
• Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most occupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities. (8)

Children

• Diarrhea remains in the second leading cause of death among children under five globally. Nearly one in five child deaths – about 1.5 million each year – is due to diarrhea. It kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. (13)
• Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. (2)
• Diarrhea is more prevalent in the developing world due, in large part, to the lack of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as poorer overall health and nutritional status. (13)



• Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time. (8)
• In the developing world, 24,000 children under the age of five die every day from preventable causes like diarrhea contracted from unclean water. (13)
• 1.4 million children die as a result of diarrhea each year. (11)

Women

• In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women’s time is consumed for the most basic of human needs — collecting water for domestic use.
• This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger, according to Gary White, co-founder of Water.org.



• Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. (1)
• A study by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) of community water and sanitation projects in 88 communities found that projects designed and run with the full participation of women are more sustainable and effective than those that do not. This supports an earlier World Bank study that found that women’s participation was strongly associated with water and sanitation project effectiveness. (7)

Disease

• At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. (1)
• The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter.9
• Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvements reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a sustainable way. (14)



• 88% of cases of diarrhea worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene. (9)
• 90% of all deaths caused by diarrheal diseases are children under 5 years of age, mostly in developing countries. (8)
• It is estimated that improved sanitation facilities could reduce diarrhea-related deaths in young children by more than one-third. If hygiene promotion is added, such as teaching proper hand washing, deaths could be reduced by two thirds. It would also help accelerate economic and social development in countries where sanitation is a major cause of lost work and school days because of illness. (6)

Economics

• Over 50 percent of all water projects fail and less than five percent of projects are visited, and far less than one percent have any longer-term monitoring. (10)
• Investment in safe drinking water and sanitation contributes to economic growth. For each $1 invested, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates returns of $3 – $34, depending on the region and technology. (14)



• Almost two in every three people who need safe drinking water survive on less than $2 a day and one in three on less than $1 a day.
• Households, not public agencies, often make the largest investment in basic sanitation, with the ratio of household to government investment typically 10 to 1. (15)
• Investment in drinking-water and sanitation would result in 272 million more school attendance days a year. The value of deaths averted, based on discounted future earnings, would amount to US$ 3.6 billion a year.(15)

Environment

• Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use. (12)
• More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas. (16)



• The UN estimates that by 2025, forty-eight nations, with combined population of 2.8 billion, will face freshwater “stress” or “scarcity”. Our Water.org High School Curriculum
• Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater by far: about 70% of all freshwater withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture. (14)
• At home the average American uses between 100 and 175 gallons of water a day. That is less than 25 years ago, but it does not include the amount of water used to feed and clothe us.
• Conserving water helps not only to preserve irreplaceable natural resources, but also to reduce the strain on urban wastewater management systems. Wastewater is costly to treat, and requires continuous investment to ensure that the water we return to our waterways is as clean as possible. Water.org High School curriculum

Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad.

God’s grace in Jesus Christ moves us to help our neighbors, whether they live in the next house, the next state, or the next continent.

Confronting the problem of hunger can seem overwhelming.

What can one person do? Plenty.

Bread for the World members write personal letters and emails and meet with our members of Congress.

Working through our churches, campuses, and other organizations, we engage more people in advocacy.

Each year, Bread for the World invites churches across the country to take up a nationwide Offering of Letters to Congress on an issue that is important to hungry and poor people.

Hunger and Poverty

• Despite years of progress against hunger, in 2010, it is estimated that 925 million people suffer from hunger. This is due to a sudden spike in global food prices and the onset of a world-wide economic crisis. United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation
• In 2005, the latest year for which data is available, 1.4 billion people in developing countries lived in extreme poverty, or on less than $1.25 a day, down from 1.9 billion in 1981.

Regional disparities

• Poverty has declined dramatically in East Asia and in India since 1981 relative to population growth. Sub-Saharan Africa has seen little change in the proportion of people who live in extreme poverty between 1981 and 2005, with 51% of the population living on less than $1.25 per day, down from 53% in 1981.  The absolute number of people in extreme poverty has almost doubled during the same period, from 200 million in 1981 to almost 400 million in 2005. World Development Indicators 2009, World Bank Group, p. 69;   http://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty.
• About 75% of the world’s poor people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

Malnutrition

• In 2008, nearly 9 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday. One third of these deaths are due directly or indirectly to hunger and malnutrition. Malnutrition is not having enough nourishing food, with adequate amounts of protein, vitamins, minerals and calories to support physical and mental growth and development. Children who survive early childhood malnutrition suffer irreversible harm—including poor physical growth, compromised immune function, and impaired cognitive ability.
• Around the world, 178 million children under 5 are stunted, low height for age. Of all stunted children, 90 percent live in just 36 countries, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Central Asia.
• In countries with high levels of childhood malnutrition, the economic loss can be as high as 2-3 percent of GDP.

U.S. Development Assistance

• U.S. development assistance accounts for about 0.2% of gross national income.
• Since 2000, U.S. poverty-focused development assistance has tripled, and currently totals a little over $28 billion (Bread for the World estimate), but this amount still represents less than 1% of the federal budget.
• From 1985 to 2005, U.S. development assistance to support agriculture and rural development declined from 12 percent of all official development assistance to just 3.1 percent.

NEW!!! What Are Food Banks?
Food Banks are distribution hubs. They supply the food to the Soup Kitchens, Food Pantries, Shelters etc. They in turn provide that food to the individuals that need it. Food Banks do not directly serve individuals in need.

Food: Are you or anyone you know hungry but do not know where the next meal is coming from? Seriously! Here at Hope or Die we do not believe anyone should be without a meal to get through every day. That’s why as we continue to grow we are diligent in selecting random locations in cities around the world to ensure those we come in contact with have a meal to prevent their stomach from touching their back by starving. We Care!