The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 is to “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” and achieving this goal this is vitally important as it is believed that will lead to the unlocking of the resources required to meet the rest of the Sustainable Development Goals.

While most of us living in developed countries do not even think twice about the availability of water and merely turn open the tap and let it gush forth, there are still billions of people living without safe water and sanitation across the globe, especially in developing countries.

In many countries where there is no access to fresh drinking water, someone has to walk to the closest source, often polluted rivers, to fetch water for the family’s daily needs. More often than not, it is either the women or the girl-child to whom this task falls. This serves to ensure that women remain uneducated, as there is no time for schooling, and this adds to the poverty level of the family and community at large.

Apart from the fact that these girl-children miss out on school due to the fact that they have to spend hours collecting water every day, they are also often put in the path of danger from the elements, human predators and dangerous wildlife.

Many times the only water that is available is so badly polluted that people get very ill with water-related diseases such as:

  • Waterborne diseases, including cholera, typhoid, and dysentery; caused by drinking water containing infectious viruses or bacteria, which often come from human or animal waste.
  • Water-washed diseases, such as skin and eye infections; caused by lack of clean water for washing.
  • Water-based diseases, such as schistosomiasis; spread by organisms that develop in water and then become human parasites. They are spread by contaminated water and by eating insufficiently cooked fish.
  • Water-related insect vectors, such as mosquitoes, breed in or near water and spread diseases, including dengue and malaria. This category is not directly related to water supply or quality.

Achieving SDG 6 will mean that everyone can have access to education, which will help lift communities out of the poverty cycle; there will be less water-related illnesses and less children dying from them, and the installation and management of services that provide the water will mean work for many in the communities.

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