Building a Bridge to Clean Water
See how World Vision’s Water programs are using P&G Purifier of Water packets to bring clean drinking water to rural Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Originally posted on National Geographic
TODAY, MILLIONS OF people around the world are forced to drink dirty, contaminated water. Nearly 1,000 children die every day as a result of drinking unsafe water and due to poor sanitation and hygiene. Fortunately, this global crisis is being addressed with vision, skill, and the life-changing magic of chemistry.
World Vision is the largest nongovernmental (NGO) provider of clean water in the developing world, reaching one new person with clean water every 10 seconds. In 2018, P&G and World Vision celebrated a decade of partnership, providing a powerful example of what can happen when the private sector and non-profit sphere work together. Their partnership pivots around the not-for-profit Children’s Safe Drinking Water program, developed to put a life-changing technology to work. Created using the same six ingredients used in municipal water treatment plants all over the world, the powder in a single P&G Purifier of Water packet can transform 10 liters (2.5 gallons) of dirty, potentially deadly, water into clean drinkable water in only 30 minutes.
The packets are used as a life-changing “bridge” strategy in water-challenged communities where World Vision works and plans to bring a permanent, clean water source. The P&G packets are also a tool in disaster response where families are experiencing severe drought, flooding, earthquakes, typhoons and conflict. This effort has helped 6.4 million people, providing 2 billion liters of clean water in 37 countries. To date, over 200 million P&G Purifier of Water packets have been distributed by World Vision’s WASH (Water Sanitation and Hygiene) teams to rural families throughout World Vision communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
