Clean Water

On 16 September 2020, a student stands in an empty classroom in Panama City, Panama. A generation of children in Latin America and the Caribbean are missing out on schooling because of COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, 97 per cent of the region’s students have been deprived of their normal schooling. More than seven months into the pandemic, COVID-19 is putting education on hold for more than 137 million children in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is according to a new UNICEF report about the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on education. Since the start of the pandemic, children in Latin American and the Caribbean have already lost on average four times more days of schooling (174) compared to the rest of the world. In a region with over 11 million cases of COVID-19 to date, most students are now at risk of missing out on an entire school year. While schools are gradually reopening in several parts of the world, the vast majority of classrooms are still closed across the region. Almost half of all countries in Latin…

Michel became a mom in June 2021, when baby Nathan was born; she’s part of the Wayuu community. She lives with her dad, brother and another child that a friend asked her to care for two years ago. She’s a medical laboratory technician and holds a B.A. in Administration. Although she currently works as a Procurement Analyst, she doesn’t make enough to pay for basic needs. Michel has participated in different IRC-supported programs in the community center that is located a couple blocks away from her house. She first visited to get attention after experiencing pain while breast feeding, that’s how she joined the breast-feeding orientation program, in which she has now started to participate to share with other moms-to-be her experience. Additionally, she has joined the Wapushii program after Nathan was born, where she learns how to promote his development during the Early Childhood stage; she also has accessed…

*A happy girl at the playground of her school made out of recycled plastic bricks, in Toumodi-Sakassou, in the center of Côte d’Ivoire. Due to COVID-19, the schools were closed for several weeks. Classes started, and children are happy to see their friends…UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire has partnered with Columbian social business Conceptos Plasticos to turn plastic waste into construction materials for new schools. Research suggests that over the next 30 years, the world may produce four times more plastic than we ever have before. Finding innovative uses for plastic will become imperative to public health. Without plastic waste management, groundwater pollution may leave many communities without access to clean water. Plastic-clogged drains could continue to cause flooding and damage infrastructure. And air pollution from burning trash will pose major environmental and health risks. Because of their cost-effectiveness, durability, and ease-of-assembly, bricks made from 100% plastic waste have the potential to…

A fight against the spread of hunger is underway across East Africa, where 32.9 million people are experiencing a complex hunger crisis driven by conflict, the economic impacts of the global pandemic, swarms of desert locusts, and extreme weather conditions. According to the United Nations, at least 5.3 million people in Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Sudan are living under “emergency” conditions, with the threat of acute malnutrition and death. In South Sudan, 105,000 are living under “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity. By air, land, and sea, World Vision teams are delivering emergency food supplies across the region—an area so vast it equates to more than half the size of the United States—in a race to feed hungry families living in some of the most dangerous and isolated places on earth. “We are marshaling resources to support vulnerable communities across East Africa to avert the catastrophic effects of hunger and loss…

The rainy season has ended in southern Ethiopia and the long period of thirst has begun. People in the remote villages of Borena region, and in particular, women make day-long journeys for water. “I used to travel all the way to the top of the mountain and then all the way down to fetch water. I left at 6 AM and came back around 6 PM. I walked all this time just to fetch one jerrycan of water,” remembers Loko, a single mother of five children. “[And the] water was contaminated. The water was not enough for my children, not enough for our drinking, not enough for our daily living. We suffered a lot in the past.” All on her own, even months pregnant, she walked 12 hours daily carrying heavy containers of water that barely lasted through the day. “I didn’t have a donkey to carry the water, so…

In 2020, International Medical Corps used diesel-fueled trucks to deliver approximately 315,000 liters of clean water daily across five refugee camps in Nigeria. Clean water is essential for drinking, cooking, sanitation and hygiene, which helps to prevent malnutrition, infection and disease. Though our assistance was invaluable, delivering water by truck is not cost-effective or energy-efficient. And in between water deliveries, community residents had to travel hours through dangerous territory to the closest working aquifer, leaving them open to harassment and abuse—or worse—during their journey. To provide safe, sustainable, long-term sources of clean water to these communities, we needed a better method. Our team decided to harness the power of the sun. “Given the current price inflation and the absence of steady fuel access in Nigeria, using solar panels to power water systems—though expensive to install—provides a low-cost, sustainable solution for water delivery without negatively affecting the environment,” explains Syed Yasir…