Think Bigg

Think of it as the developing world’s dirty little secret: the growing water and sanitation crisis around the world is responsible for the deaths of two million people, mostly children under five, each year.

According to the NY Times,

…more than a third of the world’s people — 2.6 billion — have no decent place to go to the bathroom, while more than a billion get water for drinking, washing and cooking from sources polluted by human and animal feces.

At any time, almost half the people in developing countries have one or more of the main illnesses associated with inadequate water and sanitation and fill half the hospital beds, the report said. They are plagued by diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, trachoma and parasitic worms.

Contrary to popular assumption, according to the recently released United Nations Human Development Report, poverty, unequal access, wars, migration and unsustainable consumption patterns are the leading causes of the water crisis rather than just scarcity of freshwater resources.

The report estimates that less than half of what rich countries spend on bottled water — $10 billion a year — would be enough to halve the percentage of people without access to safe drinking water and to provide them with simple pit latrines.

How can you help? Global Giving, a nonprofit organization founded by two former World Bank executives, is offering you the chance to provide clean water to places like Mozambique, India, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Ethiopia. Your donation, in contribution with others, can directly fund the sanitation projects in areas that need it most.

Why not take the $50 a month you spend on Starbucks, and give someone else the gift of clean water?

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