{"id":676,"date":"2022-02-09T02:16:33","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T02:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellreceived.com\/blog\/?p=676"},"modified":"2023-05-16T11:21:51","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T11:21:51","slug":"waterschool-making-a-difference-one-drop-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellreceived.com\/blog\/waterschool-making-a-difference-one-drop-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"WaterSchool: Making a difference one drop at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a small Ugandan community, Mitala Faith was struggling<\/a> to make ends meet. He and his wife shared five children, and they were constantly sick. The cost of frequent visits to the local clinic for bouts of diarrhea, dysentery, worms, and other illnesses were adding up. What Mitala didn\u2019t realize was the source of his family\u2019s health issues could be traced to a single factor: the lack of clean drinking water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mitala<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Water Crisis in Uganda<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clean drinking water is a scarce commodity<\/a> in Uganda, inaccessible to 28 million people. In rural areas, Ugandans share lakes, ponds, and rivers\u2014often contaminated by nearby latrines or mudslide debris\u2014with livestock. This leads to a cascade of problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waterborne diseases, such as cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, and dysentery, kill more than 3.4 million people annually. They also disrupt Ugandan children\u2019s education by forcing them to miss school, resulting in a 25% dropout rate. And, on a wider scale, the water crisis takes a massive toll on Uganda\u2019s economy as a large portion of productive work time is spent collecting water and managing the health issues stemming from the unclean water collected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WaterSchool\u2019s W.A.S.H. Program<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WaterSchool<\/a> is a charitable organization whose mission is to \u201cadvance the health and wellbeing of communities in Uganda by reducing the threat of waterborne illnesses and removing barriers to education for the most vulnerable.\u201d Their program, W.A.S.H., centers around three pillars: water, sanitation, and hygiene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n