Mission - Vision - Objective

Vision:

All families in disadvantaged areas in particular households with unsafe drinking water and poor hygiene and sanitation have access to clean water for better health and live healthily in a pleasant environment.

Mission:

Help disadvantaged communities to get the most basic of human needs, i.e. clean drinking water and reduce morbidity and mortality from waterborne diseases in the intervention areas. 

Objectives:

While over 80% of the world’s population is living in abundance of foods and water with adequate sanitation facilities, the remaining 20% is in desperate need - dying from hunger, thirst and water diseases like: cholera, onchochercose, dysentery and malaria primarily due to the lack of a clean water source.

Many of the world’s poor find themselves living in conditions where only one well serves the entire community.  Access to clean water negatively impacts basic sanitation levels as the ability to clean clothes and eating utensils is drastically impaired. 

While most of the population in the western world have never been thirsty or never had to leave their house and walk 5 miles to get water, they just turn on the tap and clean water comes out, 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to the world’s most precious resource: safe, clean and potable drinking water. In those poor remote communities, mostly women and children are in charge to provide water to the family.

SOS clean water has a mission to assist those disadvantaged communities worldwide in obtaining the most basic of human needs:  clean, potable and safe water for drinking, cooking and cleaning.

SOS clean water invites you to put yourself in those poorest remote communities’ shoes. Follow them on their daily journey carrying 80 pounds of water in yellow fuel cans, digging in sand for water and/or lining up at a well and wait 8 hours for a turn.

SOS Clean Water is bringing help to those remote disadvantaged communities to access to safe, clean and potable drinking water by digging freshwater wells, building rainwater catchments through Funds raised and corporate support. Fund raising can help, but little will be achieved unless a greater effort is made to ensure that services reach those who need them most.

In 2008, 8.8 million children born alive across the world died before their fifth birthday. Most of these children lived in developing countries and died from a disease or a combination of diseases that could easily have been prevented or treated – antibiotics for pneumonia, for example, or a simple mix of water, salt and sugar for diarrhea. Under nutrition contributes to over a third of these deaths.

Child mortality is closely linked to poverty. Advances in infant and child survival have come more slowly in poor countries and to the poorest people in wealthier countries. Improvements in public health services are essential, including safe water and better sanitation. Education, especially for girls and mothers, will also save children's lives. Raising income can help, but little will be achieved unless a greater effort is made to ensure that services reach those who need them most. 

The challenge (diarrheal decease) 

Diarrheal diseases account for 18 per cent of deaths among children under five years of age worldwide, or an estimated 1.7 million child deaths every year - making them the second most common cause of child deaths globally.
 
Diarrhea is caused by ingesting certain bacteria, viruses or parasites that may be spread by water, food, utensils, hands, and flies. Most diarrhea-related deaths in children are due to dehydration - the loss of large quantities of water and electrolytes (sodium, potassium and bicarbonate) from the body in liquid stool. Measures to prevent diarrheal episodes include promoting exclusive breastfeeding, raising vitamin A supplementation rates, improving hygiene, increasing the use of improved sources of drinking water and sanitation facilities, promoting zinc intake and immunizing against rotavirus.

A special focus of our efforts will be towards providing potable drinking water and bringing sanitation facilities within the reach of the poor.

In most societies, women have primary responsibility for management of household water supply, sanitation and health.  Water is necessary not only for drinking, but also for food production and preparation, care of domestic animals, personal hygiene, care of the sick, cleaning, washing and waste disposal. Because of their dependence on water resources, women have accumulated considerable knowledge about water resources, including location, quality and storage methods. However, efforts geared towards improving the management of the world’s finite water resources and extending access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, often overlook the central role of women in water management.

It is well known that water is LIFE, which means water equals livelihoods. It is the route out of poverty for individuals and communities. Managing water is essential if the world is to achieve sustainable development. 

Using water

History shows a strong link between economic development and water resources development. There are abundant examples of how water has contributed to economic development and how development has demanded increased harnessing of water. Steadily rising demand for agricultural products to satisfy the diverse needs of growing populations (for food, fiber and now fuel) has been the main driver behind agricultural water use.  The effects of water-depleting and water polluting activities on human and ecosystem health remains largely unreported or difficult to measure, and the need grows stronger for effective protection of ecosystems and the goods and services they produce – on which life and livelihoods depend. As competition among demands on water increases, society will need to respond with improved water management, more effective policies and transparent and efficient water allocation mechanisms.  

Water’s many benefits

Water has always played a key role in economic development, and economic development has always been accompanied by water development. Investment in water management has been repaid through livelihood security and reductions in health risks, vulnerability and ultimately poverty. Water contributes to poverty alleviation in many ways – through sanitation services, water supply, affordable food and enhanced resilience of poor communities faced with disease, climate shocks and environmental degradation. Water of the right quality can improve health through better sanitation and hygiene and, when applied at the right time, can enhance the productivity of land, labor and other productive inputs. In addition, healthy freshwater ecosystems provide multiple goods and services essential to life and livelihood. The importance of water services is especially apparent in societies where normal social life and political structures have broken down. In these fragile states the government cannot or will not deliver core functions to most of its people, including the poor. While each fragile state is fragile in different ways and for different  reasons – war, post-conflict recovery, major natural catastrophe, prolonged mismanagement and political repression – a striking commonality in reports from aid agencies is the prominence of water and sanitation in relief and reconstruction programs. The rapid restoration of viable water services is often a crucial ingredient of nation-building in these fragile states.  

Evolution of water use  

While most of the old challenges of water supply, sanitation and environmental sustainability remain, new challenges such as adaptation to climate change, rising food and energy prices, and ageing infrastructure are increasing the complexity and financial burden of water management. Population growth and rapid economic development have led to accelerated freshwater withdrawals. Trends in access to domestic water supply indicate substantial improvement in the past decade, putting most countries on track to achieve the water supply target of the Millennium Development Goals. However, sanitation is lagging well behind, and most sub-Saharan African countries and many rural areas still show unsatisfactory records for both water supply and sanitation. Steadily increasing demand for agricultural products to satisfy the needs of a growing population continues to be the main driver behind water use. While world population growth has slowed since the 1970s and is expected to continue its downward trend, steady economic development, in particular in emerging market economies, has translated into demand for a more varied diet, including meat and dairy products, putting additional pressure on water resources. After agriculture, the two major users of water for development are industry and energy (20% of total water withdrawals), which are transforming the patterns of water use in emerging market economies. Water and energy share the same drivers: demographic, economic, social and technological processes put pressure on both energy and water. The recent acceleration in the production of biofuel and the impacts of climate change bring new challenges and add to the pressures on land and water resources. Freshwater ecosystems provide an extensive array of vital services to support human well-being. A variety of economic and recreational activities such as navigation, fisheries and pastoral activities depend on direct use of water in healthy ecosystems. Yet some environmental services receive inadequate policy attention and are endangered by the way development sectors use water.

Impacts of water use on water systems and the environment The pattern and intensity of human activity have disrupted – through impacts on quantity and quality – the role of water as the prime environmental agent. In some areas depletion and pollution of economically important river basins and associated aquifers have gone beyond the point of no return, and coping with a future without reliable water resources systems is now a real prospect in parts of the world. While the intensity of groundwater use, partly encouraged by subsidized rural electrification, has led to the emergence of many groundwater-dependent economies, their future is now threatened by aquifer depletion and pollution. Prospects for relaxing use of these key aquifers, remediating water quality and restoring groundwater services to ecosystems look remote unless alternative management approaches are developed.

Our ability to maintain the environmental services we depend on has improved but remains constrained by an incomplete understanding of the magnitude and impact of pollution, the resilience of affected ecosystems and the social institutions that use and manage water resources systems. A failure to monitor the negative impacts of water use on the environment and institutional weaknesses in many developing countries prevent effective enforcement of regulatory provisions. Relevant information about pollution loads and changes in water quality is lacking precisely where water use is most intense – in densely populated developing countries. As a result, the often serious impacts of polluting activities on the health of people and ecosystems remain largely unreported. Still, there are signs of progress in how pollution and the risks of pollution can be mitigated and trends in environmental degradation reversed.  

State of the resource

The uneven distribution over time and space of water resources and their modification through human use and abuse are sources of water crises in many parts of the world. In many areas hydrologic extremes have increased. Deaths and material damage from extreme floods can be high, and more intense droughts, affecting increasing numbers of people, have been observed in the 21st century. Worldwide, water observation networks are inadequate for current and future management needs and risk further decline. There are insufficient data to understand and predict the current and future quantity and quality of water resources, and political protocols and imperatives for sharing data are inadequate.