Description of the challenge you will be working with and its context
Some of the specific challenges that are to be tackled are: helping create cooperation relationships between communities in need and international agents; and strengthening the capacities of communities to improve their water and sanitation management.
The main challenge posed by Goal No 6 is the fact that money is the main limitation for many communities when improving their water management. For this reason, fundraising campaigns will be a highly important part of the project.
A second focus point for the project is to find solutions with a good effectiveness-cost ratio. For this purpose, small teams will be created and dedicated to helping one specific community. This individual approach is supposed to help manage the available resources in a more efficient way.
The most important reason to find a solution to this problem is the fact that lack of access to water that is pathogen-free and chemical-free is cause of numerous health problems and sometimes death of great numbers of people all over the world.
The quality of drinking water and the access to sanitation is directly related to the spread of disease, as many pathogens are found in untreated water sources and even in distribution systems. In the following years, pandemics are predicted by scientists to happen in a more common basis than currently, directly linked to climate change.
According to the United Nations data, 2.4 billion people worldwide do not have access to basic sanitation services, and this often results in contamination of the water sources with pathogens.
Additionally, the presence of certain chemicals in drinking-water can be the cause of numerous illnesses or conditions. Some examples of these chemicals are Iron and Copper, which originate from the oxidation or deterioration of water pipping.
In some cases, it is not the quality or safety of the water consumed by a community that is worrying. Often, communities have access to relatively safe natural or treated water, but the management of the supply is not the most appropriate. For example, when water is overused for irrigation and it is not returned to aquifers, (or it is returned but after being contaminated), this can eventually lead to water scarcity. According to the UN this is a problem that is already affecting at least 40% of the global population.
What specific measures will be implemented?
The measures taken as part of the project are highly dependent on the type of community and the problems that each team is focusing on. Some examples are listed:
- Creation or restoration of water channelings to improve the access to water sources. Also, this measure helps reduce the presence of certain chemicals or minerals in the drinking water.
- Installation of elements that make use of underground waters and aquifers, such as pumps or water wells.
- Cleaning of water sources, which reduces the need of further treatment, greatly reducing the cost of water treatment.
- Designing of low-cost water treatment plants, with the use of processes or products such as PolyGlu (sustainable and organic material that acts as coagulator and flocculator), digging of sedimentation pools, and installation of Ozone generation stations in order to provide sustainable and independent disinfection of water.