Celebrating World Water Day 2015
“The best form of charity is giving water (to drink).” (hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, narrated by Ibn Majah)
Almost 800 million people across the globe are living without clean water. At Islamic Relief, we believe in giving water for life. When we build a water system, we want to ensure that after we leave, the locals never need to ask for help accessing water again.
That’s why we take a carefully tailored approach in each area. In some areas there is no groundwater, so digging a well won’t work – we build a system which catches rainwater instead. In countries which have wet, rainy seasons followed by long, dry periods, we construct micro-dams and reservoirs to store the water safely for use all year round. And to save women and children the difficult physical task of pumping water by hand, we harness natural energy with solar-powered wells. It isn’t just about building systems – it’s about building people too. We train local people to take care of their new systems, as well as teaching them how to use water safely to improve health and hygiene, so that when we leave, they have truly been given water for life.
On 22nd March 2015, World Water Day, we celebrate some of the projects we’ve recently done to deliver water to people across the globe:
Pakistan
Areas of Pakistan are extremely prone to drought and lack basic water infrastructure. We are therefore installing five solar powered water pumps that will provide over 2,300 people with a sustainable source of water for themselves and their livelihoods.
