WATER

Water is life.  We drink it. We wash our hands and cook our food in it.  Access to safe water lets us be healthy and productive.  There is presently enough water to meet everyone’s needs.

yet

•  over 1.1 billion poor people are denied access to clean water.
• over 4,000 children die each day from diarrhea caused by dirty water.
• Women and girls in poor countries walk on average six kilometers a day, carrying 20 litres of water.
• In July, 2007 Health Canada warned over ninety First Nations communities not to drink their tap water. 

Let’s open the taps to clean water for all.

EDUCATION

Everyone has the right to an education.  An education is crucial to break the cycle of poverty. It is a catalyst for progress in virtually every area of human development.

 yet

• in many poor countries, parents must pay for school.
• forced to choose, poor families tend to pick sons before daughters
• over 80 million children, mostly girls, are not in school.
• the average 16-year-old girl in Africa has received less than three years of schooling.
• two million more teachers are needed to ensure public education for all.    

Let’s open classrooms for all children.

HEALTH

Health care is a human right. Good health begins with adequate care during pregnancy and childbirth. And we all need access to a doctor or nurse when we get sick.

yet

• in the poorest countries, only half of women giving birth get help from a trained health care worker.
• each day 1,400 women die needlessly in pregnancy and childbirth.
• poor countries need over four million more health care workers
• Aboriginal people have more health problems and live shorter lives than Canadians as a whole.

Let’s open the door to quality health care for all.

SANITATION

yet

• almost half the world has no access to proper sanitation.
• millions of children in the global South miss school due to water-related illnesses.
• dirty water kills over three million people a year.
• millions of girls do not attend school because there aren’t suitable sanitation facilities. 

Let’s open decent sanitation facilities for all.