It’s pretty simple, water. It is made out of 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. For most of us, we obtain water be walking over to a sink and opening the tap. The process for us to obtain water takes under a minute. Our water is clean, it comes from a clean source and is free of harmful bacteria and substances. Water seems to be common place in life. Water seems to be something that might be overlooked every day as we open our clean water bottles and take a drink. Water, is pretty simple- unless you live in most developing countries.
Women and children walk hours per day to obtain water, to live. They miss school, they are not able to work. The water obtained and worked so hard for is usually dirty. Not having clean water can increase a chance of sickness in a person as they are at increased risk due to ‘bugs’ and feces in the water. For most people in developing countries water is not an everyday activity that takes minutes and almost no thought. Water stops lives from progressing. Water.org states that every 20 seconds a child dies from lack of water. They state that women spend more than 200 million hours per day collecting water. They estimate that more than 3 times the number of people in the United States lack water. They estimate that 1/10 of the global disease burden could be eliminated with access to clean water. Water is pretty simple, really.
If you are reading this, you are probably one of the lucky ones. Water is pretty simple for us, but not for a lot of people. Water.org has a mission to provide clean water for everyone, that is their ultimate goal anyway. I first learned about this foundation watching a silly clip of Matt Damon playing Santa Claus on youtube.com. Here he is asking the kids what they want for Christmas and then handing them a water bottle. The kids are pretty cute on the movie, but the message hits home. Most of us do not think about the water we obtain from the faucet or the bottle of water and ask for something trivial for Christmas. In contrast, there are a lot of people struggling to survive simply because they cannot obtain water.
Water.org is doing amazing work, although it does not hurt to have Matt Damon helping you out. 
To help them in their mission does not have to cost you anything. Click here to find out how you can help by spreading the word on Facebook and Twitter. If you are able to give money, there are also many projects to donate to. You can also buy a water bottle. It’s pretty simple, really.
Latest Sweet is a place to spotlight people and organizations that are doing amazing things to help people. I chose water.org because I have been to Ghana (one of their project countries) and I have seen the water supply in outlying villages. While there we did work with funds we brought and other teams to build a water well for the people in this village. Until visiting the water.org site, I did not fully understand the impact of unsafe and hard to access water. What water.org is doing is changing lives. It’s pretty simple.
P.S. The above movie was obtained from water.org. Disclaimer: Water.org did not provide me any money or other reimbursement for this post.
I read an article in the LDS Church News about a water project in the Congo for a city of over 200,000 people. When this project was finished, they now had 6 taps for clean water in the city and they were ecstatic. I have 6 taps for clean water in my 1100 sq. foot apartment. It really makes me emotional every time I think about it. Finding ways to help people get clean water really is a good thing to do.
Thank you for the comment. I really hope you check out their site. I remember what one of the water sites looked like in the village I was in during my visit to Ghana. It was a green pond that actually was not too far of a walk for them. But you could visibly see that the water was dirty. The pond was also covered by branches. An easy fix for anyone they said is to cut the branches over their water supply. This is because animals would sit on the branch and poop straight into their water. The great thing about water is that it is not a technical need. It really is simple. They just need more awareness and support.
What a great project! I like the mnraetikg component because it addresses problems relating to information flow and also addresses an important challenge in the developing world getting folks to change some of the habits that probably were functional long ago but have since become roadblocks to positive change. Although it may not apply here, vaccinations are an example of a case where we need better mnraetikg to help folks understand how important vaccines are for their children. This is even true in the developed world!