Clean Water for a Child

A small investment that can change one life forever

$25

Diarrhea causes the needless deaths of 1.5 million children under the age of 5 every year. The solution is at hand and it's simple. With access to clean drinking water a child has a chance at a healthier, brighter future. Where clean water and sanitation are readily available children are sick less often, girls have a greater chance of getting an education, which in turn leads to the improved health of their future children.

Soap for Good Hygiene

A small gift that packs a lot of poverty fighting punch

$20

About 1.5 million children under the age of five die needlessly each year due to water and sanitation related diseases, most commonly diarrhea. Hand washing with soap reduces child diarrheal deaths by more than 40 percent and is considered by experts to be the single most cost effective health intervention in the developing world. This soapy gift helps to promote hygiene and save lives!

One Foot of a Shallow Well

A gift that keeps on giving

$40

A hand dug well provides a sustainable source of clean, safe drinking water that helps communities to thrive! These wells, which can be dug by local laborers, are up to 30 meters deep and are carefully lined with concrete rings call caissons to avoid pollution. Thousands of children, women and men can enjoy the health, economic and social benefits provided by a single hand-dug well. Now that's a gift that keeps on giving!

Four Taps for a New Water Point

A gift that's all about the sharing

$60

Taps for new water points, particularly at schools, facilitate responsible and equitable water usage by hundreds of students. Multiple water taps mean that children don't need to stand in long queues to get a drink of water or to wash their hands. It also means that water is less likely to be wasted as the taps seal off water flow more effectively than other makeshift methods.

Clean Water for a Family of Four

A present that supports dreams and development

$100

It costs on average $25 to provide one person with clean drinking water for life! Just imagine the life-changing impact this gift will have on an entire family. Mothers, relieved of the drudgery of collecting water, are able to pursue other productive activities, and children, healthy and bright-eyed, will spend more time learning and playing. Clean water has the power to propel an entire family onto a road toward self-sufficiency, health and prosperity!

Hygiene Education Materials for 30 Students

A gift that equips young agents of change

$50

Promotion of good hygiene practices, like frequent hand washing and safe water storage, is an important component of all WaterCan projects. At schools, teachers and student health club members help to spread the word through songs, poetry, drama and the arts. Students then carry these messages home to their parents, thereby helping to effect positive change in the broader community.

Train Ten Water and Sanitation Attendants

A meaningful gift that empowers and sustains

$100

Select community members are trained to operate, manage and maintain new water and sanitation facilities. These committees also play an important role in helping to support hygiene education activities in the community. This approach helps to reinforce local ownership, builds capacity and skills, and ensures that WaterCan projects serve communities for many years to come.

Tools and Construction Materials

A practical present that gets the work done

$500

Strong shovels, wheelbarrows, cement, rolls of chicken wire, steel reinforcements and plastic water pipes are just a few of the construction materials required to make water and sanitation projects possible. While WaterCan provides funding for many crucial tools and materials, community members are encouraged to demonstrate their support for the project by securing locally available materials like wood and sand.

One Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) Latrine Stall

A gift that tackles disease and poverty at the source

$900

Hygienic toilets are just as important as clean water to improve health. In fact the British Medical Journal recently voted sanitation the greatest medical advance in the last century and a half, ahead of antibiotics and anesthesia! There's nothing more basic, or more important than having a clean, private place to relieve yourself, yet more than 2.5 billion people around the world do without.

A Hand Pump

A present that gets the water flowing

$1100

Hand pumps help to get water flowing deep underground to the surface quickly to provide the clean, safe water desperately required by communities throughout eastern Africa. There are many varieties of hand pumps, but WaterCan carefully selects only those that use low-cost and locally appropriate technologies. This means that all tools and parts required for maintenance and repair are easily accessible through local markets.

100 Liters of a Rainwater Storage Tank

A gift that harnesses nature for those who need it most

$30

Rainwater provides a useful clean water supply in places where rainfall is abundant. Rainwater is one of the purest forms of water, having been distilled through the natural processes of evaporation and condensation so it's perfectly safe to drink. Many schools and health clinics collect rainwater from their roofs using gutters and large water storage tanks. Special care is taken to use the water responsibly so as not to waste or pollute it.