Water

Imagine having to walk under the boiling sun for three hours a day only to fetch a small bucket of murky water for your family. The water you have found has been sitting out in the open, being exposed to all types of germs. Dying of thirst, you have no choice but to take the water and walk another three hours to bring it back. Welcome to the lives of women and children in developing countries.

Believe it or not, while you can have a glass of pure and clean water whenever you want to, nearly one billion people around the world do not have that privilege. In the developing world, women in total spend 40 billion hours a year walking to collect water for their families. Now, imagine what other things you can do with that much time instead of walking under the scorching sun.

The number of people mentioned above does not even take into account those with access to contaminated water sources. According to the World Health Organization, there are additionally 1.8 billion people using contaminated water sources for a living. Consuming contaminated water can lead to diseases such as diarrhoea, which reportedly causes 2 million deaths annually.