By providing a community with safe drinking water, disease rates can drop by up to 88% virtually overnight! Child mortality rates can drop up to 90%- overnight! Clean water also plays an incredibly critical role in effectively treating and managing HIV/AIDS in rural communities. Swaziland, for example, has the single-highest-density population of HIV/AIDS in the world. For a person with HIV/AIDS, even if you have access to medical treatment or antiretroviral medication, but are still forced to drink dirty water from contaminated sources, the diseases in the water you drink will actually kill you faster than AIDS itself.

Women and children spend on average six to eight hours each day walking to fetch water. The average distance that women and children in developing communities walk to fetch water is 3.75 miles. The time children spend collecting water keeps them from going to school and getting an education.

Women, young and old, spend hours every day collecting water from sources that are typically polluted. Carrying a jerry can that weighs 44 pounds 3.75 miles is incredibly physically demanding. We’ve documented countless womens' health issues as a result of hauling water. Women experience chronic fatigue and dehydration while walking for water. Pregnant women can suffer spontaneous miscarriages because of the physical demand of collecting water. The time spent and the physical toll it takes on women to collect water keeps women from better employment opportunities to provide for their families. With close, safe drinking water, women can provide a second income for their families, and contribute to economic development in their community.

Worldwide, agriculture accounts for 70% of all water consumption. Crops and livestock must have water to grow. When a community has a close, safe water source, locally-grown food provides for a sustainable food source.

Why Students? We believe that students are THE most powerful agents for social change in the world! No other group activates like students do. Since we began educating our peers about the global water crisis in 2008, the response and initiative of students to take action on this issue has been AMAZING! We know that STUDENTS will change the world! Students are not afraid to dream, and we are only limited by what society tells us. Over half of the United States is enrolled in some type of schooling. Imagine if every single student responded and activated around the global water crisis.

When a student gains perspective on an issue as big as the global water crisis, amazing things happen! In just six years we have spoken to over 300,000 students, and STUDENTS have been the driving force in helping us raise over 8 million dollars, giving clean water to 13 different countries and over 280,000 people!

Together, this generation, everyone alive today WILL be the ones to end this. WE will be the ones to push the water crisis into the history books. We invite you to learn more here and join us.