A LOST OPPORTUNITY:

Imagine what more you could achieve if you were able to free up one, two, or even six hours in your day, every day. For many women and girls, the hours spent fetching water come at a high cost — less time spent studying, working in the fields, or running their own small businesses.

THE TYPICAL JERRY CAN THAT MANY WOMEN USE HOLDS FIVE GALLONS — THAT’S 40 POUNDS WHEN FULL.

One study showed that school attendance increased by 12% when water was available within 15 minutes of home. And when women are busy fetching water, they have less time to work and earn money. This keeps many women — and their families — trapped in a cycle of poverty, unable to earn and save the money they need to achieve a brighter future.

IMPACT ON PHYSICAL HEALTH:

Fetching water is also a physically demanding task, which can take a huge toll on the body over time. A typical jerry can (which many women use to carry water) holds five gallons — that’s 40 pounds when full. Women will either hold the can or, more commonly, balance it on their heads. If carrying 40 pounds of water on your head sounds painful, that’s because it is — especially if you’re a young girl. Many women report developing back and spinal pain over time.

Women also often get less sleep, as the hours spent fetching water cut into the time they have for other household and family tasks, leading them to stay up later just to keep up.

WHAT CONCERN IS DOING ABOUT IT:

Women and girls are at the heart of everything Concern do — especially when it comes to water. Concern’s water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH) programming builds wells and boreholes in communities so women and girls don’t have to walk for miles to fetch water. During periods of drought or conflict, we truck water into vulnerable communities. Concern also teaches good sanitation and hygiene habits, such as handwashing, so that communities stay healthy and children don’t miss school.

With millions of us staying at home worldwide due to the coronavirus lockdown, there are little green habits we can develop to help us with these goals. According to Helle Abelvik-Lawson, a UK-based campaigner at Greenpeace, “Your house or flat is just as much a part of the environment as the Arctic or the Amazon. So, if it’s the only bit of the environment you have easy access to, why not make it a greener place to live?”

Here are some ways in which every one of us can be eco-friendly during Covid-19.

1. Cut Down Energy Use At Home

Simple things like switching off your computers when you’re done with work, turning off appliances by turning off the switches means you’re cutting down on your energy use while at home. As the weather gets warmer, air drying your clothes instead of using a dryer, and washing clothes on a shorter cycle can also help with this.

2. Say No To Water Waste

The Covid-19 pandemic means we’re not only washing our hands more often, but we’re also potentially taking longer showers. Aim to take more efficient showers so you reduce your water waste. Turn off the tap while scrubbing your hands, and only turn it back on when it’s ready to be washed.

3. Give Your Car A Break If Possible

With everything under lockdown, ditching your car, for now, might be an easily achievable eco-friendly goal. Where possible, walk to your grocery store instead of driving. You not only reduce your carbon footprint, but you also get a bit of light cardio in. A win-win.

4. Nurture Your Green Thumb

No matter the size of your house, you can turn your house into a make-shift wildlife sanctuary by growing your own garden. In small spaces, you can regrow store-bought vegetables in water. If you have a bigger home, you can turn your balcony or windowsill into a mini-garden. If you have a bigger garden, dig a hole and turn it into a mini-pond for frogs and a drinking spot for birds. A DIY bird-feeder made with your children can make any sized house into a bird sanctuary.

5. Make Time For Spring Cleaning

This lockdown might be the best time to clean out your house like you’ve been planning to all these years. You can now take stock of what you have, what you really need, what you can reuse, recycle or give away. Your old glass jars and bottles can be upcycled for craft projects with your children. Toys made from single-use plastics are all the rage these days.

6. Organise A “Not So Fast” Fashion Show

To be truly eco-friendly during Covid-19, don’t panic buy clothes you don’t currently need. Instead, ditch fast fashion, and clean out your closet. 

Organise a fashion show with your family that could even be extended into a virtual event with your friends. Challenge yourself to fall in love with your clothes again. Be your own fashion show director and find unique ways to style clothes you already own.

7. Become A Master Chef

Now’s a chance for you cut-out on food waste and get creative with what’s in the cupboards. A virtual cook-off is in order, challenging your friends to play a virtual game of Master Chef. You finally have time to look at those cooking videos from your favourite chefs, and pick up Gordon Ramsay approved meals you’ve been dying to try. Why not try the leftover challenge where you turn what’s in your fridge into a restaurant-worthy dish? The sky’s the limit.

8. Take Up Online Activism

Thanks to everything moving online these days, you can still be eco-friendly during Covid-19 by taking up online activism, whatever your cause. Whether it is to cut out single-use plastic, saving rainforests, protecting endangered wildlife, or even cutting out your carbon emissions, virtual gatherings are the right place for you to show your love for our planet Earth.

Picking up at least a couple of these pointers and practising them at home is simple. Being eco-friendly during Covid-19 is not impossible. All we have to do is take one green step at a time. Which one of these do you think you can practice at home? 

Let us know in the comments.

Over the years, effective handwashing with soap has been found to significantly help reduce illness. The United States’ Center for Disease Control has found that washing hands regularly reduce the number of people who get sick with diarrhoea 23-40%, and incident of respiratory illnesses, like colds by 16-21%.

As for drinking water, studies have shown again and again that staying fully hydrated is key in staying in top physical and mental form. Some studies have shown even slight dehydration affecting overall moods, and even child development.

Germs spread quickly through touch, and they are everywhere. From touching body parts to surfaces to food. Washing hands often stops germs from spreading and becoming more deadly. 

The U.S. Naval Health Research Center in San Diego did a study on this involving military recruits and found a significant drop in coughs and colds among them when they washed their hands at least five times a day.

How does hand washing protect us?

But for handwashing to be truly effective, you must do it properly, doctors say. Do you follow these steps when you wash your hands?

• Wet your hands with water and apply soap.
• Lather your hands with the soap. Spread the soap over the back of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
• Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds. Sing the first few lines of the chorus of your favourite song to time it.
• Rinse your hands.
• Dry your hands by using a towel or air drying.

Don’t have an area to properly wash hands? You can use hand sanitizer like BioSilver 22 Gel, which is scientifically proven to have antibacterial and moisturising properties.

Hand sanitizers can also effectively clean your hands and stop the spread of germs. Simply apply the recommended amount on your hand and rub it over the surface of your skin for at least 20 seconds.

Alcohol generally dries skin, but BioSilver22 Gel’s SilverSol Technology helps not only sanitize, but moisturize. You stay clean, and your skin stays smooth too.
How does drinking water keep us healthy?

Water is key to our body processes. As we move and go about our day, water naturally expels from the body. Staying hydrated is important so the body can process and function normally. Studies have even found that staying hydrated can help treat kidney stones, improve digestion, and even aid weight loss.

To get the most out of the benefits of water, it’s important for it to be clean and safe. A high-quality filter like HomePure Nova water filtration system can remove impurities that endanger one’s health. It’s also environment friendly, as having a water filter saves you from buying bottled water.

Filtering water doesn’t just make it safe to drink, it can also make it safe to use. Filtered water can also help with keeping the face clean and prevents infections like the coronavirus from transmitting through surfaces such as the eyes and skin.

In times of great worry and stress, it always helps to go back to the basics. So, stay safe by doing this several times a day – wash hands, drink water!

Happiness is a glass of water

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine suggests men drink 3.7 liters (15.5 cups) of fluids per day, while women should consume about 2.7 liters (11.5 cups) on average daily. 

However, results from the survey found that the average person drinks just five glasses of water per day. The average respondent said they felt the recommended amount of water intake per day was just five eight-ounce glasses when it should be eight.

Respondents who drank more than 10 glasses of water per day were statistically found to be “very happy,” with 80% reporting so. However, 18% who consumed the same amount reported being “somewhat happy.”

For people who had 10-plus glasses of water per day, more than 80% said they felt “very energetic.” The study also found that they were most likely to rate themselves as “very successful.”

As people consumed less water, the percentage of very happy respondents decreased. For respondents that drank four glasses of water, just under half (45%) said they felt “very happy,” while just 34% who had just two glasses a day said they felt similar emotions.

Drinking water daily has its health benefits. It gets rid of wastes through urination, perspiration and bowel movements while keeping your temperature normal, helping your joints, and protecting sensitive tissues, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Not surprisingly, people who had zero glasses of water were not very happy. Nearly a quarter (24%) reported feeling negatively because they weren’t drinking water throughout the day. So what are the reasons for these non-water drinking folks?

Top 7 reasons Americans don’t drink enough water

1. I don’t feel thirsty that often: 44%
2. I prefer to drink other beverages: 42%
3. No time to get water: 34%
4. I forget to: 33%
5. I don’t like paying for bottled water: 25%
6. I don’t trust water from the tap: 22%
7. I don’t like the taste of water: 19%

Whatever your requirements are, nothing beats a source of cost-effective water right where it is needed. And in most cases, that solution is a borehole. But drilling a borehole requires some research and planning.

Nakiso Borehole Drilling shares some insight about boreholes:

1. Site selection, which is used to determine whether and where to locate a groundwater production borehole.

2. Borehole construction. This includes the mobilisation of equipment to the site and back to the base, drilling per metre, casing entailing supply and installation of solid casing and screen, gravel pack, sanitary seal and well-head construction, and well development entailing cleaning of the borehole after construction.

3. Pumping test cost for post-construction assessment of borehole and aquifer performance.

4. Hydrochemical analysis cost of water quality testing for the intended use.

5. Installation cost for a pump and/or potable water storage tank and reticulation system.

6. Maintenance costs for annual checks to the pumping equipment, pipework and repairs should there be any failures.

7. Electricity costs for running the pump each time it is switched on.

Where to drill the borehole?
Most residential stands are ringed by palisade fencing or brick walls. Just getting a 25-tonne drill rig onto the property can be difficult, to say the least. In quite a few cases, there are two choices, the start of the driveway or the middle of the driveway.

So keep in mind that you may need to do some deconstruction work to allow the drill rig to access your property, and then once the borehole has been drilled, some building work may be required to restore the area. This will not be included in the drilling costs.

While this is a hassle, the reality is that borehole drilling will involve some mess, and so it is better to plan for it than to get a nasty surprise. Discuss this with Nakiso Borehole Drilling and make sure that they can offer a solution that is both practical for your property while still giving the borehole the best chance of success.

What if the driller doesn’t find water?
A borehole installation can cost anything from $2000USD to $5000USD but can cost more depending on how deep you need to drill, the amount of casing used, type of rock that needs to be drilled, ground conditions, equipment and other purpose-for-use related costs.

Your agreement with Nakiso Borehole Drilling will be to drill a hole in the ground, with the possibility of tapping into a sustainable source of water. If good siting procedures have been followed and in the unlikely event that the hole was found to be ‘dry’, you will still be required to pay Nakiso Borehole Drilling for the drilling.

However, you will not be required to pay for any materials and equipment that would be required for a complete installation, namely the pump, piping and electrics.

These items are a function of the amount of water available or required, and can only be selected once a test has been done on the yield potential of the hole.

Essentially, no water means no pump and related equipment is necessary.

What kind of borehole pump will I need?
Pumps fit into three categories: too big, too small or just the right size for the job. Good selection and years of trouble-free operation start with reliable borehole data gathered from the yield test. Be careful of “this month’s special, a 0.75kW pump for only…”. The chances are good it is totally unsuited for your application.

Get Nakiso Borehole Drilling to explain the capabilities of the pump and the controls and protection devices they have installed. An informed end-user will be able to recognise the first signs of potential problems and call in qualified help before things get too expensive.

The electrical side of the installation must be done by a qualified electrician who is trained or well-experienced with groundwater installations. Your borehole is an integral part of the electrical system of the property and must form part of the Certificate of Compliance (COC).

How long will a borehole last?
If all the boxes have been ticked, a 20-year life for the major components can be expected.

Is a borehole a good investment?
A borehole installation can cost anything from $2000USD to $5000USD but can cost more depending on how deep you need to drill, the amount of casing used, type of rock that needs to be drilled, ground conditions, equipment and other purpose-for-use related costs.

The trouble is there is no guarantee you will find water, so you could risk paying many thousands for drilling without a successful outcome.

However, having a borehole will add significant value to your property and over a period of time, it will represent a good investment. This assumes that the installation has been done by professionals and with due care.

For more information, visit the Nakiso Borehole Drilling.

But for millions, access to clean water doesn’t come so easy. In fact, having access to clean water could be a matter of life or death.

So here are ten reasons why improving access to clean water for the world’s poorest can help end poverty:

1. 663 million people don’t have access to safe drinkable water - that’s one in every nine people.

2. The average person in America uses 300 - 400 Litres of water a day, ten times more water than the average person in a rural community in sub-Saharan Africa.

3. A one-minute shower with a conventional showerhead uses more water (at least 20 litres) than most people in sub-Saharan Africa use in an entire day for basic drinking and hygiene purposes (the average is ten to twenty litres).

4. According to WHO, 20 litres of water is sufficient for very basic drinking, cooking, and handwashing needs in a developing country, but other common tasks that require larger volumes of water such as bathing or laundry are difficult to achieve with only 20 litres.

5. In Africa and Asia, women and girls walk an average of 6km a day carrying water that weighs more than 20 kgs. Imagine that. It’s equivalent to carrying two cases of soda, or a 40” flat screen television for more than 3.5 miles.

6. Everyday people – mostly women and girls – spend 125 million hours collecting water. With safe access to clean water, those hours could instead be spent in a classroom, on income generation, or having fun.

7. 66 children die from diarrhoea every hour – access to clean water reduces this risk significantly.

8. When schools have water and sanitation facilities, attendance rates increase, especially for girls. Unfortunately, globally one-third of all schools lack access to sanitation and drinkable water.
9. 160 million children suffer from stunting and malnutrition, which has lifelong impacts on their health, education, and economic potential. 50 per cent of malnutrition is linked to lack of clean water and sanitation.

10. 2.6 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water since 1990.

W are helping to save lives and reduce the burden girls and women face collecting water every day. In 2015, we helped to build and rehabilitate 2,600 water systems.