Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with it’s dazzling 70% unemployment rate and more than 3 quarters of the people living in extreme poverty. To top it off, water, what you need the most for survival, is polluted. The World Bank pretty much summed it up in a few words: Haiti has the worst water situation in all the world.
Due to the lack of a sewage sanitation system, virtually every water source has been contaminated with human waste. More than half of all the deaths in Haiti are caused by polluted water, and deadly diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and chronic diarrhea run rampant throughout the country. What makes this even more distressful is that water could be cleaned with very little efforts.
A sustainable solution was proposed by International action; they installed large chlorinators that provide a ‘steady, preset level of chlorination persists in the water for many days’. It’s easy to mentain, it requires no energy, and the locals are encouraged to learn how to operate them and make repairs, whenever needed.
For example, a permanent large chlorinator costs under 1000$, and it can provide more than 50.000 people with good clean water (!); so a single dollar would give 50 people the chance to drink healthy water, instead of contaminated, infested one, basically saving their lives. That’s less than 10¢ per person. You say if that’s worth it.
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