Access to Water and Water Relay Race

2 Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.

3 Women carrying water vessels, Guatemala. Photo by André Abbe, UNESCO Source: UN Water Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief

4 Young Girls Carry Water Iman is carrying a tagdurt, a metal water container, on her way to the nearest well to draw water. No one in Tata has running water at home. by Erin Olson Tata-Tagmoute, Morocco (1999)

5 Gender Inequity In rural Benin girls ages 6–14 spend an average of one hour a day collecting water compared with 25 minutes for their brothers. In Malawi there are large variations in the amount of time allocated for water collection based on seasonal factors, but women consistently spend four to five times longer than men on this task.

6 Time spent collecting water (minutes per day) Benin, 1998Ghana, 1998/99 WomenMenWomenMen Urban Rural National Gulnea, 2002/03Madagascar, 2001 WomenMenWomenMen Urban Rural National235279

7 A Heavy Load On average, women and girls walk a distance of six kilometers each day, carrying 20 liters of water. 6 km = mi 20 liters of water = 44 pounds

8 How much water do you use a day? The average American uses gallons of water per day gallons of water = pounds gallons of water = liters Online Water Usage Calculators: – USGS – Water Footprint ootprintCalculator ootprintCalculator

9 Water Relay Race Supplies – Buckets, water, hand towels Directions – Move to a large open space – Mark a distance of ten yards – Divide into teams of three or four – One person on each team should fill a bucket with water and place it on the towel on their head. – The team members with the buckets will race to the ten yard mark and back to their group handing the bucket to the next person. – The second group member races to the ten yard mark and back, handing off the bucket. This process is repeated until all group members have raced. Determining a winner – Take into account the first group done and the amount of water left in the bucket.

10 Sources UN Water Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief Human Development Report 2006 Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis Photo Source (slides 2 and 4) /index.html /index.html UN Water: Water for Life Decade USGS Water Science for Schools

PowerPoint developed by Mary Robinson Ag Ed Graduate Student University of Minnesota