Features / Christmas
Bristol Charity Advent Calendar – day 14
There are 663 million people in the world without access to safe drinking water. More than 1 in 10 of these people (77 million) live in India.
Bristol’s Water Charity, FRANK Water funds safe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programmes for communities that are most in need.
Set up in 2005 by CEO Katie Alcott, the charity has reached more than 325,000 people in 300 different villages and communities with safe water and sanitation.
FRANK works across India, from Agra in the North to Telangana in the South West (and in several states in between). Their projects are diverse and depend on multiple factors including how the water is contaminated, where the source is, what the terrain is like etc.
For some villages, they implement gravity fed systems where water runs down from a source at the top of the hill into a village where it’s stored and used. For others, they install rainwater harvesting units that capture and filter rainfall for household use.
However, all projects have a common purpose – to provide access to safe, clean drinking water and sanitation (toilets) to groups of people who need it.
The communities they help are those living in remote, rural or hard to reach locations and may not understand their rights – to water, sanitation, land or education – and have lived without state or central government assistance for generations. With its partners, FRANK Water supports communities to claim their rights, to apply for government funding and take ownership of their community, their health and development.
For every £1 invested in water and sanitation, a further £4 is generated through increased productivity.
– To donate, fundraise, or volunteer, visit the FRANK website
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