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Access to WaterAccess to Waterandand

Water Relay RaceWater Relay Race

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Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.

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Women carrying water vessels, Guatemala.Photo by André Abbe, UNESCO

Source: UN Water Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief

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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)

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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.

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Time spent collecting water(minutes per day)Benin, 1998 Ghana, 1998/99

Women Men Women MenUrban 16 6 33 31Rural 62 16 44 34National 45 12 41 33

Gulnea, 2002/03 Madagascar, 2001Women Men Women Men

Urban 10 3 16 10Rural 28 6 32 8National 23 5 27 9

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A Heavy Load

• On average, women and girls walk a distance of six kilometers each day, carrying 20 liters of water.

• 6 km = 3.72822 mi• 20 liters of water = 44 pounds

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How much water do you use a day?

• The average American uses 80-100 gallons of water per day.

• 80-100 gallons of water = 668-835 pounds• 80-100 gallons of water = 303-379 liters• Online Water Usage Calculators:– USGS http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sq3.html– Water Footprint http://www.waterfootprint.org/?

page=cal/WaterFootprintCalculator

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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.

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Sources• UN Water Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy

Brief http://www.unwater.org/downloads/unwpolbrief230606.pdf

• Human Development Report 2006 Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/chapters/

• Photo Source (slides 2 and 4) http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/educators/enrichment/africa/resources/index.html

• UN Water: Water for Life Decade http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/pdf/waterforlifebklt-e.pdf

• USGS Water Science for Schools http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/qahome.html

PowerPoint developed by

Mary RobinsonAg Ed Graduate StudentUniversity of Minnesota