According to the World Health Organization, 844 million people do not have access to clean drinking water. Something a vast majority of the world’s population takes for granted is unavailable to others. Without this most basic ingredient for sustaining life and preventing disease, hundreds of children die every day, mostly in developing countries.
This is a statistic that P&G and its partner NGOs are working to change. As the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program enters its 16th year, it has already achieved its 2020 goal of providing 15 billion liters of clean drinking water to people in need all over the world. The secret to this milestone is the power of partnership and the innovation contained in a 4 gram packet. It’s a carefully coordinated effort that brings thousands of individuals and organizations together in a variety of projects that leverages the strengths and expertise of each partner.
It all began with a project development initiative at P&G. In the early 2000s, P&G’s laundry scientists began researching how to recycle dirty laundry water in water-stressed regions, leading to the invention of a powdered technology that separates dirt and contaminates from the water to effectively clean and then disinfect it. What they invented has become the foundation of a global program that has transformed lives around the world: the P&G Purifier of Water packet.
With only a bucket, a stick, and a clean cloth, the P&G Purifier of Water packet transforms 10 liters (2.5 gallons) of dirty, potentially deadly, water into clean, drinkable water in only 30 minutes. The 4-step (Pour, Stir, Filter, Wait) process mirrors what happens to billions of gallons of water every day in municipal water treatment plants around the world. The powder’s six ingredients are all commonly used in these plants, but the transformational innovation is in the portability. These tiny packets make this purification process possible anywhere in the world. In 2004, these packets began to make their way around the world through the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program.
Today, the program is cleaning water and improving lives through a global network of more than 150 partners, including World Vision, CARE, Save the Children, and Walmart. Here are just some of the stories of how the CSDW Program is providing something so vital for so many.
Building Bridges with World Vision
Today, World Vision—the largest nongovernmental (NGO) provider of clean water in the developing world—is reaching one new person with clean water every 10 seconds. For more than a decade, World Vision has partnered with P&G to deliver the P&G Purifier of Water packets as part of a life-changing “bridge” strategy in water-challenged communities where their organization works to create permanent, clean water sources. The packets are also a tool in disaster response where families are experiencing severe drought, flooding, earthquakes, typhoons and conflict. This collaboration has helped 6.4 million people, providing two billion liters of clean water in 37 countries. To date, more than 200 million P&G Purifier of Water packets have been distributed by World Vision’s WASH (Water Sanitation and Hygiene) teams to rural families throughout World Vision communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Supporting Women and Girls Through Clean Water with CARE
One of the original partners in the CSDW Program, CARE utilizes these packets to respond to humanitarian crises as well as engage in longer-term programs to transform life within some of the world’s most vulnerable communities, especially in Africa, and particularly for women and girls. In places where access to clean water is a challenge, child and infant mortalities are high, and women and girls are forced to walk several kilometers each day in search of clean water. The lack of clean water not only poses dire threats to their lives and the lives of their families, it denies them the opportunity to be educated, to work, and to start business. By distributing P&G Purifier of Water packets, CARE helps reduce disease and allows women and children to focus on their health, nutrition, and economic empowerment.
Offering Disaster Relief with Save the Children
In 2006, Save the Children (STC) joined with P&G and began distributing these packets around the world to help deliver their own long-term vision of ending preventable deaths in children under-5 by 2030. They recognized that diseases transmitted through unsafe water are a leading cause of preventable illness and premature deaths: more than 340,000 children under five die annually from diarrheal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or dirty drinking water—almost 1,000 children per day. STC’s first collaboration with P&G and the CSDW Program brought clean water to Sudanese families affected by drought. Since then, the program has helped STC respond to disasters across the globe—including droughts and floods across El Salvador, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda. Every day, they are taking these packets to places where drought, conflict, flooding and the deadly threat of waterborne diseases are jeopardizing the lives of children. To date, this partnership has provided approximately 400 million liters of clean water to some of the world’s most vulnerable children and their families.
Making Everyday Purchases at Walmart Help Provide Clean Water
Walmart International’s partnership with P&G and the CSDW Program enables consumers to help support this global initiative through the “1=1” campaign. The campaign’s simple premise, “1 purchase = 1 liter of clean water” enables Walmart shoppers to contribute through purchasing P&G products while increasing awareness of the clean water crisis around the world. The “1=1” program has already launched in South Africa, Japan, Argentina, China, India, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador and will eventually be activated in 15 countries (including Puerto Rico) where Walmart’s International division operates stores. For every P&G product purchased in the participating countries during the campaign period, P&G will provide one liter of clean water through the CSDW Program to help children and their families. P&G and Walmart International have set a goal to provide 100 million liters of clean water during 2019, and they’re already well on their way to reaching it.
For more information about the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program, visit www.csdw.org.
