Access to Water
and
Water Relay Race
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
Urban
Rural
National
Women
16
62
45
Men
6
16
12
Gulnea, 2002/03
Urban
Rural
National
Ghana, 1998/99
Women
33
44
41
Men
31
34
33
Madagascar, 2001
Women
10
Men
3
Women
16
Men
10
28
23
6
5
32
27
8
9
6
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/WaterF
ootprintCalculator
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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
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PowerPoint developed by
Mary Robinson
Ag Ed Graduate Student
University of Minnesota