One legacy can change the lives of thousands

Through gravity flow schemes like this one in Bangladesh, WaterAid used Margaret's gift to help tap into springs and pipe the clean water to villages below.

Credit: WaterAid / Abir Abdullah

In the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, there are remote villages where just one out of every 20 people has access to clean water and sanitation.

In these poor communities people often have to walk a mile and a half up steep jungle paths to reach a water source or they collect it from more polluted streams and holes lower down.

The legacy of Mrs Margaret Jones is helping to change this. When she sadly died in 2002, her gift, a residuary legacy, helped WaterAid work with local organisations to bring clean, safe water to 40 villages in Bangladesh. But that's not all.

Margaret's generous support also helped two other water projects in the Bauchi State of Nigeria and Hintalo Wajerat of Northern Ethiopia.

In total, one gift contributed to 43,000 people having access to safe, clean water in their communities, as well as better health, more time to earn an income, and time for their children to go to school.

As you can see, a gift in your Will, like this residuary legacy, could have an amazing impact on many people's lives.

To protect the privacy of Margaret Jones and her family, we have changed her name although her legacy is genuine.