Sandra and Novia live at the top of a steep, rugged mountain in Timor-Leste. In the dry season, they face a dangerous three hour trek to collect river water for their family each day.

Often there is not enough water for the whole community. The girls wake at 3 am and walk down the mountain in the dark to queue for water. They simply have no choice.

On a good day, Sandra and Novia will arrive in time to find water. They each carry two jerry cans back up the slippery mountain paths. The journey often makes them late to school and too tired to learn.

Children living without clean water pay the highest price. It robs them of time to learn and to thrive. Worst of all a child dies every two minutes from diseases related to drinking dirty water. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

This Christmas, will you help bring clean water close to home for children like Sandra and Novia?

Your gift could help to install a gravity flow system to pipe water to a remote community like theirs. No more dangerous trips in the dark to collect water.

WaterAid is determined to bring clean water to everyone, everywhere, but we can’t do it without you. Please give today.

All donations are used to support WaterAid's water, sanitation and hygiene programs, and aren't restricted to this project.

WaterAid has teams in 29 countries across the world, working with our partners to change millions of lives every year by improving access to clean water, toilets and hygiene.

Since 1981, we’ve reached over 27 million people with clean water. But we can’t stop there.

In the last 41 years, we’ve gone from strength to strength to become one of the most respected organisations dealing solely with water, sanitation and hygiene issues.

While installing taps and toilets is essential to our work, we do so much more. We convince governments to change laws, link policy makers with people on the ground, pool knowledge and resources and rally support from people and organisations around the world, making lasting change happen on a massive scale.