Welcome to Nancy and Lucy's world

It's a world full of positivity and community spirit. But it's also tinged with sorrow.

Image: WaterAid/ Joey Lawrence
Dirty water threatens their lives every day.

Not a day goes by when Nancy and Lucy aren’t by each other’s side, being noisy and messing about with the other children in the village. But the one thing that threatens their playful, special friendship is the dirty water they have to drink every day.

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Image: WaterAid/ Joey Lawrence Nancy, 6, collects dirty water from a natural spring, the previous water source for the community of Tombohuaun. Though a year older than her cousin Lucy, Nancy is a head shorter. Her father says her stunted growth is due to the dirty water. Nancy al
Their village has no clean water supply, and the girls have no choice but to drink water filled with dirt, parasites and disease every day.

It’s water that has already taken lives, and stolen childhoods. Nancy’s sister, Beindu died because of dirty water a year ago. She was only five years old.

Tragically, many children like Nancy and Lucy are under the same threat constantly – every two minutes one child under five dies from diarrhoeal diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation.

Seeing the girls together, you would think they were just like any other six and five-year-olds. But Nancy doesn’t get to play as much as she likes because she has to collect dirty water with her mum three times a day.

“The water is heavy on my head – it makes my head ache. Sometimes I fall over and drop the water, and scratch my legs,” Nancy says.

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Image: WaterAid/ Joey Lawrence Fatu Sellu gives a drink of dirty water to her daughter Nancy Smart, 6, at home in Tombohuaun. Two months ago, Fatu's five year old daughter Beindu died from dirty water. Despite living with this recent grief, Fatu has to keep the cycle of farming, f

The dirty water has been making Nancy sick repeatedly. You can imagine the pain of Nancy’s mum, Fatu, as she watches her daughter drink water that could kill her. “As a mum, I am not happy about giving water that’s bad, but I don’t have a choice,” she says. “I feel sad about it.”

Clean water will mean everything.

With your special gift today, clean water will be brought to villages like Tombohuaun across the world. Your gift will help protect children from deadly water-borne diseases and bring smiles to the faces of children like Nancy and Lucy as they taste clean water for the first time.

“I like to play with my best friend Lucy. If I didn’t have to go get water, I would play with my friends,” says Nancy hopefully.

Having access to clean water is a powerful way to help whole communities break free from poverty and transform lives for good. This is all possible with your support.