In Colombia
1.3 million
people don't have clean water close to home
people don't have clean water close to home

15.5 million
people lack soap and water to wash their hands at home
people lack soap and water to wash their hands at home

2.7 million
people don't have a decent toilet of their own
people don't have a decent toilet of their own

Clean water comes to Platanito
Fabiola lives in a small village called Platanito in Colombia. When she was six months pregnant, she would walk for half an hour to stand in a long line at 7am to collect water from a windmill-powered well. But the windmill had been broken for years, so Fabiola pumped the water by hand, pressing a large lever up and down to fill her jerry cans because that was the nearest water source.
Fabiola is like thousands of others in this region of Colombia
that don’t have water close to home. La Guajira is an arid desert peninsula on the Caribbean coast with nearly a million people. It is also home to the Wayúu people, the nation’s second largest indigenous group, who live largely in rural communities like Fabiola’s where women and children spend much of their day searching for water under the scorching sun. The water that they do find is often contaminated and makes them and their children sick.
Now Fabiola and her growing family don’t have to walk to find water, because they have a tap right outside their front door. It means she can spend more time with her children, and she has more energy at school, where she studies social work, and at her job as a caregiver for the Wayúu children in her community.