Our Mission:
Hydrating Humanity is a non-profit humanitarian organization providing clean, safe water, hygiene training and hope for people in developing nations.
Clean, safe water is a basic building block of health and life yet close to 1 billion people lack access to it. That's hard to fathom for most of us. We turn on the faucet or shower and there always seems to be an abundance of perfectly clean water for our consumption or use.
We believe that the spearhead into communities and villages in the developing world needs to be clean water and solid hygiene education. This crisis must be met and overcome to realize REAL transformation at any level.
As our organization has joined the fight we've seen tangible results. This gives us more hope than ever that eradicating needless death and disease due to unclean water is possible. It starts helping one person, one community, one region at a time.
Hydrating Humanity is a registered non-profit public charity incorporated in the State of South Carolina.
Clean Water combined with Hygiene Education can save the World!
Dirty water and misunderstandings about hygiene are the most deadly combination on our planet.
Almost one billion people worldwide do not have access to an improved water supply, and many more drink unsafe, contaminated water from poorly improved sources.
Each year, inadequate access to safe drinking water and improper sanitation cause an estimated 4 billion cases of diarrhea and 1.9 million deaths in developing countries, mostly among young children. In addition, waterborne diarrheal diseases lead to decreased food intake and nutrient absorption, malnutrition, reduced resistance to infection, and impaired physical growth and cognitive development.
Factors contributing to this high rate of diarrheal disease incidence include: poor sanitation, poor hand hygiene, contaminated water, and lack of sufficient household water. Programs that provide latrines, education about soap and washing hands, access to micro-biologically clean water, and/or enough water all help reduce the incidence of diarrheal disease.
"Many NGO's focus solely on providing clean water."
Hydrating Humanity subscribes to the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration that simply providing clean water to the world’s poor in developing nations is only about 15% effective at eliminating waterborne disease. But, when you combine clean water with solid personal hygiene training that same statistic rockets to 85%.
It may not be as popular and trendy to educate people as it is to provide water wells, but Hydrating Humanity is committed to results, and education is where most of our efforts will remain until the job is done.
Two million children die each year before the age of 5 because of diarrhea. All preventable.
Unclean water and lack of sanitation is still the 3rd world’s biggest health issue.
At any given moment half the developing world's population are sick from the same cause. 150 years ago our nation was in the same condition! President James Polk died from Cholera, a preventable water-borne disease! Over 1 billion people are needlessly at risk of disease and death. Just because our nation was among the first to discover ways to overcome these threats is no reason to sit back. Hydrating Humanity is compelled to educate an army of educators that will save lives. Will you join us?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core purpose of Hydrating Humanity?
Our core purpose is to help connect resources to needs in developing nations throughout the world. We seek to do this by first recognizing the strengths a particular community has. Then we partner with that community to empower the people for a change that is sustainable long after we leave.
How can I help the poor through Hydrating Humanity?
By partnering with Hydrating Humanity, you can literally reach across the seas and touch the poor on a daily basis without leaving your home or office. However, if you are healthy, self-motivated and so full of compassion that you can't sit idly by while others do all the work, we have a missions program that will allow you to travel to a developing nation with our teams and be part of the solution first hand. There are currently four areas of participation, which can be accessed at the bottom of our home page. They are:
- Provide Clean Water
- Train A Village
- Train The Trainer
- Mission Trips
Why does Hydrating Humanity spend so much effort at hygiene training?
One of the leading causes of death in the 3rd world is waterborne disease. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) providing clean water only eliminates about 15% of waterborne disease. But, when you combine clean water with solid hygiene training, the results soar to 75% - 85%. Clean water must stay clean as it is being collected and stay clean after it is brought back to the home. Waterborne diseases kill. They kill every day. Yet they are completely preventable.
How can I get a copy of the new Hygiene Training Curriculum?
Our Hygiene Training Curriculum is available for download free of charge from the ?Train The Trainer? box at the bottom of the homepage. We?ve also provided teacher?s videos to demonstrate how the curriculum is used in front of live classrooms in both Kenya and Tanzania. These videos can be viewed for free as many times as needed. If you want the printed Teachers Notebook or the Training DVDs, they are both available for purchase. Write us at office@hydratinghumanity.org.
How effective is Hydrating Humanity at controlling costs?
We seek to keep admin costs as low as possible. Currently, we office out of the homes of our volunteer army which is growing daily. Volunteers who travel for Hydrating Humanity do so at their own expense.
Are contributions to Hydrating Humanity tax-deductible?
Hydrating Humanity is a 501(c)(3) which means we are recognized by the IRS as a non-profit charity. All gifts are tax-deductible.
What is the easiest way to send a gift to Hydrating Humanity?
Visit our Partners Page or you may send a check made payable to Hydrating Humanity:
Hydrating Humanity: 208 Wales Ave. Fort Mill, SC 29715
Hydrating Humanity ascribes to WaSH Standards. WaSH is an acronym for Water and Sanitation Hygiene. It may not be as trendy to spend resources on teaching people sanitation (proper systems for excrement disposal) or talking to them about personal hygiene and food preparation practices, but it does save lives. By the millions.
- At any one time, more than half the poor of the developing world are ill from causes related to hygiene, sanitation and water supply. Diarrheal disease alone kills six thousand children every day.
- Diarrheal disease alone kills six thousand children every day.
- The majority of illnesses in the world are caused by fecal matter.
- A billion people live a life without safe, plentiful water – to drink, to wash hands, face and body, to wash and rinse clothes, to brush teeth, to cook food, to clean homes and kitchens.
- Two and a half billion people live a life without a clean, private place to defecate and urinate. Instead they use fields, streams, rivers, railway lines, canal banks, roadsides, plastic bags, paper sacks, or squalid, foul-smelling, disease-breeding buckets and insanitary latrines.
- One gram of feces can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1 thousand parasite cysts, and a hundred worm eggs.
- In 2002, the total population in developing regions without improved sanitation was around 560 million in urban areas, compared with a staggering 2 billion in rural areas. With increasing urbanization and two-thirds of the global population living in cities in 2030, large numbers of people in urban areas will face a situation similar to those living in urban slums today.
- More taps and toilets will not improve health on their own. Better hygiene is what matters. And that means making personal hygiene a part of normal everyday behavior in every family and every community.
(place the logos below for the UNICEF, WHO and UNDP))
The United Nations family of agencies – including UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, the World Bank, UNFPA, UNESCO, and the World Food Program – have jointly agreed on the basic hygiene information that all families in the world now need to know:
This HYGIENE CODE therefore represents a massive communications challenge in which the media has a key role to play.
The HYGIENE CODE
1) All feces should be disposed of safely. Using a toilet or latrine is the best way.
2) All family members, including children, need to wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water or ash and water after contact with faces, before touching food, and before feeding children.
3) Washing the face with soap and water every day helps to prevent eye infections.
4) Water should be drawn from a safe source if at all possible. Water containers need to be kept covered to keep the water clean.
5) Raw or leftover food can be dangerous. Raw food should be washed or cooked. Cooked food should be eaten without delay or thoroughly reheated.
6) Food, utensils and food preparation surfaces should be kept clean. Food should be stored in covered containers.
7) Safe disposal of all household refuse helps prevent illness.