Essay: How clean water and faith go hand in hand

SUSAN BARNETT, founder of Faiths for Safe Water, says clean water is a channel of care and love…

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Earth Day is no longer the only day a year we spend thinking about the health of our planet. The urgency of climate change has made environmental concerns a daily consideration. But when we think about the health of the earth, we must remember that all of our health depends on the health of our water.

Water is also of great importance to the religions of our world only symbol that every world religion shares. Water cleanses, sanctifies and blesses rituals around the world. But it is more than a symbol: clean water is a channel of care and love.

PHOTO: Liz Martin/Unsplash

Many healthcare problems can be traced back to unsafe water, a major preventable cause of infant malnutrition, cognitive decline and death. For women and girls in the most marginalized parts of the world, this is a lifelong issue. A girl often drops out of school when she reaches puberty because she does not have sanitary facilities that can meet her needs. In many cultures, it is women’s duty to get up before sunrise every day to fetch water, knowing that this could bring illness to their families.

Most importantly, the lack of access to sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene – WASH – is a fundamental problem in tens of thousands of health clinics and hospitals around the world.

In the most remote places, pregnant women often come from rural areas when they are about to give birth to healthcare centers that do not have clean water and often have to bring their own water. They give birth on unsanitary tables and cannot effectively wash their hands and bodies before rocking and caring for their newborn. Predictably, infections are a major cause of preventable maternal and newborn deaths in resource-poor countries.

These conditions also affect nurses, midwives and cleaners, making it all the more difficult for them to treat women with kindness and dignity when they themselves work in such undignified and dangerous conditions.

Faith workers have a special role to play in making WASH available to more people. The Catholic Church, the world’s largest unified provider of essential health care, offers a compelling model.

In Nigeria, Daughters of Charity, a nearly 400-year-old order of Catholic sisters, distributes “clean birth kits” to women in the third trimester of their pregnancies, along with basic care during pregnancy. The kits contain items that can help with a hygienic birth: plastic sheeting, gloves, gauze, alcohol wipes, soap, a razor, as well as a baby blanket and hat to keep the newborn warm.

In a country with the second highest maternal and newborn mortality rates in the world, and where preventable infections are the second leading cause of death, Daughters of Charity has increased maternal and newborn survival rates to nearly 100 percent.

But no kit can provide enough clean water, the dignity of a toilet or a way to cleanse your body after giving birth. Focusing on that need, the Vatican Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development reached out to bishops in 2021 to generate interest in a pilot project to improve water and sanitation. One hundred and fifty health care facilities in 23 countries were selected and received technical assistance from Catholic Relief Services, Caritas Internationalis, Daughters of Charity and Camillian Sisters. To date, all 150 facilities have undergone assessments to identify WASH issues that can be resolved with little or no funding.

Although these projects cost only $1,800, other necessary steps could require as much as $250,000. Nearly $2.6 million in private donations have been raised to date across half of the healthcare facilities, but more money is needed. But what is needed most is success: with improved health outcomes, better working conditions, and continued advocacy, donors and Catholic health systems will be encouraged to broaden this global commitment and inspire other faith-based health efforts to pursue WASH improvements.

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And success is possible. On World Water Day in March 2010, 65 percent of the world’s population had access to safe and sustainable drinking water. Today that is 75 percent. New global agreements, such as a recent United Nations resolution to get WASH and electricity in every healthcare facility, have recently been signed by every member state. That’s a powerful commitment that all our faith-based global health organizations can use to increase focus, partnerships and sustainable progress.

The spread of disease and poor health, as well as poverty and food insecurity, are inevitable without clean water. More voices of faith are needed, both near and far, to put pressure on public and private decision-makers to prioritize and allocate budgets for WASH. We can ensure that our water lives up to the symbol of the life it is intended for.

Susan K Barnett, head of Cause Communications, is the founder of Faiths for Safe Water, which advocates for access to water and sanitation.