The United Nations reports that more than 800 million people suffer from a lack of safe and adequate water. Its declaration on the human right to water states:
The water supply for each person must be sufficient and continuous for personal and domestic uses.
Lake Smith. Video capture, via Navajo Water Access Project
But the findings that bolster the U.N. declaration appear to leave out those U.S. residents who are among the world’s waterless, such as the American homeless, about whom we reported on January 14, and New Mexican Navajos, for whom water is an unaffordable luxury.
The Navajo Water Access Project (see video that follows) reports from the high desert of New Mexico, where it has launched a fund raising drive to address water and winter poverty:
It gets cold on the Navajo Reservation, where nearly 40% of people don’t have running water. Most people need blankets to stay warm. This winter, help us bring clean water to 250 American homes. Buy a Pendleton blanket for you or a loved one, and you’ll make a $100+ donation to the Navajo Water Project. We’ll send another blanket to an American family in need of extra warmth. (To buy and donate follow this link.)
Last year, U.S. Catholic reported:
Most families in Lake Smith, New Mexico don’t have a tap or a toilet at home. Life without clean water looks much the same as it did in 1868, when Navajo families were first settled on this reservation, the nation’s largest. Infrastructure didn’t develop naturally here, and pervasive poverty has kept these homes off the grid for generations.
Learn more from this video:
