In Somalia, millions face this reality every single day.
For most families, life has been an unbroken experience of civil war, extremist attacks, and increasingly severe climate shocks.
Today, half the population doesn't have safe drinking water, and children are dying from cholera and dehydration.
Somalia does have fresh water, only it’s deep underground, and hard to reach. Private companies are selling it at outrageous prices and in some villages, a litre is more expensive than in Miami.
But a small, community-run organisation called Durdur is changing that.
Funded directly by Avaaz members (thank you!), their first project is already piping clean, affordable water to hundreds of homes. The day the taps were opened, the whole town celebrated. It was so successful that private companies were forced to drastically cut their prices overnight.
Now, Durdur is ready to scale up.
With our help, they could buy drilling supplies and water trucks to reach millions more in the next few years. It means families can wash and cook, grow food, and raise livestock.
If we raise enough, we could:
- Provide safe and affordable water to people in some of Somalia's driest and hardest-to-reach areas;
- Help spread this people's model of water access, building community resilience in the face of droughts, disease, and climate disasters;
- Pay for water studies and geographical surveys, help hire local Somali staff and provide hygiene trainings for community health volunteers;
- Supercharge the voices of those caught on the climate frontlines to decision-makers everywhere to restore freshwater ecosystems and demand urgent action on the climate crisis; and
- Power urgent, high-priority Avaaz campaigns to fight for our human right to water and a safe environment.