Habitat
A safe place to live is a fundamental need.
More than one billion people either have no home, or live in inadequate housing.
Plan believes that children have the right to live in secure homes in surroundings which are not a danger to their health.
Projects include:
- Sanitation - enabling access to safe water supplies and a basic sanitation infrastructure
- Managing natural resources - helping communities to protect their surroudings and make the best use of natural resources in the area, by planting trees to prevent soil erosion or using local materials to build better houses.
- Community environment - establishing safe waste disposal and eradicating preventable threats through the design and construction of safe homes and schools
CASE STUDY:
In Choco, Colombia, Plan assisted families construct new water storage tanks that are helping to create a better habitat for local people by ensuring a constant supply of clean drinking water.
In these regions, the main water sources are creeks and rivers, as well as rain. Although these areas experience high rainfall, many families in the Choco region do not have appropriate water and storage systems.
Women and children have to walk long distances, sometimes an hour's walk to collect water from streams, which are sometimes contaminated. The shortage in clean water, not to mention adequate sanitation systems, lead to health problems such as gastro-enteritis, intestinal parasites and diarrhoea, which can cause death in children if left untreated.
Last year Plan helped to buy and install water tanks. Frequent tropical downpours hit the region, so water tanks are an ideal way to increase water availability.
Approximately 2,020 families helped install the new tanks. The communities also learned about water quality conservation and management.
'Thanks to the rainwater storage tank, my whole family, and of course my children, have benefited since they no longer have to drink contaminated water,' said one mother.
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