Lana Johnson, 21, from Kendal, has taken on the challenge to make 7 litres of water last a whole day. She was inspired to see whether or not she could live on just 7 litres of water for 24 hours after she spent time volunteering on an education programme in Villa El Salvador in Peru with Progressio’s International Citizen Service programme earlier this year.
"In Peru, people in informal settlements, like the ones Mecche lives in, roughly live on 7 litres a day, whereas someone in the UK would live on an estimated 150 litres a day," she says.
Through her volunteering experience Lana realized how important water is for day-to-day living and how in the UK people often take water for granted. She has documented her experiences in a short film entitled 'Agua es Vida' (above).
A 1°C increase in global temperature will mean small glaciers in the Andes mountains will disappear, threatening water supplies for 50 million people. Water scarcity is a pressing issue in Peru and for the global population as a whole. Small scale farmers, who grow food that feeds a 1/3 of the world's population, rely on access to water for their crops. As Lana’s film explains, it is often the poor and marginalised people who have the least say in how water is managed and who live the reality of water scarcity.
"Poor people often pay 5-10 times more per litre of water than wealthy people living in the same city", states Lana.
Mecche, who works in a soup kitchen, says, "We don't have water to cook, the lorry hasn't come with the water, we don't have it for anything, not even to wash the vegetables... not even enough to drink. I cannot work when I have no water."
Progressio is campaigning for fair and sustainable access to water, particularly for poor and marginalised people. Find out more about the Waterproof campaign and how you can get involved and keep in touch with our team at the Rio+20 conference!
