Water and Sanitation is necessity for life and health this recognised as a human right. & “The human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses”.
Human right to water and sanitation
The Human Right to Water and Sanitation (HRWS) was recognised as a human right by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on 28 July 2010. The HRWS has been recognized in international law through human rights treaties. They acknowledged that there was a human right to sanitation connected to the human right to water, a revised UN resolution in 2015 states the importance of Water and Sanitation.
Sri Lanka is a lower-middle- income country with a growing economy and declining poverty. Despite decades of war, water and sanitation is a concern within Tamil Community living in North & East of Sri Lanka when community resettling to their villages. Neglected water wells are polluted or completely damaged due to war or was in and under military controlled zone.
Water and sanitation are fundamental human rights. Everyone should have sufficient, affordable, physically accessible, safe and acceptable water for personal and domestic uses.
PLEDGE works with local communities and government agencies to restore water services for families to resettle that include water well restoration, irrigation system repair and maintenance, restoration of water supply, built new toilet facilities, bath rooms or fences to secure and maintain privacy for young families to feel safe when they are using water services, support service to clean water ponds to eliminate disease and ensure safe environment for everyone to live a healthy life style.
Our Water and Sanitation project promotes access and quality; long-term maintenance of facilities, especially for community-based systems, enforcement requires strengthening and meets basic fundamental community water need.
Poor outcomes in the education and health sectors, particularly with regard to malnutrition, are closely linked with lack of access to good quality water and sanitation. The spread of water-borne diseases due to bacteriological contamination or long-term exposure to suspected chemical contamination is an increasing concern in Sri Lanka. It has been reported that some areas where populations are still being resettled have up to 40 per cent of households who practice open defecation, contributing to heavy water pollution and water borne diseases.
According to UNICEF report out of the 3.4 million people affected by natural disasters since 2005 in Sri Lanka, more than 2.6 million were affected between 2011 and 2013. Flooding in December 2012 alone contaminated more than 20,000 wells.
