Safe water secures a resilient future

26 November 2024, Kandal – “I used to go and fetch water every morning,” says 12-year-old Rith from Kandal, a province that surrounds the outskirts of Cambodia’s capital. “The water was very heavy. It was exhausting.”

Gripping the handle with both hands, Rith drags home a bucket almost half his size from a stream a few hundred metres from his house. He’s demonstrating a chore he used to do up to ten times per day before his family got access to water at home. As the eldest of three boys, his parents often away working in Thailand, and his elderly grandmother growing frailer, it was Rith’s responsibility to collect water.

“I didn’t want to go, but it was for my grandmother and family,” he says. 

Plastic bags, cups and food wrappers float in the cloudy water and lay buried in dirt along the bank. The stream connects to the Bassac River, a lifeblood for thousands of rural families dependent on farming and fishing.

Rith and his brothers used to drink this water, often making them sick with diarrhea and fever.

“We didn’t have a choice,” says Rith’s 70-year-old grandmother, Touch Nhaen. “The water is becoming more and more polluted. It’s filled with garbage and pesticides and contaminated with animal waste. Yet we had to continue to drink and use it.”

While water access in Cambodia has improved over the past decade, only 19 per cent of the rural population have access to safely managed water services, which is crucial to protecting

children from water-borne diseases like diarrhea, which can cause stunting, impaired brain development and even death.

Today, these risks are shifting and intensifying—environmental hazards and extreme weather linked to climate change are heightening the risks for the most vulnerable children, making it even harder for families to access clean water.

In Kandal, flash flooding caused by intense rains is polluting Bassac River and its waterways with trash and sewage from households and boats. The river is the largest arm of the mighty Mekong, which releases around 37,000 tons of plastic every year into the world’s oceans.2

During dry seasons with prolonged droughts, many of the water sources that families depend on dry up, leaving children like Rith to walk even farther to find water—jeapordising not only health but also robbing them of crucial time in the classroom.

UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI) ranks Cambodia in the top third of countries facing high risks associated with climate change. The CCRI for Cambodia reveals that 1.9 million children, over one third of the country’s children, are threatened by climate and environmental risks because they lack access to essential and life-saving services, including safe water.

For Rith, however, gone are the days of hauling heavy buckets of water from a polluted stream. Instead, he spends his morning playing with his brothers, getting ready for school and enjoying a breakfast cooked by his grandmother with clean, piped water. His house is connected to a UNICEF-supported private water pipe system, giving the family access to safe water at home for the first time in their lives.

“I’m happy that my grandson doesn’t have to get water so far away,” says Nhaen. “Since we got clean water, he’s been going to school every day. And my grandchildren’s health have improved, so I don't worry so much about spending money when they’re sick.”

The pipe system is designed to be climate-resilient, meaning the station is powered by solar power, connected to a sustainable water source and can continue to deliver safe water even through extreme weather events like flooding and drought.

“We work to ensure that everyone in the community has access to clean water 24 hours a day without interruption,” explains Khenh Tayveng, a private water operator from Treuy Sla Water Supply, which received support from UNICEF with funding from the AEON1% Club Foundation. The station supplies clean water to over 4,000 families in the area. “In the future, even if there are problems with drought or flooding, our company firmly believes that our operations will continue indefinitely.”

Equipping local communities with low-pollution infrastructure and adapting services to a changing climate, more frequent disasters and a degrading environment like increased water pollution is a priority of UNICEF’s efforts to protect the lives, health and well-being of children and enhance the resilience of communities. With UNICEF support to private and community pipe systems and bottled water enterprises, over 175,000 Cambodians now have access to clean, safe and climate-resilient water.

“We have water all year long,” says Nhaen. “There’s never been a shortage. Since we connected to the pipe, I’ve never been worried about not having enough water to use.”

“I’m so happy we have clean water,” adds Rith.

His three-year-old brother is nearby, an untroubled grin glued to his face as he plays with his favourite puffy-cheeked puppy.

“I don’t need to get water from the stream anymore, so I can have fun playing with my brothers and my friends.”