Back to school series: Clean water, education and the walk before the walk

• Backpack? Check.
• Notebooks? Check.
• Lunch? Check.
• Reusable water bottle? Check.

Time to head out the front door.

In Toronto (near World Vision Canada headquarters), children who live within 1.6 kilometres of their elementary school generally aren’t eligible for a school bus. By grade six, that distance doubles to 3.2 kilometres.

They’re not long distances.

Cross a street. Maybe cut through a field you shouldn’t. Wait at the crosswalk with the crossing guard. Then, 15 or 20 minutes later, you’re walking through the double doors at the back of the school. You know the ones—the doors by the old gym.

Yet for millions of children, before they begin their walk to school, they must complete another one first.

A long one.

A taxing one.

A potentially dangerous one.

But a necessary one.

Before the walk to school, there’s the walk for water

They’re walking to a well. Or a river. Or a borehole.

These are not easy walks to take. The distances are long. The containers are heavy.

They’re tiring, time-consuming and potentially unsafe.

And for millions of students, especially girls, they happen before the walk to school.

Or after it.

Or instead of it:

• Women and girls walk an average of six kilometres daily to fetch water.
• On average, women and girls carry a total of 20 litres (44 pounds) of water on their journeys.
• Collectively, women and girls spend 250 million hours every day collecting water.
• Girls and women aged 15 and older fetch water in 70% of homes that don’t have water on the premises.

On a Canadian school morning, a student wakes up, has breakfast, grabs their items and is out the door by 8:15 and at school by 8:30.

Mornings for those who don’t have access to water look much different.

For millions of children, this isn’t a story. It’s a routine

Before the sun is up, she gets up.

At the front door is her colourful, sparkly backpack covered in stickers she proudly picked out herself. Next to it is a dusty, dirty, dented jerrycan missing its lid.

The backpack can wait. Water is the priority.

She picks up the jerrycan. It’s easy to carry, for now. Outside, the darkness is thick, and the moon only offers limited illumination. A sound comes from somewhere in the brush. It’s probably nothing.

Probably.

Doesn’t matter what it is or isn’t. Keep walking.

She’s made this walk enough times to know it by heart. The thick root arcing over the ground that’s always a tripping hazard. The two-toned rock that tells her she’s close. Where the path narrows and widens.

Up ahead, she hears voices. Mostly girls and a few boys. Faces she knows and others she doesn’t. The line has already formed, so she takes her place at the back.

And waits.

And waits.

And waits.

This is taking forever. Can everyone just hurry up?

Mental note: next time, wake up even earlier.

Finally, it’s her turn.

She sets the jerrycan under the spigot and watches it fill. The water rushes out, then slows to a trickle, then briefly chokes off completely before resuming its flow.

There. Done.

The dusty, dirty, dented jerrycan is five litres heavier. It can hold more, but five is the most she can carry. Time to head back.

The sun is peeking through the darkness, making the sky awash in pink and grey. It’s beautiful.

She doesn’t notice.

She’s looking down or straight ahead as she walks. Her attention wanders for a moment, and she stumbles over that thick, arcing root. Even without a lid, thankfully, not a drop was lost.

This time. Unlike the last time she tripped and spilled everything.

Steady yourself. Balance. Deep breath.

Continue.

The jerrycan is heavy.

Her arms are burning.

Her legs are wobbling.

Her breath is hitching.

Doesn’t matter what she’s feeling. Keep walking.

Home, at last. The water is where it needs to be. The walk is complete. Her job is done.

But still, there is another walk to make. The walk to school.

I want to go. I don’t want to go.

She’s exhausted. Her clothes are a little dirty. Her hair is loose. Her eyes are heavy. She’s going to be late.

All she wants to do is go back to bed. To sleep. To let her muscles and mind recover.

She looks at her backpack. Still sparkly. Still covered in stickers. Still just…there.

She wants to sleep. She wants to eat. She wants to learn.

She picks it up.

Doesn’t matter. Keep walking.

When thirst follows children into the classroom

She made it to school.

But the exhaustion of the morning doesn’t disappear when she walks through the doors.

The walk may be over. The physical and emotional impact of it, though, is about to emerge.

Three children. Three ways water can get in the way of learning.

The child who fetches water before school

The bell rings. Class begins.

But this child has already been awake for hours.

Before school, they helped their family collect water. They walked a long distance. They carried a heavy container. The water they collect is needed by the entire family, so there’s little, if any, to drink along the way.

Now they’re sitting at their desk. And then:

• Dry mouth
• Headache

The lesson moves forward.

The thirsty child can’t keep up because they’re thinking about one thing:

I’m so thirsty.

The child whose school has no reliable water

The bell rings. It’s recess.

Before stepping outside into the sun and fresh air, there’s no tap to turn on. No water fountain. No bottle to refill.

Other children are laughing, playing and running. They try to keep up. And then:

• Fatigue
• Weakness

Their legs get heavy. Their speed slows down. They spend the remainder of recess leaning up against the wall, trying to recover.

Soon recess will be over. Class will resume. More lessons to learn.

But they can’t think about what’s next. All they think about is what’s happening right now:

I’m so thirsty.

The child with unsafe water at school

The bell rings. Class begins.

There is a water source at this school. But it’s unsafe and best avoided. The last time the child took a small sip, they missed school due to diarrhea and stomach pain.

So today, they have a choice:

Stay thirsty or risk getting sick again.

The child sits through the lesson without taking a drink. And then:

• Irritability
• Lower alertness

The teacher asks a question.

The child knows the answer. Or maybe they would, if they could concentrate.

But their attention keeps drifting because they’re thinking about one thing:

I’m so thirsty.

Sanitation, clean water and education

Water doesn’t only matter when a child is thirsty.

It matters when they need to wash their hands or use the toilet.

And for girls, it matters when they need to manage their periods safely, privately and with dignity.

A school can have desks. It can have books, teachers and paper.

But if it doesn’t have clean water, a safe toilet or a place for girls to manage their periods with privacy and dignity, it’s still not equipped for learning.

Imagine a girl sitting in class when she gets her period.

She panics. She knows there isn’t a private, clean place at school where she can change. There may not be water to wash with. There may not be somewhere to safely dispose of menstrual products.

Suddenly, she’s not thinking about the lesson being taught.

She’s thinking:

What do I do?

What if someone notices?

Where can I go?

She may leave class. She may avoid using the school’s facilities altogether. She may not tell anyone—a friend or trusted adult—what’s happening.

Or she may decide to stay home altogether.

And she isn’t alone:

• Girls can miss up to 20 per cent of school simply because they have their period.
• In parts of Bangladesh, for example, one in 10 girls miss school at some point during their period.

In the province of Ontario, the 2026-2027 school year is 196 days. If a student missed 20 per cent of their 196-day school year, that’s 39 days away from the classroom.

Thirty-nine days to:

• Learn something new.
• Ask questions.
• Get answers.
• Practice skills.
• Build friendships.
• Discover new interests.

All because they don’t have a safe place to manage their periods —a normal function of basic human biology.

A period shouldn't keep a girl out of school. But without a private place to change, water to wash with and somewhere to safely dispose of menstrual products, it can.

Hope and opportunity: what happens when water comes closer

Take the walk for water away and a child gets something precious back.

Time:

• From ages of 6-18, a child can lose 160 total school days fetching water. Ready access gives those days back.
• For every year a girl stays in school, her adult income can rise by 20 per cent.
• In rural Ghana, when water is farther away, girls miss 12 per cent more school hours compared to boys as travel time increased.

And sometimes, fetching water is part of the school day itself.

In some villages in Tanzania, for example, 91 per cent of students surveyed were asked to fetch water for their school. A task that takes, on average, four hours per week.

That’s time that could be spent learning.

Reading.

Playing.

Developing skills and confidence.

But when you move the water closer, you move the classroom closer too. That gives them more time, energy and focus to learn, grow and build a future.

When you give water, you give more

Every child deserves the walk to school.

Not the walk for water.

Access to clean water is more than having something to drink. It’s also:

• Fewer hours spent collecting water.
• More time in the classroom.
• A safe place to wash hands.
• A private place for a girl to manage her period.

It helps turn mornings intowhat they should have been all along:

• Backpack? Check.Notebooks? Check.
• Lunch? Check.
• Reusable water bottle? Check.
• Walk to school? Check.

Here’s how you can help end the walk before the walk.

Give clean water for brighter futures