On World Water Day this Tuesday, the team here at One has taken up the challenge to live on 5 litres of water for 24 hours (this is to be used for everything…drinking, cooking, washing and so on!).

The Team

Here’s the 5L jerrycan that will hold our day’s allowance of water

As we go about our busy, daily lives, do you ever stop to think about how much water we might use in a day?? That five-minute shower that we take for granted in the morning – that’s 40 litres of water alone! Brushing our teeth before we head off to work – 1 litre (…and that’s if you’re good and turn off the tap in-between! It’s approximately 6 litres if you leave the tap running!!!). 6 litres just to flush the toilet…and then another 3 litres to wash our hands after!!

It makes you think doesn’t it?! And that’s without the 65 litres needed every time we put the washing machine on, or 20 litres for the dishwasher!

According to the Human Development Report, here in the UK we use on average 150 litres of water per person a day. In Australia it’s approximately 500 litres, and in the US over 570 litres.

Many people in Africa have no choice but to survive on just 5L of water per day. It’s for this very reason that the team is committed to our World Water Day challenge. We are lucky though, it’s for a day! And we get the luxury of turning on a tap and filling our jerrycans up from the comfort of our homes. The average walk to collect water in Africa is six kilometers, and for most of the women and children doing this, they carry somewhere around 20kgs of water back home with them (that’s the equivalent to our luggage allowance when we go on holiday!). Every day!!

All eleven of us here at One will be armed with our 5 litre jerrycans on Tuesday and we’ll keep you updated on the day on Twitter (@OneDifference) and Facebook (One Difference). If you would like to sponsor the team and support our clean, safe water campaign ‪#‎Waterto100000, please donate to:https://www.justgiving.com/Ones5LitreChallenge