Oktober 2020 Solvatten

• Two very important days close to Solvatten’s heart are coming up! On the 19th of November, it’s time to celebrate women entrepreneurs, and on the 20th it’s World Children’s Day. Female entrepreneurship is the core of Solvatten’s existence as Petra, the inventor of Solvatten, had a woman’s perspective on women’s daily challenges while developing the technology. Also, the vision of improving children’s health and living conditions was crucial, as they are the ones most affected and vulnerable to water and hygiene-related diseases. 
• Through the years, we have seen various ways of how Solvatten benefits women entrepreneurship all around the world in their farming, hair salons, restaurants, or for baking bread to sell at the market. In addition, childhoods have been improved due to a more stabilized financial situation for their families, better health and hygiene conditions, and increased ability to attend school.

According to the UN, women perform, on average, 2.6 times more unpaid work compared to men which affects their opportunities to earn an equal income. Most of this time is spent on household chores, such as collecting water and firewood, taking care of children – and heating or boiling water for cooking, hygiene, and safe drinking.

The 19th of November is Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. As Solvatten was invented for women, by a woman, this day and all it stands for lays at the very heart of our vision. Solvatten contributes to increased equality, as it enables women to spend less time on these unpaid work tasks. In this way, time can be freed for her to engage in other income-generating activities to provide for her family. Independence creates a sense of self-empowerment, which we wish for all women, everywhere.

By increasing equality and enabling women to provide for themselves, the prerequisites for sustainable development are in reach. One such inspiring sunshine story comes from our encounter with Eunice in Homa Bay County, Kenya. Due to frequent cases of stomach illness in the family, she was selected as a Solvatten beneficiary in 2018. Besides accessing safe water, the use of Solvatten has also increased daily profits from Eunice’s small bakery!

With highly successful results, she now uses the safe, hot water from Solvatten to prepare the mandazi dough. Since cold water and chlorine hinder the yeast from rising, she used to collect firewood and make a small fire every morning to heat and purify the water before using it for the dough. By using Solvatten, she now saves both time and money. People in the community have also noticed that this makes the mandazis tastier, which in turn has increased Eunice’s sales and income! 

Isn’t that a remarkable example of a female entrepreneur? Solvatten celebrates Eunice and all the women making a difference in our world today!

Each year, an estimated 480.000 children under the age of five pass away due to poor access to safe water and sanitation. Meanwhile, the climate is changing due to human activities. Even though adults should be the ones held responsible for these events, the children are the ones most affected by the rising temperature.

Children aren’t solely subject to external factors, but they are the future. Hence, fighting for children’s rights includes current and future challenges related to water access, sustainable energy sources, resilience, adaptation, mitigation – and letting children be nothing but children.