Clean Water Brings New Life to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
- ajoyce140
- Oct 22
- 3 min read
Obtaining clean water in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, is a source of stress for many families, as it is so scarce. Access to clean water is out of reach in many rural and underserved communities across the country, where turning on the tap is not an option, and is frequently shackled to unaffordable fees to ensure its cleanliness or living in fear of it carrying a deadly disease, health experts say.
Cox’s Bazar, a region in southeast Bangladesh where local Bangladeshis and Rohingya refugees from Myanmar live, is a grim illustration of the scarcity of fresh, uncontaminated water in the region. As host communities contend with depleting groundwater reservoirs, extensive water pollution, and the expense of setting up deep wells, the Rohingya population being pushed into the area is adding to the crisis and exhausting the resources of the region.
Water Scarcity is so extreme that you have to go to a store to get clean, drinkable water. There, among jugs and bottles, people pay to have water pumped from a deep aquifer, treated, and sold. Priced at a monthly cost of BDT 400 (USD 3.27), which is more than 10% of the average laborer’s entire monthly income, safe water for coastal Bangladesh is 40 times the price it is in urban areas, representing an unfair and disproportionate burden imposed on the poor and vulnerable.
Unfortunately, most water from natural sources is contaminated. High levels of contamination have resulted in widespread cases of waterborne illnesses, including diarrhea, cholera, and typhoid. Diarrheal disease is the country’s biggest killer, taking the lives of 62 in 1000 children under the age of five. Families get sick, children are kept home from school, incomes evaporate, and a brighter future grows even more distant.
On the 21st of December, there were smiles and a peaceful sense of relief as two deep wells with wudu stations were presented in Cox’s Bazar. Today, hundreds of people a day have access to clean drinking and cleaning water through the efforts of Life for Relief and Development (LIFE).
For Muslims in the locality, there has to be a place to do wudu (ablution) five times each day and ghusl (full-body purification) that is dependable. Today, those wells enable it.
The building began on November 17th, and over several weeks, workers, volunteers, and local citizens came together to finish the project. What they made was not merely a well; it was a path to dignity, health, ease.
Its effect on the community was both instant and deeply personal. To our donors, this was because of you. Your kindness did more than provide people with hydration and cleanliness. You are helping to keep them healthy and allowing them to lie down to sleep with no dehydrated anguish over where the next bucket of clean water might come from and at what cost.
There is so much further to go.
There are families who are still walking for miles to find water. People are still falling ill from dirty sources. There are still schools and orphanages without a single drop of clean water. We are changing that, with your help.
Together, we can drill more wells, which carry more than water but also hope, healing, and dignity.
