Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Water Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on November 1, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on water resilience. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
A factory in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, is helping keep girls in school by producing cheap, reusable sanitary pads. By teaming up with NGOs, they’ve been able to distribute them to thousands of girls.
A campaign started by the women of Beechaganahalli village in Karnataka, India, has transformed lives. Their efforts resulted in the building of a treatment plant to remove arsenic and fluoride from local groundwater – and now local people have clean water to drink.
Nisha Mathews is a campaigner and hero to many women in Karnataka in India. She’s helped set up a union for domestic workers in the region, which today has more than 13,000 members.
The cultural norms in western Kenya told Martha Otieno that, as a woman, she couldn’t own land. So, she leased it instead, built a successful farming business, and is now on her way to becoming the first woman landowner in the region.
Advanced cameras, including a 3D stereoscopic microscope, allow researchers to study how corals reproduce, grow and bleach at a micro-scale. That could aid efforts to save them.
In rural Andhra Pradesh, it can be hard for women to make enough money to feed their families. But this group of women is taking on the male-dominated occupation of fish farming, and making it their own.
Ouen Chomroeun started building and selling toilets when she was 17. Now she and the women she employs sell and install them in villages across Cambodia, making money as they raise awareness of the importance of hygiene.
Balqees Bani Hani is the first woman to run a garage in Jordan. Her mechanic shop in Irbid only repairs other women’s cars and now she wants to expand and train more women to help her in her shop.
In the Rohingya refugee camps of southern Bangladesh, women-only support centers run by volunteers offer a safe space for those who have survived violence during Myanmar’s brutal military campaign.
In the Rohingya refugee camps of southern Bangladesh, women-only support centers run by volunteers offer a safe space for those who have survived violence during Myanmar’s brutal military campaign.
Bum-Erdene Tuvshinjargal is already a huge star in the sumo wrestling world. But the 17-year-old has had to take on more than just her opponents – she’s also in a fight to turn professional.
Brenda Alwanyi is Kenya’s new Condom Queen. Crowned in September, she can be found in Nairobi’s slums most weekends, handing out male and female condoms and educating women on sexual health and their rights.
Researchers find that policies in Australia to compensate for the destruction of marine habitats from dredging, port construction and other developments are too poorly managed to prevent a loss of biodiversity.
Lebanese entrepreneur Aline Sara saw a gap in the market while hunting for Arabic conversation classes in the West. She connects highly skilled Syrian refugees with Arabic learners around the world, providing much-needed work for the teachers.
Lebanese entrepreneur Aline Sara saw a gap in the market while hunting for Arabic conversation classes in the West. She connects highly skilled Syrian refugees with Arabic learners around the world, providing much-needed work for the teachers.
For the first time scientists have shown that the smallest bits of marine plastic pollution – called nanoplastic – can move up the aquatic food chain and be absorbed by predators’ brains, affecting their ability to hunt.
There are over 100,000 bus drivers in the Indian city of Bangalore, but only one of them is a woman. Preema Nadapatti now wants to get other women to take to the roads.
In our last video in the ‘Toxic Taps’ series, we visit Southern California’s Imperial Valley, where thousands of rural residents rely on untreated water used to irrigate crops.
Many mobile home parks in the eastern Coachella Valley do not meet health and safety codes. In the latest ‘Toxic Taps’ video, we look at what’s being done to fix water and sanitation problems and improve living conditions.
Nuns from the Drukpa lineage of Buddhism are known for their strength, athletic ability and humanitarian relief work. By example, they are teaching conservative villages that girls should be nurtured and supported.
This year a court invalidated a regulation protecting Californians’ drinking water from contamination by chromium-6, a carcinogen. The latest ‘Toxic Taps’ video looks at why, what the public health implications are and what happens next.
When Yasmin Al Dabaan fled the war in Syria and settled in Turkey, she noticed many Syrian children living on the streets. Using her teaching skills and her salary, she set up the Active Child Center and now provides children with informal lessons every afternoon.
At Sheroes Cafe in India, the staff are all women who have survived acid attacks. Once confined to their homes, the women now refuse to let their physical scars stop them from living their lives.
In the fifth video in our “Toxic Taps” series, we talk with José Gurrola, the 23-year-old mayor of Arvin, California, about the town’s fight for clean water.
In the fourth video in our “Toxic Taps” series, we explain what happens now that California has finally regulated a carcinogen, 1,2,3-trichloropropane, that has been contaminating groundwater for decades.
In Lal Batti Express, women and girls from India’s red-light districts share their experiences of trauma and healing. Now they’re taking their stories to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time.
More than 60,000 people have been killed by land mines in Cambodia. But all-female demining teams are hard at work clearing the land of these deadly explosives.
In the third video in our “Toxic Taps” series, we traveled to Sacramento, where San Joaquin Valley residents rallied to support Senate Bill 623, which would create a fund to clean toxic drinking water sources.
Religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in Jos, central Nigeria, have led to clashes in which several thousand people have been killed. But one NGO has an innovative solution: bringing women from both sides together to discuss their issues.
India has one of the lowest rates for women in paid employment in the world. But women’s groups in rural areas are helping each other to start businesses and become financially independent.
Sex workers in Uganda’s slums often have children at a young age, and girls can end up following their mothers into sex work. One project, Rhythm of Life, is trying to break this cycle by ensuring that the daughters of sex workers stay in school.
In the second video in our “Toxic Taps” series, we meet residents of San Joaquin Valley towns struggling with contaminated drinking water from community water systems and private wells.
In the first video of our “Toxic Taps” series, we hear from the people who are running small water systems in the San Joaquin Valley and the challenges they face treating contaminated water with limited resources.
Many older Indian women missed out on an education when they were young, but for one group of grandmothers, aged between 60 and 90, the dream of going to school is finally becoming a reality.
Gülnara Asiz Kyzy is the only female horsewhip maker in Bishkek – perhaps in the whole of Kyrgyzstan – and she’s determined to show other women that it’s possible to go it alone.
‘Really? You make beer?’ As the only female brewer in Palestine, and possibly the Middle East, Madees Khoury is challenging stereotypes about what women can and can’t do.
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is common in Maasai lands, but by encouraging girls to play cricket and providing education on the practice during breaks, one group of young people is changing attitudes.
In India, a charity is helping domestic violence survivors by training them as taxi drivers. Thanks to these new skills, they gain greater independence.
Despite a wealth of snowy mountains, Afghanistan only has 12 female skiers. Fatima Nazari, the country’s best, is trying to change that by challenging girls to take to the slopes.
The Trump administration has cut funding to the UNFPA, which provides health services to Syrian refugees in Jordan. For Sultana, that could mean an end to vital treatment for PTSD.
Have a story idea? Interested in adding your voice to our growing community?
Learn more