Image: Sisters, Christina and Chifuniro, Namizimbe, Malawi

This March, stand with women and girls globally by taking on the Walk for Water challenge.

Around the world, women and girls are being held back by having to walk 5km or more for water every day, taking away their hopes for the future as they miss out on paid work or school.

Show solidarity - walk 155km over the month or 5km every day and raise funds to make sure no woman or girl is held back by a lack of clean water.

Sign up today, raise £5, and receive a pair of blue laces

Step 1

Sign up on your own, with a team, or your school.

Step 2

Share your fundraising page with your friends and family.

Step 3

Aim to walk 155km over the month or 5km every day. Track your distance via the Strava app or manually on your page.

Walk for women like Harriet

Walk for women like Harriet, a 27-year-old single mother of three who spends up to six hours a day collecting water for her family.

With no clean water source near her home in Noala, southern Malawi, Harriet has no choice but to walk an hour to a different village. Despite setting off at 6am, she has to wait for the local residents to finish at the taps before she can take her turn. When the queues are long, she doesn’t get home until midday.

With clean water on tap, Harriet would instead be free to spend her time developing her vegetable garden, and building a brighter future for her family.

Walk for girls like Sawumu

Walk for girls like 13-year-old Sawumu, from Mutukula in eastern Uganda, who has to fetch water from a distant dam twice a day.

Sawumu wakes up early to make it to the dam and back before school starts. After school, she’ll make the same round trip again. Like any teenager, Sawumu should be focusing on her education and spending time with friends and family – instead, carrying ten litres of water twice a day leaves her exhausted.

Water from the dam is contaminated by animals, and diseases are common. Sawumu’s looking forward to the day when she’ll simply be able to turn on a tap, safe in the knowledge that the water she drinks won’t make her sick.