Like many communities in Paraguay’s semi-arid region, Nazareth receives nearly all of its rain between the months of November and March. During this time, safe drinking water is plentiful.
But once the rains stop, families must either walk great distances to fetch water or drink from possibly contaminated sources. Digno Bogarin lives in a modest wooden house with no electricity and no running water. He, his wife and their five children share one room, surviving largely on produce from the small field of crops that Mr. Bogarin grows alongside their house. Like more than 2.6 billion people worldwide, the family lacks basic sanitation facilities.

The main problems here are water and health,” says Mr. Bogarin, who has lost one child from severe diarrhoea. “I’m very worried because we don’t have enough water. “Before, there were some people who taught us how to clean dirty water using chemicals. But now we can’t even afford the chemicals, so we just drink dirty water, and this makes us sick,” he adds. His children spend hours each day walking to a pond to collect water. The pond is also used by animals, so the water frequently makes the children ill. Their plight is shared by many indigenous communities in the region.