Thousands of people in undeveloped countries do not have access to clean water. As they are aware of the problem, UNICEF, has partnered up with the Environmental Club to help with this situation.

Presently, 18 out 50 states are experiencing drought because of the global climate change, according to The Water Project.org.

The TAP water project’s purpose is to help bring awareness and educate people about the global water crisis. The project is meant to be a series of fundraisers running throughout the spring.

Since this is UNICEF’s first year doing the TAP water project, they are mainly focused on getting the word out about the project.

The funds raised from this project will go towards drilling wells, the installation of water pumps, building latrines in impoverished communities, and classes that teach lifesaving hygiene to school children and their families. In places like Vietnam, Iraq, Haiti, Nicaragua and many more developing countries.

This project supports millions of children around the globe who do not have safe, clean water to drink; the lack of this basic necessity is lethal.

Every month, UNICEF USA comes up with a short term goal for each UNICEF club in each school. The TAP Project is an annual fundraiser conducted by all UNICEF high school clubs in the springtime. UNICEF USA has provided access clean water to around 2.6 billion people since 1990.

Last year, the Environmental club installed two new water dispensers around the school.  Coincidently, at this time Environmental club was about to launch it s advocacy for water pollution. Since the two clubs were about to do this, UNICEF has asked Environmental club to help with the fundraising of money for the TAP water project.

UNICEF takes care of the fundraising and financial part of the project. Environmental club takes care of the advertising and the education of the general public.

Every morning throughout the month of April, the Environmental club made a slide show about interesting water facts that are shown on the morning announcements.

So far UNICEF has held two fundraisers. One was Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF and the other fundraiser was at Rangoli Grill. English teacher and owner of Rangoli Grill, Rashmi Kumar allowed UNICEF to host a fundraiser at Rangoli Grill on Friday, April 29th. 15% of the proceeds went to the TAP water project.

In the Trick-or Treat for UNICEF they earned $250 from donations at the event, but so far they have not calculated the cumulative amount of money they have fundraised for the TAP water project.

Sindhu Kosuru, the president of the UNICEF group at WA, has made short term goals for this project seeing that it is the first time they are doing this project.

“Since this is our first year conducting the project, we do not have a projection or goal of how much money we want to make. Therefore, our goal for the fundraiser is to get as many members of Westford Academy and the community of Westford actively involved and talking about the project,” Kosuru said.

President of Environmental club Nancy Wang feels that the water crisis is something that should be dealt with and not ignored.

“[The water crisis] is going to be increasing as an issue probably in the next few years. Scientists have been predicting World Wars […] They said that the third world war could likely be some kind of natural resource that has become scarce, including water,” said Wang.

Wang is very into conserving the planet and not using plastic in hopes of saving the environment. Most people think that bottled water is cleaner, but Wang would beg to differ.

“Tap water and bottled water are basically the same thing, but actually tap water is better in some cases, especially in Massachusetts, where our water is fairly clean,” Wang said.

Kosuru believes the Tap Water project has an important mission.

“I definitely think that the TAP water project is a great opportunity for students and global citizens to be able to make a difference in the lives of millions of people around the world who suffer from a lack of a basic necessity every single day,” Kosuru said.

Wang is also fully committed to this project.

“I think the TAP water project is a great way to bring awareness to the pressing issue of water and drought today. It’s important to see water as a resource and not just something to be taken for granted,” Wang said.