Sometimes, when we see people living in more impoverished, more desperate areas of the world, we ask ourselves, “why can’t these people improve their lives?

Further, we often find that children living in some problematic parts of the world stop going to school at a young age. From here, a cycle begins that repeats itself over and over again: children receive minimal formal education, perpetuating a life of poverty.

According to Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist best known for creating “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” there is a particularly good reason for this. In fact, it is easy to understand why this cycle keeps repeating and a lot of it comes down to water, or should we say, the lack of water.

According to Maslow:

Without secure access to clean water, [people] find it harder to focus on things beyond the most basic elements needed for survival. When you are thirsty or hungry, you will become distracted by these deficiencies and will have to satisfy those needs to be productive elsewhere. You can ignore these needs for a while, but you cannot go long without proper hydration.

He also says that many people around the world are faced with challenges that those in more affluent, and more water-rich areas of the world, can’t even fathom.

“Many people [in these poorer areas of the world] are stuck in a fight for survival. The things we require to survive are requirements for a reason. We need certain things like food and water to provide our body with nutrients and keep it functioning properly.”

When we consider what Maslow is saying, it is easier for us to understand why the cycle mentioned earlier continues along with the predicament these people are trying to survive in. But what we may not understand is just how big that predicament is.

Possibly these stats can give us an idea:

• While the numbers can vary depending on sources, they are still bad no matter what the source. Most report that about 1.1 billion people in the world lack regular access to water.

• Nearly three billion people live in areas of the world where water is scarce at least one or more months per year.

• About half the schools worldwide do not have proper access to clean water and sanitation facilities.

• Collectively, around the world, children spend 200 million hours every single day collecting water.

Further, some experts now believe that at the rate we are contaminating freshwater sources, we are looking at a very real chance that by 2025—that’s three years from now—as much as two-thirds of the world’s people will need to grapple with some type of water scarcity, temporarily or permanently. This means that very likely more children may find themselves in this cycle of little education and more poverty.

If there was ever a reason for improving water efficiency and water conservation, it is for this, the children of the world. It’s one reason that Waterless Co., Inc., supports organizations that are trying to improve water-related conditions for the world’s children as well as develop new technologies that help us minimize, if not eliminate, the use of water, helping to address this water scarcity challenge.