Therese knows the power of one determined individual
You can help fund lasting change for children
A whole community’s future can turn on one person’s decision to act. Therese Dooley has spent her career proving it.
Over 30 years and across more than 60 countries, the Carlow woman became one of UNICEF’s leading water, sanitation and hygiene specialists – work that tackles the root cause of why children get sick, and why they stay sick.
“I was known as the Toilet Diva,” she says, “because if you want to impact a child’s health, you can’t just give them water. You also have to make sure they have toilets and a clean environment.”
That structural approach is what makes change last. Dirty water still kills more children every year than bullets. But where Therese’s work has been funded by supporters like you, clean water systems have transformed health, restored dignity for women and girls, created employment, and given communities the means to sustain themselves.
She remembers the moment one project struck water in a drought-prone region: “When that water gets hit and it spurts up into the air — the celebration and the joy in that community, you can’t describe it.”
That moment took decades of expertise, one drilling rig, and one person who decided a community’s future was worth investing in. Be that person. Invest in a community’s future today.
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UNICEF staff work with locals on an innovative water project in Afghanistan
One person can spark generational change
Long-term water projects funded by UNICEF supporters are always built with the local community – and Therese says the transformation reaches those people too.
“What I often think about is the generation I was involved with during my time with UNICEF,” she says. “Three or four of the guys who were young engineers with me in Ethiopia are now leading programmes in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. They’re the new clean water, sanitation and hygiene professionals of today and tomorrow.”
This is the return on long-term investment: you can help fun a well or a pipeline, but also a generation of local engineers carrying the work forward in their own communities and far beyond them.
That’s why UNICEF is inviting your support today. Your donation helps fund the water programmes that transform children’s lives now, and trains the professionals who will sustain that change for decades.
Your decision to act can mean generations of change. Invest in safe water – give today.
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Can you imagine not having the water and then suddenly it's appearing? I mean, it's just amazing. It's indescribable to just see that joy."Therese Dooley on the power of safe, clean water
The incredible results you can help achieve right now for children
Help billions of people access safe water.
Help billions of people access safe water.
Supporters like you are helping UNICEF reach millions of children each year with safe water.
2.1 billion people accessed safe water in the last 20 years thanks to UNICEF supporters. And in just the last three years, our staff reached over 100 million people in emergencies with water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services.
This work compliments our efforts in disease prevention through vaccinations – projects which have almost eradicated polio through reaching millions of children each year with vaccines.
Enable innovative water projects.
Enable innovative water projects.
Your support can help pioneer UNICEF's innovative groundwater mapping project.
Through innovative groundwater exploration, mapping and sustainable development, UNICEF is accelerating the use of advanced technologies, data-driven methods and sustainable financing models to unlock safe groundwater for the most vulnerable children and their families. You can help support this work now.
Support a decades-long water strategy.
Support a decades-long water strategy.
A donation today can help drive innovative solutions to bring about lasting change.
2. Managed aquifer recharge – collects and treats water from ponds and roofs (rainwater) and injects it underground for storage and future use.
3. Urban wastewater treatment – uses nature-based WASH solutions to provide sustainable, cheaper, climate-resilient wastewater treatment services
Mohammed is supported by people like you
Dirty water kills more children than bullets – help change this today
Every year, 72,000 children under five die from illness linked to unsafe water – compared with 3,400 killed in conflict. In Yemen, three-year-old Mohammed nearly became one of them, after unsafe water brought cholera into his displaced family’s home.
What saved his community is structural: a €1.2 million solar-powered water system in Dhamar now supplies 137,000 people – schools, hospitals, homes – run by local engineers like Mohammed Hasan, 24.
“It is not owned by a specific person or group,” he says, “but a public service that benefits everyone.”
Sustained by local Yemeni expertise, it’s one of 150 such systems reaching 2.5 million people.
Your support today can help fund the next one, saving children’s lives and making a lasting change.
donate nowInvest in safe water for children today
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€ 0€250 provides enough water purification tablets to ensure 50 families have safe, clean water for two months.
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€ 0€500 provides enough water purification tablets to ensure 100 families have safe, clean water for two months.
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€ 0€800 provides enough water purification tablets to ensure 160 families have safe, clean water for two months.
“Your donation can bring fundamental change for children” – Peter Power
For over 79 years UNICEF has been the global leader in providing clean water for children. Our work in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) has saved the lives of more children than any other humanitarian organisation – a fact we’re particularly proud of.
Years ago, these programs would have involved “merely” drilling a well in a drought prone area. Wells are still being developed, but UNICEF’s more recent work involves longer lasting, sustainable solar-powered water systems. These range from small-scale solar boreholes in remote communities, to large systems serving entire communities that require huge investments.
Long-term impact
It’s work like this that Therese Dooley has seen first hand. Projects that make a difference to children not just immediately, but also for many, many years after.
Although Therese is now retired and living back in Carlow where she hails from, her work continues to save and change lives.
This work is why I am asking you to donate today. By helping to fund large-scale, long-term projects, you can have an impact for generations of children over many decades.
Experts are telling us by 2040 almost 1 in 4 children in the world will live in areas of extremely high water stress, things are only getting worse. Which is why UNICEF is already planning for this scenario.
An appeal to you
In order to fund this critical longer term work UNICEF needs to have a large ongoing investment fund. And it is for these essential funds I am appealing to you to consider giving to today. Your donation can bring fundamental change to so many children’s lives. And we will of course keep you informed of the difference it makes through regular communication.
Please donate today – your simple gift of safe water can change a community’s future forever. Thank you.
Peter Power,
Executive Director,
UNICEF Ireland.
Other Ways to Donate
You can make a donation by phone by calling 01 878 3000, from Monday to Friday between 9:00 – 5:30pm.
You can send your donation by post to Freepost; UNICEF Ireland, 33 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin D01 R283.
In the unlikely event that the funds raised exceed UNICEF’s funding requirements for this appeal, your donation will be directed to where the need is greatest.