Imagine walking this far to get water or food every day.

Have you ever felt like you’ve too much to do and too little time to do it? You know that feeling when you’re standing on a crowded platform waiting for a train to work or uni and you think about how you’d rather be on holiday or having lunch with friends?

Think about this instead:

Imagine spending every day of your life working for little or no salary. Imagine walking for hours and hours just to get water, food or firewood for your family.

Millions of women in the world’s poorest countries spend morning after morning, day after day, walking for water, then shouldering its weight as they retrace their footsteps on the long journey home.

Instead of walking towards a classroom or a playground, girls across the world trek for hours to distant boreholes and water wells, spending their childhood on this interminable, unvarying commute. Instead of starting businesses, changing their communities or learning new skills, women across the world will walk and walk and walk.

You can make a difference by taking part in CARE Australia’s Walk In Her Shoes challenge (www.walkinhershoes.org.au) next week. The challenge asks people to raise money by walking 10,000 steps a day in recognition of the distances women and girls in developing countries walk everyday for life’s basic necessities.

The sheer wasted life-potential is staggering. On a global scale, women have never been so productive or been a greater force for economic growth. In 2010, 104 million women in 59 of the world’s economies started and managed new business ventures, creating millions of jobs and contributing substantially to the world’s gross domestic product.

Yet, many more millions of women in the world’s poorest countries remain trapped in a daily cycle of unpaid and unacknowledged labour.

According to one piece of research, in South Africa women have up to 40% less productive time than men. Whilst they walk mile after mile for water, these women remain trapped in a cycle of poverty and inequality that they simply don’t have time to address.

And yet this is a problem that is relatively easy to fix. Another study conducted in Uganda showed that women and girls who live within 400 metres of a clean water source get an extra 600 hours of their lives back every year – 600 hours to change their lives and work towards a more productive future.

Sopheap’s story is a case in point. The 12-year-old from north east Cambodia used to walk for hours every day, crossing a stream which at times can be over waist height, to collect vegetables at her family’s plot of land or firewood from the forest.

Getting an education is the key to helping Sopheap lift herself, and her family, out of poverty – but first she needs to be relieved of the burden of walking.

Watch her story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bMBczbJwRec

CARE is working with her community to help more girls go to school, and stay there. CARE supports families to grow food near their homes and access safe water nearby, so there is not need to spend hours walking.

CARE has also helped the community develop early childhood centres so that girls can go to school instead of caring for their younger siblings.

Instead of measuring time in footprints, Sopheap now spends her days in school and wants to become a teacher.  It’s time that the millions of other girls walking their lives away get the same opportunities.

You can show your solidarity with these women by walking 10,000 steps a day from March 18-24 as part of CARE Australia’s Walk in Her Shoes campaign.

Register before Monday at www.walkinhershoes.org.au and track your steps with a CARE pedometer. Starter kits are on sale in The Body Shop stores across Australia for $9.95 and include a pedometer and makeover voucher valued at $40.