Last June I went on a trip to Guatemala. While I worked in a nutrition clinic with malnurished children, most of the team I went with spent the time digging cisterns. Why? Because water is a top priority in most developing countries. I fell in love with the little girls I worked with in the nutrition clinic; their precious, dirty little hands and faces are so beautiful.
Here in America use has accustomed us to the miracle of clean water pumped directly into our homes. But in many countries people are dependent on rain or the most rudimentary village water systems. The sanitation problems caused by a lack of clean, running water are often compounded by the lack of even basic health education. Even now there is a drought in Africa; animals needed for subsistence farming are dying and being piled and left at the outskirts of the village; children are dying of dehydration.
What can you do? Today, March 22nd, is World Water Day. Go to this website and find out what’s going on. Look at the list of sponsors (a few of them are favorites of mine: Mercy Corps, UNICEF, CARE) and support them, if you have the money. If you’re buying a bottle of water, look for the brand Ethos Water; for every bottle of water they sell they donate 5 cents towards a fund to help bring clean drinking water to people who don’t have any Their goal is ten million dollars in the next five years. (Or donate what you’d spend on the water to an organization and ask for tap water! And if you do buy water, any kind of water, please recycle the bottle.)ÂÂ
Or consider doing something like my friend Erin, who spent a month drinking nothing but water, and decorated her water bottle to say, “Ask me why I’m drinking water.” When people asked, she explained that she wasn’t drinking anything except water for a month, to draw attention to the fact that over a billion people around the world don’t have safe drinking water. Then she’d ask for a donation, and she sent all the money she collected to an organization working to bring clean drinking water to developing countries.
Here are some quick water facts to help get you motivated:
The world water crisis is one of the largest public health issues of our time. Nearly 1.1 billion people (roughly 20% of the world’s population) lack access to safe drinking water1. The lack of clean, safe drinking water is estimated to kill almost 4,500 children per day2. In fact, out of the 2.2 million unsafe drinking water deaths in 2004, 90% were children under the age of five3. Water is essential to the treatment of diseases, something especially critical for children.
This problem isn’t just confined to a particular region of the planet – it’s a world-wide issue. A third of the Earth’s population lives in “water stressed� countries and that number is expected to rise dramatically over the next two decades4. The crisis is worst in developing nations, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The world water crisis is created by a confluence of factors including climate and geography, lack of water systems and infrastructure, and inadequate sanitation, something that 2.6 billion people (40% of the world’s population) lack access to5. Some of these countries have additional problems, including high levels of arsenic and fluoride in drinking water6.
Even with these unsanitary conditions, many women and young girls in rural areas in Sub-Saharan African and other parts of the world must trek as much as six miles everyday to retrieve water for their families7. Due to this manual labor, such women and children are prevented from pursuing an education, maintaining their households or earning additional income8.
Thus, the lack of clean water, coupled with the lack of basic sanitation and a dearth of hygiene education, is one of the largest obstacles to progress and development in these regions and across the world. The UN has prioritized water access among its
Millennium Development Goals because it contributes to such widespread suffering, including increased poverty, high child mortality rates, depressed education levels, and political instability. Without question, the world water crisis condemns billions of people to a perpetual struggle to survive at the subsistence level,
thus inspiring millions– like you and me– to engage and alleviate this problem.
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March 22nd, 2006 at 10:40 am
It’s funny you brought this up. I was just talking with a friend recently about water-related projects. I’ll pass this along to him.
March 22nd, 2006 at 11:50 am
Thank you for drawing attention to such an important need, Mel.
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I encourage you to keep championing this. The biggest problem for me I will confess is that the grind of daily life tends to push these things off the radar so I need those like yourself who will remind. I wish I had an explanation for how 4,500 children dying per day manages to slip off my radar. I think we tend to try and comfort each other and give all the reasons why. But I don’t think it’s always wrong to have a good decent old-fashioned bout of shame with stuff of this magnitude.
I know the reasons for this crisis are complicated but I can’t help reading this and going “This is a church issue… this is a spiritual issue …it’s us within the Kingdom that should be leading the way.”
Only the dead can help the living.
nooc.
March 23rd, 2006 at 3:28 am
I love that you care about people getting clean water too. I love sharing things like that with old friends
I didnt know about your trip to Guatemala– How COOL!