As I scroll down my Facebook news feed I am inundated with videos of people pouring buckets of water over themselves. The current trend of the 'ice bucket challenge' is raising awareness for charities such as the ALS Association, the MND association, and Macmillan Cancer Support. It's a great way to raise awareness about these diseases and get people donating towards research and support. Some people have chosen different charities to support with their challenge, including Water Aid. One of those people was me! I was nominated for the challenge by two friends, and although I'm yet to soak myself I have donated to Water Aid. Now, please don't see this blog as a criticism of the ice bucket challenge, I think it's great that people are getting actively involved in supporting charities. However, I think it's important for us to be aware of how other people live, for us to be grateful for our water and for us to work towards safe water and sanitation for the whole world.
Our most essential human need is water. On average, people can only survive for 3 days without it. So it's pretty important, right?
But did you know that roughly 1 in 10 people across the world don't have access to clean, safe water. 1 in 10. That's crazy. The likelihood is that these people will collect their water from a lake or pond, contaminated by human and animal waste as well as other bacteria. They probably have to walk a good few miles to find it, and when they do, it's not even safe for them to use.
But they have no choice. They drink the dirty water, or they go without.
The water causes all sorts of problems for them. Every year over 500,000 children die from diarrhoea as a result of drinking unsafe water and poor sanitary conditions. Because let's face it, if they don't have access to clean water to drink and cook with, they're not going to have a hygienic, flushing toilet either. That adds up to about 1,400 children dying every day because their water has made them sick. This problem is so huge that half the hospital beds in developing countries are occupied by someone whose illness has been caused by unclean water.
This video reveals some more shocking statistics about water and sanitation. The campaign towards the end of the video is from 2012 so it's a little out of date but many of the problems are still relevant. Have a watch.
While I was living in Uganda, we were blessed to live in a house with running water. However you couldn't drink it straight from the tap, it had to be boiled first. When we went to stay in the villages, we had to go and collect our water from the bore hole daily, and that too had to be boiled before we could use it. We hated doing it, and we only had to do it for about a week at a time! It made me so angry that in this world of touchscreen technology and sports cars and 12 hour plane journeys and 900 TV channels, that people were still living without water in their homes. Some people walk up to 4 miles to fetch water, making it an 8 mile round trip, for one jerrycan of water.
Sitting on my bed in England, I can stand up and walk five steps to the tap. Five steps to instant, clean and safe water. I can choose for the water to come out hot or cold. I could leave the tap running all day long and it wouldn't run out. I remember when I came back to the UK it was one of the things I really struggled with, and still do. I still think twice about filling up a glass straight from the tap. It was a daily occurrence to see children carrying their containers on their way to the pump. As we walked down to the slums we'd often meet children we knew and would carry the jerrycans for them. It broke my heart to see their little bodies struggling under the weight. And that's often the way it is. It's normally the children's responsibility to go and collect the water. I remember one day at school we had to teach a lesson about roles within the family. We talked about mothers and fathers, before asking them about a child's role in the home. Many of their responses were 'fetching water'. To them, it's normal. Just as for our children, it's normal for them to not even have to think about where their water is coming from.
Water Aid's current campaign is focusing on girls. Girls are sometimes made to drop out of school to stay at home and do chores. Their walk to collect water sometimes takes up half the day. For teenage girls, if their school does not have decent toilet facilities then they will often drop out when they start their period. Things like this should not stop a girl from going to school. Her education is so important in providing her with the knowledge and confidence to reach her full potential.
There are lots of great water charities out there.
Water Aid is one of my favourites and if you're willing, you can donate £3 by texting 'WATER' to 70007. (Did I mention that every donation up to 9th September will be matched by the UK Government?) Also check out this page on their website: www.wateraid.org/uk/what-we-do/the-crisis/water
This isn't a guilt trip, I just want to get you thinking, and appreciating. Maybe next time you turn on the tap, or step into the shower, or fill up a saucepan, you'll spare a thought for those less fortunate than you. Instead of using tap water for your ice bucket challenge, maybe you could go down to the beach and use sea water, or collect rain water. Perhaps you could look into 'Toilet Twinning' or raising money towards a water tank. There's little things we can do to prevent the wastage of water but also to raise awareness of the struggle that people across the world face.
We have been blessed abundantly, that we may bless abundantly.
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