Did you know that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 884 million individuals across the planet don’t have access to safe drinking water, resulting in 1.4 million children dying annually from water-borne illnesses?
1.4 Million children dying annually from water-borne illnesses – that equates to 1 child dying every 20 seconds for the want of clean water. This is really disgusting in the 21st century and an indictment on all of us that this is so.
The Importance of Clean Water
Most of these deaths occur in third-world countries, and not only in countries which are arid or experiencing temporary water shortages due to drought. They occur in countries where poverty is rife, in the slums in rich countries and in poor countries, and anywhere where there is no infrastructure to ensure that communities have access to clean water.
Many rural areas and slums across the world have no access to fresh, clean water for drinking and personal hygiene purposes, which results in a lack of hygienic sanitation and illness, most notably diarrhoea, which is responsible for millions of child deaths every year.
Women and children are generally the ones who bear the burden of collecting water in these areas, sometimes having to walk many kilometres to the nearest source, which is often contaminated and most likely disease-filled. Buckets, jugs and bottles are lugged back to their homes on foot, on their own backs or the backs of animals, and used for everything from food preparation to personal hygiene and drinking water.
Access to clean water prevents diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid, meningitis, Giardia, Cryptosporidium and hepatitis A and will allow for hygienic sanitation, allowing these children to live fruitful lives and not rob them of an education and their childhood.
It is our duty as compassionate human beings to save water where we can and to do what we can to ensure that everyone in the world has access to the most basic human right – the right to clean drinking water.
It is our duty to question our governments and ask them what they are doing to ensure that the poor and needy in our country are getting access to clean water for drinking and other purposes.
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