Without a sustainable safe water system, it is impossible for a community to emerge from poverty. According to the World Health Organization, thousands die every year as they are collecting water. Drowning is a danger as they gather water in slippery, dangerous conditions. In addition to risking permanent damage to their spines, they risk assault when walking in remote areas to fetch water for their families. Women and children also risk physical danger during their daily journey to collect water. (Sanitation as a Key to Global Health: Voices from the field, 2010) Once girls reach puberty, many drop out of school because of the indignity of attending to their personal hygiene in schools without sanitary facilities. (Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis, Human Development Report, 2006) Lack of adequate sanitation at schools compounds the problem, particularly for girls. According to the United Nations Development Programme, approximately 443 million school days are missed each year due to water-related illnesses. In addition, children sick with water-related illnesses frequently miss class. Families that need children to transport water do not send them to school regularly. Without an accessible safe water system in their community, most children forfeit a good education. It accounts for a sixth of infant deaths, and even in those it does not kill it prevents the absorption of food at a time when the brain is growing and developing rapidly. Eppig and his colleagues, however, it is the various bugs that cause diarrhoea which are the biggest threat. A study of children in Kenya who survived the cerebral version of the disease suggests that an eighth of them suffer long-term cognitive damage. Intestinal worms have been shown to do so on many occasions. There is, moreover, direct evidence that infections and parasites affect cognition. “Places that harbour a lot of parasites and pathogens not only suffer the debilitating effects of disease on their workforces, but also have their human capital eroded, child by child, from birth. Summarizing the results of a broad study from a team of researchers led by Christopher Eppig, The Economist reported on July 3, 2010, (Sanctuary, Tropp, & Berntell, 2005) A physician who supports Lifewater says that he does so because, after dozens of mission trips to developing countries, he realized that curative work has little effect in places where people return home to unsanitary conditions without safe water.Įven when children drinking contaminated water avoid acute illness, they are likely to suffer malnutrition, stunted growth, and impeded intellectual development due to parasites and chronic diarrhea. At any given time, nearly half of the population of the developing world suffers from illness caused by lack of access to safe water and sanitation. Millions more die of malaria, dengue, and other mosquito-borne diseases, which are perpetuated by stagnant, unsafe water. Worldwide, between two and five million people die every year of water-related diseases, most of them young children. (UNICEF, 2008) Studies show that at least 10 percent of the world’s total incidence of disease is related to unsafe water. More than one in ten children dies before the age of five, largely from water-related diseases. With unsafe water, like a person with poisoned or diseased blood, we suffer a slower death. Humans survive less than four days without any water at all. No living thing survives without water, and no human being thrives without clean water. God created water as the lifeblood of all of creation-both our environment and our human bodies. Safe water systems and the sanitation facilities and hygiene knowledge communities need to benefit from them are the first, essential step to helping the poor emerge from poverty. It is like the mustard seed investments in it multiply and reap spiritual and physical benefits for generations to come. Practiced as part of proclaiming the good news of Christ in word and deed, Christian engagement in water development helps express the fullness of the gospel. ” (Gleick, 2002) Failing to address the water crisis costs millions of lives and imperils our Christian testimony. According to Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, “ The failure to provide safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services to all people is perhaps the greatest development failure of the 20th century. These huge water, sanitation, and hygiene education (WASH) needs must be addressed. Nearly one billion people worldwide do not have safe water, and 2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation. Water is also essential to the lives and dignity of the millions of communities lacking safe water. A moment’s pause reminds us that water is essential to caring for the bodies God has given us. Those of us in developed nations consume gallons upon gallons of safe water every day.
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