WATER

Ben Siegel

World Today

February 5, 2011

There are many water issues facing every part of the world today. A water and sanitation has hit our world and has caused a lot of health problems, and deaths. A lot of statistics are mind blowing like the fact that 884 million people don’t have the access to safe water. A person from the U.S taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a person in a slum uses in a whole day. Also, one last crazy statistic is that the water and sanitation crisis have taken more lives than any war has with guns.

Although this is such an intimidating issue people are doing a lot to help, and it is making big impact. For instance, in 1999 a seven-year old kid named Ryan Hreljac heard about the water crisis in Africa and started a foundation called Ryan’s Well Foundation, which puts water pumps in Countries where there is not access to safe water. Ryan is not the only one, after hearing about what he could do many other people have made a pledge to help this issue also, and are making a difference.

About 12% of the people worldwide don’t have access to safe water and as a result of water related diseases more than 3½ million people die every year. There are more than 1 billion people who don’t have access to sanitation facilities at all. One way to try and resolve some of these problems would be to invest in safe drinking water and sanitation facilities everywhere. If water systems were improved around the world the number of missed school days would decrease by nearly 300 million. The conservation of water would also help in terms of more water preserved plus the sanitation systems would work better.

There are a few ways that we as a class can help this global crisis. One is that we can spread the word, meaning tell everyone what’s going on in the world in which they live. Second, we can fundraise for Ryan’s Well and other organizations like that. Lastly, we should educate people on this horrible topic, by going to schools or places where we could speak and tell everyone how big of an issue this really is and that everyone should help.