Rhiannon Cobb, a 15-year-old student from Ottawa, Ontario, has seen the effects of water shortage firsthand. She recently visited several countries in eastern Africa, took notes on everything she saw, and came back with the following special report which was published on the OWL Magazine website!
When my father, a journalist with the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, told me this past summer that he would be traveling to three east African countries to research the global water and sanitation crisis I immediately began lobbying to go with him. Clearly, my lobbying efforts were a success, but my trip to Africa in October, 2009, was nothing like I had expected. I will never forget it.
I traveled to Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. I saw city slums, rural villages, and many schools that were all impacted by a lack of clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. I met kids whose lives can’t compare in any way to the comfortable lives you and I lead.
At the schools I visited I met girls around my own age. They are the lucky ones. There are many girls who are unable to go to school either because there are no proper, private sanitation facilities, like toilets and latrines, or because they spend hours each day walking many kilometers to fetch and carry water. Other girls are not in school because they are already married with children, or need to take care of younger siblings.
While in Uganda, I met a girl named Esther. Esther is lucky enough to go to school, but still has to walk four kilometers several times a day to collect water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking.
The rivers and small murkey pools from which I saw many people drawing water for drinking and cooking are shared by people who use the water to wash themselves and their clothes. Can you imagine?
The water is dirty and makes many people very ill. It causes totally preventable diseases like diarrhea, which kills 1.5 million children every year, as well as typhoid, cholera, and ring worms. Many children I spoke with had suffered through these and other water and sanitation-related illnesses. Some children who were OBVIOUSLY too sick to be in school were there anyways from 6:30 in the morning until 6:30 at night.
In an effort to improve sanitation and hygiene conditions, many schools I visited had established health clubs. These clubs were made up of between 20 and 30 children who work to teach their fellow students how to practice proper hygiene. They also demonstrate good hygiene practices in their own communities.
Through songs and skits, health club members demonstrate how to properly wash hands, boil and store water, protect food, dishes, and cooking utensils from contamination by animals, and take other basic precautions to prevent the spread of water and sanitation-related illnesses.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard children in Africa work to keep their schools and village communities safe, millions are still getting sick on a regular basis. Clean water and sanitation projects, depending on the size of the community being served, can cost between $15,000 and upward of $75,000. Funding is often needed from outside the community. The Canadian charity WaterCan, which organized our visit to Africa, is one organization that raises funds and works with local partners to do this work.
My trip has made me look at life differently. In Canada, we have the privilege of clean, running water and flushable toilets almost everywhere we go. But the reality is that over two billion people on Earth have no clue what it is like to have these basic needs met. They grow up in extreme poverty not knowing the taste of clean water, or the experience of using a working toilet that flushes the disease-causing bacteria out of their lives forever.
My trip was as inspiring as it was educating. The information I learned when I was in Africa has influenced my life today. I can only hope that we can all work together to do something to influence the lives of Africans tomorrow.
