Fresh water deprivation threatens global community
For a substance that covers 71 percent of the earth’s Surface, takes up 60 percent of the human body and is an essential ingredient to live, more than 2.5 billion people have limited access to it.
It’s sanitary water, and Castleton College professor Candace Fox and Victoria Gorham, a student from her Global Studies class, recently teamed up for a civic engagement project with students from the Applications of Non-violence class to present “FLOW-For Love of Water,” a documentary on the global crisis of fresh water.
Water has become the next oil crisis, they said. About 780 million people in developing countries lack access to safe drinking water, which leads to 3.4 million deaths caused by consuming contaminated water each year, according to Pure Water For the World.
Big corporations have been moving into third world countries taking the water supply and forcing people out of their homes. The water then gets bottled up in plastic and is sold, but the indigenous people cannot afford to buy it, the documentary revealed.
“I think this event was important for students to learn and expand their horizons to issues we face as a global community because it does affect you and the environment we live in,” Gorham said.
Pure Water For the World began as a non-profit organization in 1999. Since then, it has grown and the organization now has three offices in the United States, two in Honduras, and one in Haiti. It has partnered with a water and education program that provides workshops for sustainable water projects to help build filter systems.
Pure Water For the World has more than 50 communities in developing countries on the waiting list to be helped.
“We provide education about hygiene to the communities in need because if they don’t realize how important it is, there is no progress being made” said Jamin Gelder, program manager of Pure Water For the World. “Community ownership is the true success.”
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