And they’re mostly women and children.
Billions have no safe place to go to the toilet. Lack of water and sanitation traps people in a vicious circle of disease, lost life chances and poverty.
On World Water Day 2011 thousands of people across the globe will walk together for 6 kilometres to demand an end to this crisis. The walks will build on the success of the World’s Longest Toilet Queue in 2010, and demand that politicians in the North and the South keep their promises and step up their efforts to ensure water and sanitation for all people, everywhere.
Please pledge to walk at WalksforWater.org. Walk alone, with your family or join a local walk (find one in your area).
Help spread the word!
- Watch the movies FLOW and Blue Gold –two award-winning documentaries about the global water crisis. My son was 8 when we shared FLOW with him and it really made an impact. Have a screening at your home!
- Email your member of congress and ask that they step up their efforts to address the water and sanitation crisis, as well as other issues that threaten children’s survival in poor countries.
- Use your social network to spread the word. If you’re on facebook, join myEARTH360′s Walks for Water (problem with the link? Click on Events in left corner of their facebook page) and invite your friends. If you’re on twitter, follow @WalksforWater and @myEARTH360. Join us to tweet about world water crisis issues–be sure to use the hashmark #waterwednesday and/or #WorldWaterDay to help earn us Trending Topic status and to make @ tweets viral. Simply re-tweet our tweets or come up with some of your own.
- Purchase Linda Loudermilk’s limited edition Water is a Human Right Mission Wear-–a generous portion of sales will be donated to organizations that support the global water crisis.
- Donate to your fave organization that helps fight the global water and sanitation crisis. I love The Ryans Well and Abundant Water.
- From now through March 31,2011, purchase eco-friendly products from myEARTH360.com, and enter WATERFORALL at checkout. For every $25 you spend, we’ll donate $5 you spend to The Ryans Well or Abundant Water. Tell us your choice in the comments section of your order or we’ll make the choice for you.
More information about the walk…
(Source: Walks for Water website)
What do we want?
Simply put, political action. It’s needed if we’re going to tackle the crisis effectively.
We want the World Walks for Water to make governments take the actions needed to ensure safe sanitation and clean water for all. That means keeping the promises they have already made as part of the Millennium Development Goals, including halving the proportion of people without access to sanitation and water by 2015.
To meet these goals, sanitation and water must become:
A Political Priority.
Water and sanitation are too often neglected by governments, both rich and poor. And it fails to receive the political attention it requires.
This has to change if real progress is to be made.
A Funding Priority.
Investment in water and sanitation is a small commitment compared to the scale of the problem and the return it could yield. Often the investment doesn’t go to the countries and communities that need it most.
More and better targeted money is needed to make sure that any country with a good plan to ensure services for their citizens can deliver it.
Water and sanitation is key to improving health, education and good nutrition – all are needed to end poverty.
Plans for all these should be integrated, with water and sanitation no longer being forgotten.
* Originally published at I Count for myEARTH.
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