Published 12:44 IST, November 20th 2019
Saving water today can brighten a child’s tomorrow
This Universal Children's Day, here's a thought about the children in the innermost parts of the world who have to work hard for accessing drinking water:
- Initiatives
- 3 min read
According to several reports, almost 1.1 billion people around the world have no proper access to water and approximately 2.7 billion people face a scarcity of water for at least a month of the year. Clean, potable and safe water is scarce on a global scale. Freshwater sources have been under depletion scare for a long time now. The cause for the looming water crisis is stated to be the overuse or misuse, growing population, conflicts, distance and even natural disasters. People often tend to think that water is an abundant resource. While we take clean and safe water for granted and don’t use it wisely, even the access of this water is becoming a nightmarish experience for many people across the country. A large part of the population has to use water from untrustworthy sources for basic uses like drinking, cooking or cleaning. Most of this population includes children.
Many children in various parts of the country have to search and transport clean and safe drinking water across long distance for hours at long. These children, mostly girls, have to spend almost 6 hours a day in fetching water, instead of attending schools. A lot of these children are exposed to hazardous water or exposed to water sources that are contaminated by water-borne bacteria. They are often affected by life-threatening diarrhea from parasites in unclean water or contract diseases like cholera. The lack of water inevitably leads to the minimal access to proper sanitation. Very few girls in the rural parts of the country are able to attend schools, however, they are forced to drop out during their puberty due to lack of proper resources during their menstrual cycles.
What we consider a naturally inexhaustible resource, there are many children who are living an unhealthy lifestyle because of the lack of it. Using water responsibly and implementing methods of water conservation can go a long way in giving a child a better future. Just the access to clean drinking water can not only help them in living a healthy life, but also a chance to go to school and have access to the fundamental right of education. Proper access to water reduces their chance of contracting deadly diseases. It also reduces the physical effort these children undertake to transport water and help them avoid the dangers in the path.
This Universal Children’s Day, let’s give a thought to the children who are far from us and have a painful life accessing resources that you and your children have access to and are not mindful about.
Here’s how you can contribute to make every drop of water count -
Take the pledge by logging onto www.republicworld.com or give a missed call on 1800 120 887788.
Updated 20:21 IST, November 20th 2019