Late one night last week, I went into the kitchen to refill my water bottle. There was no ice in the ice maker, and the temperature in the freezer was rising rapidly. The next morning, I called a repairman and arranged for service. By that evening the freezer was cooling again, and by the next morning, we had plenty of ice. In those hours in between, however, I thought I really had it tough having to drink my water at room temperature rather than ice cold as I like it.
These statistics from the Blog Action Day website made me realize how blessed I was to have that room-temperature water!
- Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.
- African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink.
- Students in developing countries lose 443 million school days each year due to diseases associated with the lack of water, sanitation and hygiene. Repeated episodes of diarrhea and worm infestations diminish a child’s ability to learn and impair cognitive development.
- Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in water sources. This not only negatively impacts the environment but also harms the health of surrounding communities.
Tens of thousands of children dying every day for lack of safe drinking water, and I complained that for a few hours I didn’t have ice water!
Visit the Blog Action Day site to learn more about the critical water problems and find out what you can do to help.