“Water for All” Workshop at Ecumenical Advocacy Days

Deborah Katina
Photo: R. Hughes/CWS

March 31, 2008

Two Church World Service partners, Deborah Katina, coordinator for Yang’at in Kenya and Elias Szczytnicki, the regional coordinator of the Latin America and Caribbean chapter of World Religions for Peace, co-led the workshop “Water for All” at the 2008 Ecumenical Advocacy Days conference. The conference, held in Washington, D.C., March 7-10, drew participants from around the globe to explore true human and environmental security for all people.

Ms. Katina and Mr. Szczytnicki emphasized clean drinking water as a priority for human security, as more than one billion people world-wide lack safe, accessible and affordable water, and 2.5 billion people lack adequate sanitation. Furthermore, some two million children die each year from waterborne diseases.

Ms. Katina noted that nearly one-fifth of Kenya’s 32 million people live in fast-growing informal settlements and urban slums that lack even the most basic facilities for hygiene. Years of neglect, poor water management, and a lack of resources and investment in infrastructure has prevented water services from keeping pace with population growth. In Kenya’s dry rural areas, shortages of water are common and women often spend days traveling long distances in search of water.

Katina also described the Kenyan government’s recent reforms in the water sector, in which management of water services has been turned over to community-based organizations. While she is hopeful that the reforms can overcome the mismanagement endemic in Kenya’s governmental institutions, she points out that the local groups have not been provided any funding to repair the non-functioning systems needed to access clean water.

She spoke of collaboration between Yang’at and Church World Service, which works directly with local communities in the West Pokot District of Kenya and other semi-arid locales to construct subsurface dams, wells, cattle troughs and sanitation facilities.

Szczytnicki highlighted the polluted waters, in the city of La Oroya, Peru, caused by a U.S-based company’s harmful emissions from a nearby metal smelter. He is participating with other Peruvian religious leaders and churches in the Inter-religious Committee for La Oroya and the Mantaro River Basin.

According to a study conducted by the Peruvian Ministry of Health, t he children in La Oroya have on average three times the amount of lead in their blood as the level permitted by the World Health Organization. Szczytnicki emphasized that water contamination and other environmental problems in Peru not only cause tremendous economic damage to the country, but have the greatest detrimental impacts on the health and livelihoods of impoverished families.

The Inter-religious Committee for La Oroya and the Mantaro River Basin is advocating for a more thorough and comprehensive regulation of water supplies as well as the creation of a Ministry of the Environment. The committee has established a monitoring facility for regular testing of water contaminants in the Mantaro River. The goal is the reclamation of the area’s soil, water and air, and the creation of programs to improve the health and nutrition of the vulnerable population.

Church World Service was honored to sponsor Deborah Katina and Elias Szczytnicki’s participation in Ecumenical Advocacy Days 2008. Their workshop presentations were well-received and encouraged people of faith to become more involved in the global campaign for safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all.