Environmental Sustainability/Water

Thinking about Water in the Global Village: A CROP Hunger Walk Reflection

(5 minutes)

Photo: Paul Jeffrey/ACT-CWS

We all must have water to live and yet we rarely take time to appreciate how blessed we are to have easy access to water in our daily lives. I’m going to ask you some questions about water. If your answer is yes, please stand up.

Have you ever had to walk at least a mile to get water for you or your family?
Fact: More than 200 million hours are spent every day by women and children to collect water fro distant, often polluted, sources.

Have you ever collected rainwater to use in your home or to water your garden?

Fact: 80 countries, home to 40% of the world’s population, are encountering serious water shortages.

Have you ever suffered diarrhea from drinking unsafe water?
Fact: The World Health Organization estimates that 80% of all sickness in the world is attributable to
unsafe water and sanitation. UNICEF says that 4,000 children die every day from unclean drinking water.

Did you wash laundry this week?
Fact: The average American uses 100-150 gallons of water each day to perform household tasks
such as laundry and dishwashing. Compare this to the average African, who uses only 3-5 gallons of
water each day.

Did you drink any bottled water today?
Fact: In the U.S., we often choose to buy bottled water even though we have clean water at the tap.
One of every six people in the world lacks this access to safe drinking water. Fact: Ground water in our own eastern U.S. is becoming increasingly contaminated.

Did you flush a toilet today? (Personal question: How many times? )
Fact: One toilet flush in the U.S. uses as much water (4-7 gallons) as the average person in a
developing country uses for a whole day’s drinking, cooking, washing, and cleaning combined. People in the third world might be dumbfounded to learn that we in the developed world (USA & Europe) flush our human waste with drinkable water.

When you walk in the CROP Hunger Walk, you help Church World Service provide clean, safe water through wells, hand pumps, gravity-flow community water systems, water filtration systems, etc. Besides that, CWS provides education and training for village health promoters who work to improve community health, hygiene, and sanitation standards throughout the world.

Also, by helping communities secure adequate water to irrigate their crops, your walking provides a sure way for the poor to stay “ahead of the curve” of hunger.

If you are committed to supporting the CROP Hunger Walk and CWS’s efforts to bring clean, safe water to thirsty people in our world… remain standing and give yourselves a round of applause. Thank you!
(Mary Catherine Hinds, CWS Carolinas Office)