May I share my story? I thank my parents for the education I received, the best. However, my excellent private girls' boarding school had one major problem—the supply of drinking water, sporadic and unreliable. The girls would go bucket in hand to fetch water from the well. I didn't dare go too close to the mouth of the well, where the girls jostled to be first in line. There was always someone who took pity on the skinny girl I was.
More than once a girl has fallen and died before she got out. I remember being traumatized. The school administration had to take action. That was more than 25 years ago; today, schools like this no longer have this type of problem, but elsewhere, the water supply remains problematic.
Did you know that:
• Drinking unsafe water causes more deaths each year than all hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes combined.
• Nearly 90 percent of the world's diseases are caused by unsafe water, poor sanitation, and poor hygiene; there are four billion cases of diarrhea each year directly linked to drinking contaminated water, and 2.2 million people die from it each year – for comparison, would that be as if 20 large jetliners were to crash every day?
• More than half of the world's schools lack clean water and sanitation, jeopardizing the health and education of millions of schoolchildren. The majority of the 115 million out-of-school children are girls. Many of them are denied a place in school due to a lack of decent toilets and having to walk long distances to collect water. (UNICEF)
• Research in Uganda has shown that households spend an average of 660 hours fetching water, which represents two whole months of work, with the cost that this implies in terms of education, economic productivity and rest time for women? (UNDP)
While we wait for the governments of the countries concerned to take action, you and I can already do something. We can provide wells to entire communities. It is estimated that ten dollars could provide water for a child for life. During this Christmas season, we in the West will spend more than 500 billion dollars.
To begin, we are targeting a $5,000 donation to provide a small well equipped with a pump to a poor community, and we invite you to participate. Our Facebook page is down, so we apologize if you tried to donate through that channel. We have a new webpage where you can securely donate. Your donations go directly to Living Waters International.
To donate click on this link: http://www.firstgiving.com/theophiluscompany
We ask you to echo this initiative, post this note on your profile and/or share the link to the donation page with your friends, giving them the opportunity to participate as well. Thank you very much for your participation and goodwill. Be abundantly blessed and MERRY CHRISTMAS
bola olivia ogedengbe
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