water.

Yesterday, I woke up with a dilemma. I could not decide if I wanted to go skiing in St.Moritz, Switzerland for 4 days or if I should save money for Christmas presents. It seemed like a real problem at the time… I would never have thought that just 11 hours later my “perfect” little  world would shatter.

I am grateful for that change, which was due to a presentation by Scott Harrison. I never thought of myself as of an overly emotional person, but I just could not stop crying over what I saw and heard…

Scott talked about his old life in New York (NY) and how it changed when he volunteered to work as a photojournalist on a floating hospital with Mercy Ships (a humanitarian organization which offered free medical care in the world’s poorest nations).

What he saw was enough to make even the bravest man shiver from horror and shock (I know, because I have seen the pictures): poverty beyond imagination, faces eaten away by bacteria, suffocating tumors, skin rashes, dysentery and stomach worms. Most of these diseases were caused by contaminated water.

I could never have imagined that in our age of advanced technology and information, when cars, flat screen TV’s, computers, cell phones, and Internet connection is not a luxury but a commodity, that there are 1.2 billion people living with no public electricity, sewage, basic medical care and no access to clean, safe water.

These people lack both the tools and knowledge to build something as basic as hand-dug wells, or boreholes (deep wells). Most women and children spend more than three hours every day fetching dirty water that is likely to make them sick.

According to statistics close to 38,000 children under 5 years old, die every week from a lack of basic sanitation or unsafe water.

Of course we hear about wars, terrorism, poverty and diseases on the news, but all of it seems so far away…

We have more pressing problems at hand, like the economic crisis, gas prices, a mean boss and what to get our spouse and children this Christmas.

And most of us have no idea that every sixth person on this Planet would give anything in exchange for something that we use without thinking – clean water.

When Scott returned to NY from Liberia, in 2006 he founded a non-profit organization called charity: water, where 100% of money raised goes  directly to project costs.

In two years charity: water has raised $7.2 million, funded 890 water projects, and provided over 400,000 people with clean water.

Talk about changing the world…

Very few people truly believe that they can make a difference. Yet as little as $20 can provide one person with clean, safe drinking water for 20 years.

This is less then we usually pay for a dinner in a restaurant. I guess, what I realized after  watching Scott’s presentation, is that you do not have to be a Bill Gates, Mahatma Gandhi, Barack Obama, or Mother Theresa to make the  world a better place. You should just care enough.

If you want to make a difference, visit www.charitywater.org and see how you can help.

Tags: water