World Water Day
We hiked into a remote village located in the Amazon rainforest with our partner CONAPAC to lead a community water workshop. Our group set-up in the community school house that soon echoed with laughter as we assembled in-home water filter units. The misty day suddenly erupted as the air saturated and the skies let loose. The refreshing cool air turned into a powerful downpour. As the families completed assembling the filters, I noticed that children rushed to take turns under the building’s down spouts. I stepped outside to join in—to cool off, laugh together, and enjoy a fresh water shower to rinse our bodies and clothes.
World Water Day, 22 March 2021, is about what water means to people, its true value and how we can better protect this vital resource. Reflecting back on this moment, water provided many things simultaneously. I realized the celebration of water through a child’s eyes.
Water for drinking & cooking or rinsing & cleaning requires gathering buckets from a source ranging from a few hundred feet to over a mile away. The daily use of water in even the wettest climates on earth requires a set of rules and rationing that most of us take for granted.
To reframe the value of water, we ask that you to imagine that your family’s water supply was limited to a 5-10 gallon (20-40L) bucket of water a day:
How would you use water differently?
How your lives would differ?
What would water mean to you?
For more stories and info, please visit: www.worldwaterday.org
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