The Challenge
Would you drink the water the people pictured here are forced to drink?
Each day hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan and in greater East Africa, walk for hours through the dangers of the desert to collect water to drink. This water is often contaminated with parasites such as Guinea Worm, Schistosomes; and the dangerous Cholera bacteria. The United Nations reported in April, 2001, that 36% of all reported hospitalization cases in Sudan pertain to parasitic intrusions. Many more cases of such illnesses go unreported, especially in the more devastated South, due to a staggering lack of health care infrastructure. The result: there is rampant disease throughout the region, caused in many cases by an unsafe water supply. Water-borne disease often results in a diminished immune system which then allows the intrusion of other opportunistic diseases. This exposure results in pain, sickness, and often death, especially among infants and children.
Another consequence of the lack of having safe water available locally is the instability of villages. Every dry season, entire villages migrate with their livestock to find water. Such migration prevents the establishment of schools, health clinics, markets, and a general social infrastructure.
The challenge is enormous to those of us who uphold the sanctity of human life and the moral imperative to provide water to the thirsty. We must drill wells in local villages in Sudan. Fresh water is absolute requirement for a community's health. It is a stable developmental platform on which a community can build its future. It is, in short, life.