I heard this morning that there are 116 Native communities without a safe source of drinking water. It's difficult to believe that in our advanced and comparitively wealthy country there are what amounts to third-world poverty.
Our Sunday School is raising money for a Ryan's Well project in Africa during the season of Lent and it has my full endorsement. But I know they attempted to find a project in Canada to no avail. It seems crazy that the need exists here, but there is so little will to address it, or structure to allow concerned Canadians to make contributions.
I am in conversation with Frontiers Foundation, an organization started by Rev. Charles Catto, a United Church minister. Frontiers Foundations builds houses in Native communities across the country and trains and employs young people on the reserves to do so. I'm talking with Charles in the hope that we can contribute to a water project with money left to St. Paul's for outreach.
Were you aware of the miserable conditions regarding water in Native communities? Why don't we have the will to make this better? Do you support St. Paul's involvement in a project?
These miserable conditions have been around for a long time. People close their eyes,(poverty happens in some other country, NOT in Canada). I support St.Paul's in helping get water to a community, there is also book drives (they collect books for northern schools),(collections for vitamins, etc).
ReplyDeleteI'd be on board for that. Laurie's right too: we've all too often turned a blind eye to the problems in our own backyard.
ReplyDeleteCheck out
ReplyDelete" Project Blue - Roots & Shoots Canada Water Campaign"
I absolutely support St. Paul's in this initiative.
ReplyDeleteI lived for two years on a northern reserve in Saskatchewan and we relied on a truck to deliver water to our house. It would pump hundreds of litres of water into a huge tank in the basement. It would last a few days, and depending on the sobriety of the guy who supplied the water, we could be without water for a few days. There were days I had to carry buckets of water from the police station to my house. That said, the water had to be boiled first before we could drink it.
My current travels to aboriginal communities throughout Ontario are a constant reminder of the huge disparity between their communities and my own.
We take so much for granted.
I support what the Sunday School are doing re the water project. Thanks Laurie for the info on Project Blue, I can use some of that at school with our environmental club!
ReplyDeleteI just heard a report on the CBC afternoon program about a survey of Canadians and their use of water. I was blown away on the number who confessed that they flush garbage down the toilet!! I can't believe that! The toilet is the largest consumer of water in our homes, according to this report.
It's not just Native communities who suffer. I know of a community in Northern Ontario which just spent millions of dollars on a new water filtration system and yet there are pockets of residents who are still on a boil water advisory! This isn't on a reserve, beside one yes, but not on it. Yet, my parents who live on the lake in that community, pump their water from the lake, through an infrared light and their water always comes back as fine for drinking. Makes one wonder.....
Thanks for sharing your experience Johnny....I might share it with the Sunday school gang( short the drunken delivery man) if that's okay?
ReplyDeleteJane Goodall's site has great info, Laurie. The part I still can't figure out is why there is so much info on Canadian water disparities and yet the projects being worked on by these organizations seem to all be in developping countries. Will keep digging, though.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but since we began talking about water with the kids in January, I have noticed water stories everywhere including a ROM display advertised, RBC's Blue Water Project ($50 million in community grants available) and this weekend's Globe had a good publication by York Region on innovative water strategies.
Hopefully a broader and better understanding is growing on this topic for Canadians.
I know our hope in Sunday School is to help Ryan's Well(founded by a 6 year old Canadian boy) build wells but also to realize and understand our role as Christian stewards as we use water/products everyday.
PS Did you know the average American's water footprint is 1800 gallons per day?...yikes!
These are such worthwhile comments,links, observations, personal reflections. Thank you all for enriching my original posting.
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