Global Youth Assembly 2011 Video: Be the Change!

Global Youth Assembly: Be the Change!

Watch this short video for this year's 2011 Global Youth Assembly.

The theme of this year's conference is Our World, Our Water. To read a variety of blog posts about Water on the Speak Up for Change blog, click here.

Come be part of the Change this July in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

For details, visit www.youthassembly.ca.

Water and Africa: A Blessing or a Curse?

By Odeyemi Tope

Water is a basic requirement for all life; we all need water to survive. In Africa, we cherish water and most people see water as a blessing to mankind. Some people make ends meet from water; there are scores of fishermen in Africa, on both large and small scale fishery. Most countries in Africa solely depends on hydrogenation (generating electricity with water), to survive. We depend so much on water for our survival, just like every other continents, we drink, we bath, we invest in farming, our pets needs water, our wildlife survive on water, we depend on water for the major house chores. Water is indeed a blessing to Africa but, let me take you to Niger/Delta Nigeria, where water is a curse to them.

The Niger Delta is Nigeria's largest wetland region and is the third largest wetland in the world. It covers over 70,000 square kilometers between latitude 4o15'N and 4o50'N and longitude 5o25'E and 7o37'. It is characterized by extensive interconnectivity of creeks, deltaic tributaries, flood plains, mangrove swamps and other coastal features. The Niger Delta has been declared a key zone for the conservation of the Western Coast of Africa on the basis of its extraordinary biodiversity. It harbors a large family and species of wildlife, especially important and fascinating variety of birds, some of which are endemic to Nigeria. Birds species recorded in Nigeria include about 940 species, of which 4 are endemic and 5 are rare or accidental (Wikipedia, 2007). The production of oil, discovered in the Niger Delta 40 years ago, is having a devastating effect on Nigeria's largest wetland region. Oil production began in the Niger Delta about 45 years ago and so did the practice of flaring associated gas. The development of the oil industry continued during the 16 years Nigeria spent under military rule, and Nigeria has become a major source of oil for the developed world. Today, Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and 11th world largest. Oil exploration and exploitation activities has resulted to frequent oil leaks in the Niger delta, amounting to thousands of barrels of oil been spilled into the water. Petroleum products released into the water have an enormous impact on everything from animals, to plants, to people.

Water has not brought them life but also impoverishment, conflict, human rights abuses and despair to the majority of the people in the oil-producing areas, according to a new Amnesty International report. Pollution and environmental damage caused by the oil spillage have resulted in violations of the rights to health and a healthy environment, the right to an adequate standard of living (including water) and the right to gain a living through work for hundreds of thousands of people.

Oil spills on water have also seriously damaged agricultural land. Long-term effects include damage to soil fertility and agricultural productivity, which in some cases can last for decades. In numerous cases, these long-term effects have undermined a family’s only source of livelihood. The destruction of livelihoods and the lack of redress have led people to steal oil and vandalize oil infrastructure, thereby endangering the life of the community, youths in particular, in an attempt to gain compensation and make ends meet.

To the people in this region, water is a curse, they wake up in the morning without an assurance of a clean and healthy water and yet Government is not doing enough to stop the oil spillage, they refuse to provide portable and fresh water. They make the youths in the region results in violence, kidnapping of innocent citizens and foreigners, under the name of seeking audience and solution from the Nigerian Government.

Youths, for how long are we going to fold our arms and watch our brothers and sister suffer, water should be blessing to all and curse to none, but there are many races, regions and countries in other parts of the world, that also face similar agony like the Niger/Delta part of Nigeria, if not worse. Tears freely roll than my face whenever I remember how people suffer due to lack of fresh water. Let us speak up, fight against the abuse of human right, our children must not lack good water

Odeyemi Tope attends the University of Wollongong

Water from Space: a bigger picture of Earth's circulatory system

March 22 is World Water Day

By Join Kevin Shortt

If one considers the Earth as a giant living organism then surely water would be the critical life blood of that organism. In that context it becomes clear that just as we have specialists to monitor and manage our circulatory system, so too does the Earth have specialists monitoring and managing water resources. However, asking a scientist or engineer to comment on the health of our oceans while staring at an inland stream or river is like asking your doctor to comment on the health of your heart while starting at a blood vessel.

What's needed is that global perspective. That high ground from which we can take in the bigger picture and come up with reasonable conclusions about the state of the Earth's own circulatory system. And there's no higher ground than that of outer space!

Today, governments the world over have hundreds of satellites circling the Earth, monitoring everything from climate to urban growth to natural resources, including water. Things such as water pollution, illegal fishing and flooding are just some of the many events that can be tracked from Earth orbit. The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan is a prime example of the power of space assets to monitor a crisis in progress. Within hours of the earthquake, satellite images were taken showing the devastation caused by the earthquake with subsequent images showing the aftermath of the tsunami (see attached picture: caption - An Expedition 26 astronaut took this photograph from an altitude of 220 miles (350 kilometers) up on the International Space Station. North is at upper right. This picture shows an area north of Sendai, and part of the city of Higashimatsushima appears along the right edge of the image. Note the flood waters surrounding Matsuhima Airport preventing supplies from being airlifted to the area. CREDIT: NASA/JSC). These images ultimately find their way into the hands of relief workers as they plan and prioritize their humanitarian efforts in the affected areas.

Join Kevin Shortt, President of the Canadian Space Society, as he takes delegates on a truly global tour of our water resources as seen from the depths of space at this year's Global Youth Assembly in Edmonton, Alberta.

Focusing on Our World, Our Water

Over the next few months, the Speak Up for Change blog will be contain a series of posts on the topic of Water. Our youth bloggers will explore water on a variety of levels – beyond the idea of an everyday beverage. The goal is to shift the paradigm – changing the way we think about water – leading up to the Global Youth Assembly.

Every two years, the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights presents the Global Youth Assembly (GYA). This year, hundreds of youth and young professionals will explore the theme OUR WORLD. OUR WATER. Join us in Edmonton, Alberta from July 27— 30, 2011.

Submit your posts about Water (and its connection to other important issues) to editor@accesscharity.ca to be featured on the Speak Up for Change Blog and the Global Youth Assembly website!

Water Action

The Eco Children Home prides themselves on being active community members. Whether it be the Pokhara community, the nonprofit community or the blogging community they are trying to be more involved.

For Blog Action Day the theme this year is WATER. We thought it would be fitting to discuss our water situation at the home and in Nepal.

Water in Nepal is a problematic thing. During the monsoons we have so much of it sitting around that it aids the spread of many diseases. In other months there is never enough, causing people to line up at water points for hours to fill plastic bottles, jugs and buckets. According to WaterAid Nepal 4.4 million people in Nepal do not have access to safe drinking facilities.

At the home it is usually the housemothers who have the responsibility of collecting water while the children are at school. Everyday they collect large amounts of safe water for cooking and drinking at the home. It is a job which is very time consuming and requires great physical strength.

In Pokhara we are fortunate as clean water filters down from the jungle to various water points. The home has two water points within blocks. For many others collecting water is a difficult daily task. In Kathmandu the water is becoming very polluted and traditional water points are becoming contaminated as the population increases. 10,500 under five year olds die a year due to inadequate water and sanitation access (WaterAid Nepal).

Recently one of our volunteers was hospitalised after drinking contaminated water during a trip to Kathmandu. She was shocked to discover the hospital had very limited facilities, no flushing toilet or soap in the bathroom. The hospital staff also declined to provide her with drinking water as the water was considered too polluted for foreigners to drink.

We hope to improve the children's water practices. We have highlighted a number of water issues we can work on at the home. These are:

• Clean hands - it is traditional to eat with the hands in Nepal so we need to ensure the children are diligent in keeping hands clean.
• Swimming - none of the children can swim. The home is located blocks from a large lake. This provides a very real safety issue.
• Water Safety for Volunteers - we need to ensure we can provide clean water and to educate volunteers of the dangers of drink water from unknown sources.

How much water did you use today?

By Amanda Shore

How much water did you use today?

It is a hard question for most of us to answer. I had no idea. 20 litres? 40 litres? Is that too much? Too little? I guessed about 50 litres.

Water is something that those of us lucky enough to be living in the developed world think little about. Why would we? We can go to the tap and immediately have access to drinking quality hot or cold running water.

I looked it up and on average Australians use approximately 277 litres of water a day (Melbourne water 2007). I did a tally:

• 6 toilet flushes – 56 litres (9 litres per flush)
• 8 hand washes/ teeth brushing – 140 litres (15 litres per minute)
• 26 minute shower – 364 litres (14 litres per minute)
• 3 cups of tea – 2 litres
• drinking water – 1 litre
• cooking – 4 litres
• Total 564 litres

564 litres and I didn’t even do any laundry or wash any dishes.

Can you imagine having to carry that much water to your home every day. For millions of women and children this is a reality. According to the UN’s Human Development Report The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 20kg.

Obviously women wouldn’t carry 564 litres to their homes every day. Water in these communities is a valuable commodity. They save every precious drop for reuse and cut down water wastage. No 26 minute showers! The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council states the average person in the developing world uses only 10 litres of water every day for ALL their drinking, washing and cooking.

What would you be willing to do to save the time and effort to carry all this water? Maybe brush your teeth at the community water point. That would save less than a litre. Maybe have a shower standing at the community tap? Maybe give up showering almost completely?

An alarming statistic from WaterAid Nepal shows only 37% wash hands with water and only 12% soap. It is alarming because around the world one child dies every 20 seconds from diarrhoea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. Up to 47% of these cases could be solved with clean water and soap.

I am actually truly embarrassed by the amount of water I wasted today. I am even more embarrassed to admit I probably wasted this much water everyday last year. I guess the point of Blog Action Day is to get us all thinking about these things and what we can do. I am not sure yet what I can do to help others with their water problems but at least now I am aware. And tomorrow I will try to stick to cut down to 4 minute showers as recommended by target 155.

What are you going to do?

Amanda is an International development student at RMIT who thinks we all have the power to change the world.

Resources: Melbourne water 2007, UN Human Development Report, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, WaterAid International, WaterAid Nepal, Target 155, Victorian Government

Blog Action Day 2010

Water gives us life!

By Swati Nooka

A Poem and Illustration on Water (Click Image)

Swati is a Canadian high school student.

Blog Action Day 2010

Blog Action Day 2010: Water is Today!

Today is Blog Action Day! The focus for today is Water. Here are some key facts about Water and its importance.

1. Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water can incubate some pretty scary diseases, like E. coli, salmonella, cholera and hepatitis A. Given that bouquet of bacteria, it's no surprise that water, or rather lack thereof, causes 42,000 deaths each week.
2. More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets. This means that sewage spills into rivers and streams, contaminating drinking water and causing disease.
3. Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water. They do this while carrying cisterns weighing around 40 pounds when filled in order to gather water that, in many cases, is still polluted. Aside from putting a great deal of strain on their bodies, walking such long distances keeps children out of school and women away from other endeavors that can help improve the quality of life in their communities.
4. It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger. That 6.3 gallons covers everything from watering the wheat for the bun and providing water for the cow to cooking the patty and baking the bun. And that's just one meal! It would take over 184 billion gallons of water to make just one hamburger for every person in the United States.
5. The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world. From showering and washing our hands to watering our lawns and washing our cars, Americans use a lot of water. To put things into perspective, the average five-minute shower will use about 10 gallons of water. Now imagine using that same amount to bathe, wash your clothes, cook your meals and quench your thirst.

While these facts may be grim, there is hope for real solutions as more and more people around the world are waking up to the clean water crisis. Earlier this year, the UN declared access to clean water a human right and groups like charity: water and Water.org continue to work tirelessly to bring water access to the developing world.

Bottled Water Free Day

Across Canada and around the world, people are taking a stand in support of public water and against the privatization of water. The bottled water industry is being forced under a public microscope as more and more people question:

• The safety of bottled water
• The weak bottled water industry regulatory standards and practices
• The growing corporate control of water
• The use of misleading bottled water marketing schemes
• The heavy social and ecological toll of for-profit water around the world

In Canada, there are over 70 municipalities, 6 school boards and 3 campuses that have successfully phased out the provision and sale of bottled water in their sectors. Will your institution be next?

It's time to stand up and speak out, ditch the bottle and turn on the tap! Join the Canadian Federation of Students, the Sierra Youth Coalition and the Polaris Institute this March 11 for Canada's first Bottled Water Free Day!

Take the pledge and make today the first day of your bottled water free life!
Click Here to Take the Pledge