Soroptimist International of Europe

Water makes Earth different from other planets. It is our best friend and our worst enemy.
Water is the source of life, billions of years ago, life originated in the seas and we still spend the first nine months of our life in amniotic fluid. The largest part of our planet is covered with water but only 0,6% is available for human consumption and that makes it a precious and non-renewable resource. The worldwide water crisis exists and is serious, it is not only a problem for regions traditionally considered as lacking in water resources, the water problem has become global from a quantitative as well as from a qualitative perspective. The world economy has exploited, wasted and polluted so much that in 2007, for the first time, the withdrawal of water resources in the world outweighed the capability of this resource to renew itself. Without water no food, one of the consequences of global warming is progressive desertification of certain regions in Africa with resulting crop failure and famine.

We humans are as guilty for the impending water disaster as is climate change.
We need 2 litres of drinking water each day but in the Western world we use 2000 litres for the production of our food, every day. To produce 1kg of wheat 1000 litres is needed and for 1kg of meat it takes 13,000 litres.

The small percentage of fresh water available for human use is distributed very unequally.
The amount of water used daily by an American is 400 litres, by a European 200 litres, an African can dispose of 30 litres or less, and 5 litres a day is the absolute minimum needed to survive. To quote Kofi Annan: “What is needed, along with fresh water, is fresh thinking. We need to learn how to value water.”

Water is the source of life, of food, but water also kills: 8 million die from water-related illnesses every year, 15 deaths every minute and most of them young children. In Sub Saharan Africa the child mortality rate under the age of 5 is 157 per 1000 compared to 4.6 per 1000 in Western Europe. The only way to change those figures is to make access to clean water and adequate sanitation an unalienable right of all but also to oblige all to preserve and conserve water resources.

The WHO estimates that 80% of all illnesses in the world can be attributed to unsafe water, lack of sanitation and poor hygiene. In 2002, diarrhea caused 1,8 million deaths; in developing countries they are at the origin of 21% of childhood deaths under the age of five.

In highly developed and industrialized countries, the health hazards are related to water pollution by industrial waste. All of us remember the ecological disaster that occurred when a big chemical plant dumped its waste into the Rhine. Even without incidents, our water is polluted by chemicals such as phosphates, nitrates and pcb; pcb or poly chloro biphenyl is very toxic, the biodegradation is slow and it accumulates in fat tissue. You can even find it in significant amounts in mother’s milk. In fact, our bodies are so polluted that it would be unwise for a cannibal to eat us!

We have talked about the problems, now let’s look at solutions.
What can we, as Soroptimists, do?
We can implement projects dealing with each of those problems, projects about:
• Access to water
• Water purification
• Fair distribution and management of water
• Sanitation with a gender balanced approach
• Hygiene and health care
• Industrial pollution
• Waste water treatment
• Education/awareness about water and the environment
• Capacity building for women in regard to water and sanitation initiatives
• Sustainable agriculture
• Awareness raising about climate change

Those are a few possibilities and all of them can be addressed as Awareness, Advocacy or Action projects and can be related to the 10 Programme Focus Objectives.

During the first two years, an extraordinary amount of projects were implemented, for the next two years I have high expectations and I strongly encourage the clubs to focus on the vital importance of

Safe Water for a Safe Life

 Dr. Eliane Lagasse