SAVE a drop!

We can’t ignore how much we need water in our lives. We need it in our daily activities, directly or indirectly. Water is the most precious resource we have, but we have been so used to having it that we don’t put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Unfortunately, there are millions of people who struggle to have it. These people account to a huge number of the world’s population. Considering how much we are frustrated with the lack of water for a short period of time, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine how much those people suffer from the problem every day.

 Water has a great effect on our bodies because we lose it through breathing, sweating, and digestion, which makes it important to rehydrate by drinking fluids and eating foods that contain water. As a matter of fact, we all need water for survival. 

Water shortage is not just unavailability of water, but also scarcity of clean water. There is no single country in the world not suffering from water shortage.  A great example of this is Cambodia. An estimated 84% of their population has no access to clean water yet the longest river in South East Asia, called Mekong river, flows through it. The unparalleled solution for this is working on different ways of consumption.

To mention some of the water consumption ways:

• Proper usage: – this includes turning off water while brushing teeth, while taking a shower, while washing the dishes and doing other activities especially those that let us take a few seconds or even minutes break.
• Reusing and recycling: – this especially works for home activities like using unsalted pasta water to our plants, collecting used water in a bucket to clean our houses with and rainwater harvesting which has a saying related to it, “Today’s rain water is tomorrow’s life saver. Save it now.”
• Educating others: – this is a very effective method since we have a great power of influencing the people around us by sharing what we know and showing that we actually care.

To relate this with the current situation the world is suffering from, the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the most important preventive methods is washing our hands frequently. Even at such panicking times, with the necessity of water we tend to only worry about cleaning our hands rather than saving water. We leave the tap open and waste the water someone else could have used. It is clear that we waste more than we use. While following the proper steps of washing hands, it is highly advisable to close the water tap between applying soap and rinsing to avoid running water.

We lose lots of things in life and find alternatives for most of them. Water on the other hand, has no alternative so why wait until it is too late? If you think your contribution doesn’t matter, imagine every single individual on earth saving a single drop of water and do the math on how much of a difference we could make. The world is a thirsty place which is covered with a few erroneous assumptions that we are doing just fine. Have you ever dreamt of being a hero? Here is your chance, be a water hero!

Article by: Bethelhem Abebe || Green Rotaract Concept Ethiopia