The Good Stuff

Hello again!

So some of you may have read my previous blog about my trip to the travel clinic. In that blog post I mentioned that the doctor warned my thoroughly about the drinking water in Malawi, as well as swimming in any of the fresh water. And because water has been such a hot topic lately in the world of Indevours, [my class of international development students] especially with the amazing water conference recently organized by some of classmates, I decided to jump on the band wagon and yes, blog about, water.


I accidentally found this video made for World Water Day this year, when trying to find a "how to boil and sanitize your water" video. I first watched it with my roommate who, after a few glasses of wine, was brutally honest. She immediately told me to turn it off because she found it far too depressing, and I guess it was killing her buzz. So I turned it off and finished it this morning.

I found some of the marketing tactics used in the video to be rather interesting. It first beings with depressing music, accompanied by some very saddening facts about the lack of access to water around the globe. 'Poor households across the developing world waste hours collecting water everyday. This can prevent children from attending school. Where there are no clean or private toilets people are forced to defaecate in the open. Not only is this an indignity, it puts women and girls in danger of sexual violence as well as disease. Drinking dirty water can cause diarrhea, keeping adults out of work and children off school. It also kills 4000 children every single day. This is more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.' Then the video puts this huge number into perspective and explains that 4 children have died from unsanitary water related diseases since you started watching the video one minute and 39 seconds ago. Can you imagine dying in Canada just from getting diarrhea? This simply does not happen. This is one of the most treatable conditions in the world, and yet 4000 children are dying EVERYDAY because of it. This is unacceptable.

After the video has caught your attention, and engaged you emotionally, it begins to provide you with hope. I think this is an extremely important aspect of development when raising awareness. People don't want to know that a problem is irreversible or impossible to eradicate. This video then switches to a more upbeat song, and shows images of children drinking fresh water from pumps and taps. These are examples of how and where these programs have been successful! Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel! And at the very end of the video it urges you to take action. As we have learned in my marketing class this semester, social marketing is an amazingly powerful tool in the marketing world. It is generally free, and the most effective way to reach out to as many people as possible all around the world. The video uses symbols that are identifiable around the world for twitter and facebook calling you to action to simply repost the video and continue to spread the word. They have ingeniously harnessed one of the easiest ways to publish a video for free: YouTube!

This blog post was originally going to be about how much I take water for granted, and how much of a culture shock it's going to be when I can't just turn on the tap and chug that beautiful resource down the way I do here now. I am going to have to prepare every glass of water I wish to drink by boiling it for at least 3 minutes! This may not seem like a long time, but lets be honest, because I have become so accustom to my brita filter always full of cold, wonderfully filtered H2O goodness, I am going to be seriously dehydrated. Everything is so very convenient in my life right now, and I am finally coming to the brutal realization this will all be changing drastically, very soon. I was born in Canada! Could I be any more spoiled when it comes to fresh water supply?! Our toilet water here is even pristine! [Not that I am suggesting anyone drink from the toilet, not even the dog.]

All this recent talk about water just makes me so very grateful to have the access to clean drinking water that I currently do. I'm not much of a juice girl; milk and I aren't friends ... water is my number one.

Well, I don't know about you, but I sure am thirsty! Cheers!