THE PROBLEM:
Getting clean water now is easy for almost everyone to get, that is everyone except for people who live in countries that do not have enough money to drill below the ground to get water and then to clean the water and help send it to thousands of people living there. These people have to drink water that has tiny microscopical animals that can cause certain diseases among the children and women which can lead to death or are just temporarily there. The contaminated water can cause skin blotches to appear on whoever drink's that water, can make their stomach appear full but it is just bloated up and filled up with air, not with food or water. Those conditions can be easily fixed by drinking water or bathing in water that is clean, it will only stay with the person if he or she keeps drinking contaminated water. Long term and harmful effects of drinking this water would be having to not be able to use an arm or a leg because of a leech that is not easily spotted and taken out of the water when the women try to "clean" it. The leech will grow up 3 inches in some cases if it is not taken out early and the arm or leg will be of no use to the person because of the leech. The last consequence that drinking that water will cause is death which of course is among the most common effect and consequence. Not only does drinking the water cause problems, getting the water does too. Usually the job of picking up and gathering the water goes to the women and young girls, but boys are also sent to go get water. They have to carry the water for 3.5 miles every day in a container which when filled with water is very heavy, this could damage the growing arms and legs of the small children and possibly fracture their bones or strain them. It is an everyday task, and it is very preoccupying for both the children, and for the women because if a woman is pregnant, she may have a miscarriage because of caring the water which is heavy and pregnant women are not allowed to carry heavy things for fear she may lose her child. The Thirst project solves all these problems by giving people water, clean water.
My feelings about the effect about what drinking dirty water can cause to the body are sadness and overwhelming hatred and guilt towards my own selfish acts on water. Of course I don't believe that that was the reason why they go talking to people about but I can't help but feel bad. My thoughts are simply that I must make a change and that I will continue my plan to help organizations or charities to help those in need. Another thing I must admit is that I haven't ever seen people going to get water and to have to walk to get it, or have ever experienced doing that, because in the USA people don't do that but my parents and my aunt have had to go pick up water early in the morning for about 1 to 2 miles, and they tell me that it was something stressing and tiring to do, but they had to go get the water to do everything they had to do in their house, such as take a bath, cook, and drink it. So really I have only heard about it and seen photos about it, in no way have I experienced it.
The Thirst Project:
The Thirst project is an organization that started in 2007 in California, Los Angeles by the founder Seth Maxwell after having seeing a photo and having heard a story from his friend. After his friend talked to him about that Seth decided to investigate a bit more about it and he met with some organizations that were trying to help solve the problem. He was 19 years old when he decided to gather around 7 of his closest friends with him and decided to do something about it. They told people stories about this, and together they got they turned the 70 dollars they originally had to 1,700. They used to make their first well for a community. They thought they were done with helping people because they had helped a community, but they started calling them an "organization" and so after people telling them to keep doing what they were doing they started to talk to more people about it. The churches, schools, and speaking events they went too all ended up raising over 12,000 dollars for them. Their goal right now is to get clean water to all the community of Swaziland by 2022, which with their effort they know they will be able to do it. They don't just help Swaziland, or just African countries, but also countries in South America, North America, and Central America which includes countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile, El Salvador,even some places in Japan and Europe.