Click HERE to watch the video.
Bolivia (9/20/2010) - In rural areas of Bolivia, people do not have access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation. This means that people simply dig a hole in the ground and use that as a toilet. This waste then tends to end up in the rivers where people go to get their drinking water. The water is full of bacteria and germs that are bad for everyone but they are especially bad for children.
Children are not fully developed and so they cannot fight the germs as well as adults can. Drinking dirty water and not washing their hands properly means that the bacteria gets inside the children and gives them a disease called diarrhoea. The diarrhoea causes the children to lose fluids, get dehydrated and then die.
All of this could be prevented if people could simply have access to clean water. In the last 15 years, UNICEF has dug 1000 wells in the ground and helped people to build ecological toilets that don't put the human waste directly into the rivers. This has helped but their are still many children that are dying in rural Bolivia.
Questions:
1) Where did this story take place?
2) When did this story take place?
3) Why are the children in Bolivia getting sick and dying?
4) How many wells has UNICEF built in the last 15 years?
5) What disease is caused by drinking dirty water and not washing your hands properly?
6) What do you think needs to happen to solve this problem in Bolivia?
Info and video from The Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment