Last Friday I shared with three fifth grade classes about the global water crisis. And what clean water does. 

In our brief time together I shared the story of two five-year-olds girls in Kenya and how clean water has the power to free a child to flourish in life, in whole communities. While I spoke broadly of this the direst of all global crises, the reality of 1,000 children dying today due to diarrhea from lack of clean water and sanitation can only hit us if we consider children are real people, and we enter their story. 

Children make the long walk home with containers of polluted water they scooped from holes they dug in a dry riverbed. (Note: Cheru out of the frame in these photos.) Carrying a tea kettle, Cheru Lotuliapus, 5, (wearing red skirt and green shirt below) walks with other children twice a day to dig for water in a dry riverbed in West Pokot, Kenya. A first-year kindergarten student, she carries water to school and returns home by way of the waterhole to refill her kettle. With other school children, she walks more than 6km a day for water.
Kenya (West Pokot County). Location: Ptoyo; sublocation: Kesot; village: Chepoyotwo. Sook program area

What is the power of clean water? What does it do?

Consider how two five-year-olds, Cheru and Kamama, who live near one another in Kenya. Yet their days and lives are vastly different due to one difference: Continue reading →