Opening Our Eyes: World Vision Clean Water Challenge

There are many things we take for granted in our lives. Toys and things we entertain ourselves with, wi-fi to watch the latest series on, a kitchen full of the latest cooking gadgets. Most of these things we may never have thought about because being Canadian we just have it naturally at our fingertips and always have.

At the end of the day, we can live without these added blessings in our life, but we cannot live a healthy life without clean water to drink. 

Did you know? World Vision Canada is Canada’s leading Child Sponsorship, and humanitarian aid organization focused on providing sustainable community development to assist children and families across the globe.

“Having drinking water close to my house makes me happy. The water is clean and tasty. Earlier my mother and I had to walk very far to fetch water but after World Vision built water supply sources closer to our homes we don’t have to walk far. People in my house and in my village drink from the tap now,” says 10-year old Deepika.

World Vision has constructed water supply and storage structures using green energy like solar energy to give these community members access to safe and clean water for drinking and also to improve the sanitation conditions in their community. In total, 138 households have access to clean drinking water along with a primary school.

World Vision Clean Water Challenge

World Vision Canada challenged my family to take the World Vision Clean Water Challenge for one day. We got to pick how the clean water challenge may look to us. Picking one from the following list:

• Use only one tap in your home all day long.
• Get by with using only one small pitcher of water all day for everything – cooking, washing, drinking, cleaning, etc..
• Use only the tap out in the yard for water.

Another fundamental we take for granted in our day to day is flushable toilets. Even so, this clean water challenge doesn’t include toilets. 

Will you take the clean water challenge with me? Which one from the list about would you pick?

Our family chose to use only one tap in our home for a whole day. I will be honest this was a massive struggling for all six of us to commit to. It is such routine for us all to turn on a nearby tap in our home to use the water as needed.

We choose to use the kitchen sink as the tap we would use for that day. Since the kitchen is the hub of our house. There was a lot of thought put into this choice. It saddens me that we struggled with this challenge, yet families don’t have these options.

Having eleven water sources inside our house and three water sources outside our home, we don’t think twice about using fresh, clean water from our taps. It is routine for us to go to the nearest sink for all our needs.

I did find washing hands of six people through one sink very time consuming. I can see if this was the daily way of our everyday life how easy it would be to skip hand washing more frequently and with that would come sickness and germs.

When you are so used to the luxuries of running water, it is so simple to take it for granted.

Off The Grid Cottage

We had a family cottage in Northern Ontario. It is entirely off the grid, no hydro, no running water, outhouse and all. We would spend at least two weeks there each summer with my whole extended family.

To wash the dishes, using a bucket we fetched our water from the lake. And rinse with spring water we bought at the store. We took our soap to the lake for a summer bath and that is the only way we cleaned for the two weeks.

We would have family and friends stay and visit with us, and it was second nature for those two weeks for us to use lake water for all our needs.

Living the simple life was rewarding to our soul. We all loved the simplicity of having an off the grid cottage. However, when we got home it was a relief to throw the dishes in the dishwasher and the first thing we all did when we walked in the door after two weeks off the grid was have a hot shower.

Could you imagine never having the luxury of a hot shower? 

Did you know? Every minute a child under the age of five dies from diarrhea caused by contaminated water.

This clean water challenge opened up the conversation between our children and us. The whys and how we can help these kids and families who deserve so much more out of life. World Vision offers clean water gifts for as little as $25 a month, and they will make a dramatic impact in the communities that receive them.

Clean water donations will allow children to lead healthier lives and child death rates will dramatically decrease due to a decline in diseases caused by unclean water, inadequate sanitation and lack of hygiene.

Could you imagine experiencing these struggles each and every day to get water for your family?

When children and families have access to clean water, it transforms every aspect of their lives. Together with improved sanitation and proper hygiene, clean water brings real change.

Here is how you can support clean water: 

• Take the clean water challenge using the ideas posted above.
• Carry the jerry by creating a water walk in your community.
• Drill a well and transform a community.
• Give the gift of water filters and protect a family from deadly diseases.
• Give monthly by sponsoring a child through World Vision.
• Join the #worldvisionwater twitter party on May 3rd at 8 p.m. EST.

What will your World Vision Clean Water Challenge look like?

World Vision Twitter | World Vision Facebook | Help Today! 

Thank you for reading In R Dream!

“I am part of the World Vision Canada blog team working with Thrifty Mom Media to tell this story and as such I have been compensated. My opinion is all my own.”