Just plain ordinary water....
”Bara vanligt vatten?” is an exhibition that highlights how water shapes our lives. Water affects power, health, development, education and creates conflicts. How we take care of our water in our everyday life influences the rest of the world. A glass of water = six meters to the kitchen tap, or six miles to the well?
Without water, we cannot live, and our lives are in many ways affected by the availability of water. For us, it is a matter of course to have water in the tap, but for others is not even a possibility. For thousands of women, it is a full-time job to get water for the family. This means that they have no time to go to school or to have a job.
Did you know that...
Orphanages, school dentistry, school health care, long term medical care facilities and flight ambulances are examples of programs that were first started in Sweden by the Red Cross.
The supply of water is not evenly spread over the world. In Sweden, we use 200 liters of water per day and person, in Namibia only 10. We have plenty of water, but we can not fill up the wells of Namibia. Therefore, our responsibility is to preserve the water that we have and keep it clean. Our pollutions of chemicals from detergents, drugs and industries can stay in the water for a long time and affect the rest of the world.
People that posses water also have power. Both within and between countries, competition over water leads to conflicts. Water can also be used as a weapon, think of what would happen if the enemy poisoned your well or destroyed the sewage-treatment plant?
The water available to many people is brown, and full of diseases. Pollution, eutrophication and lack of sanitation, makes the water dangerous. Dirty water kills ten times more people than war does.
All people must have clean water. To achieve this, efforts both from organizations and states are needed. But your actions can also make a difference!
Here are four ways in which you can take action to care for our water resources:
-Don’t flush down drugs, hair, condoms or other items that do not belong in the toilet.
-Use eco-labeled detergents and washing-up liquid, and do not use more than necessary.
-Eat vegetarian food instead of meat once a week. Less meat production decreases the amount of irrigation needed in the production, thus saving groundwater resources.
-Support Red Cross/Red Crescent’s different projects to give people access to clean water. Read more at www.redcross.se