It all started out with an innocent question of curiousity from Brie yesterday about water in our house and how it comes out of the faucet. I've since been spending my time becoming rather engrossed in reading about poop and how we get rid of it. You'd think I'd gotten my fill of it (so to speak) after changing diapers for 6+ years and wiping the stuff off of floors (I just relived the joy of that chore about 5 minutes ago. Seriously!).
But maybe it's because of that fact that this next one grabbed me when I was reading "The Story Behind Toilets"(a book I had picked up from the library in the hopes of answering Brie's question): The United Nations has set the goal of providing safe toilets for everyone by the year 2025 and it will take $10 billion a year to reach this goal. Impossibly high amount right? But the book followed up that figure with two more startling ones...Americans spend four times that amount on their pets annually and Europeans spend $10 billion annually on ice cream!
Which makes me think the UN's goal is attainable. Because to not attain it means more than 1.5 million children under the age of five will continue to die each year because of poor sanitation. To not attain it means more than 2 billion people in the world will not have access to something we consider a necessity and a right in this country. To not attain it means there are layers and layers of social injustices which will continue to go unaddressed.
And I think God is nudging me to contribute to this effort (since we don't have pets and can't put them on a budget, there may be fewer trips to the ice cream store in my future :) ).
I have much more praying, researching and brainstorming to do on this issue, but for now, please mark November 19th on your calendar...World Toilet Day. If you want more information on the issues surrounding access to clean water and sanitation, please visit www.wateraidamerica.org.
(Note: the facts referenced in this post came from "The Story Behind Toilets" by Elizabeth Raum, 2009)
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