ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Problem: Part of the eight millennial development goal is to make sure countries have clean water to drink. Niger needs this kind of help. They do not have clean water to drink. "In the rural lowlands and the mountains, the distance to water sources is great and water supplies are often polluted with naturally occurring arsenic. Open defecation also spreads diseases across living environments.
In urban areas, the water supply cannot keep up with growing demand – natural sources are drying up and water levels are becoming dangerously low." There are many reasons behind Niger not having clean water to drink. Some people are too far from clean water, while others make the water unclean for use. Another reason is that there is not enough water compared to all the people. There are many reasons that bar people from clean drinking water, and they suffer because of it.
"The village of Safo Soumarana is located in Niger’s southern Maradi region –the epicentre of the current crisis. At one time, the only source of drinking water for the village was a contaminated well. The unsafe water contributed to outbreaks of Guinea worm disease (a painful parasitic condition), cholera and diarrhoea, especially among children." Not having clean water to drink can cause serious problems, and so the problem needs to be solved quickly. It needs to be fixed so people can live healthier and be free from contracting disease after drinking water. Plus, there is the obvious that clean water is essential to life. Those in Niger need to be able to drink clean water so they can live healthily and to survive.
Solution: One solution to this problem comes from a video we watched in class about the special water bottles. This particular water bottle could filter out the smallest virus and bacteria from dirty water and make it clean to drink. And a bigger filter, which I believe was called a garicand, could give about 25,000 liters. This amount could sustain a family of four for three years, only running on half a cent a day. This could pretty easily solve the better drinking water problem in Niger. People could take the dirty water around them and just put it in either the water bottle or the garicand, and it would be clean for them to drink. This makes is so new water does not have to be brought to the people. They would just use the unclean water they have and make it clean to drink. Donated money could be used to buy this invention and keep it running. It also said in this video that it only costs $20 billion for all of the world to have safe drinking water. Large amounts of money such as this are already being spent to help other countries, so it might as well be spent to get people this invention. That way they could easily have clean drinking water, which would help them to live an to live healthily.
Problem: Sanitation is another problem Niger faces within the Millennial Development Goal of Environmental Sustainability. There is poor sanitation, "in rural Niger, where only 2 percent of the population has adequate sanitation..." This means that 98 percent of the population is living in filth. The problem is that people will go to the bathroom in places other people come in contact with. Obviously this spreads germs. Why people will go to the bathroom anywhere is due, at least in part, to the culture. "Not only were people in the Niger communities OK with open defecation - some thought it was better, villagers told IRIN. Some think many people using the same latrine is somehow less wholesome than everyone finding a spot in the bush." The root of the problem is that villagers think going to the bathroom where someone else did is not right. They are not aware of how it is actually better not to go the bathroom "in the bush" or wherever. They just do not know that going to the bathroom just anywhere can cause a lot of problems. Open defecation is what they are used to, and they think it is okay.
Solution: It seems that letting people know about the negative effects of defecation solves the problem. "'We put barely a speck of human waste [from the ground on the outskirts of the village] in a cup of water and ask assembled villagers who would care to drink it - no takers, of course,' Souleymane Atawaten, water and sanitation coordinator with Plan Niger, told IRIN. He and his colleagues demonstrated how flies swarm around human waste and food. 'People quickly realize the danger - the link between their waste and illness.'" One way to stop people from going to the bathroom just anywhere is to simply let them know what it does. They just need the information, and then they understand what defecating anywhere really does. I think that physically showing them is a really good approach to help them see the consequences. People just need to be shown. "But practices that contribute to this can change, Bevan told IRIN. 'Once people get [that they are regularly coming into contact with excrement], it’s transformative. The disgust over essentially eating one another’s faeces is universal. Very quickly the people agree they do not want to be doing so… and they see that they all have a responsibility.'" People in Niger simply did not know that going to the bathroom wherever was not a good thing. After people showed them what it does they did not do it anymore. "Beyond that, social taboos dictate that it is disrespectful to use the same latrine as one’s mother-in-law, say, or in the proximity of family members, according to Plan’s Atawaten.
'This is where we must address the cultural side of things,' he said. 'There are ways around these taboos; some families build more than one latrine, but usually what happens is a pattern will emerge - families will do a sort of ‘planning’ around who uses the latrine when.'" With these solutions, the Nigerien people could still hold to their beliefs, and be clean and safe from the bad effects of going the the bathroom anywhere. By having multiple bathrooms or a type of schedule of when to use one bathroom, people are being more safe and clean, while keeping their traditions. All it took to solve this problem was to let people know how the way they went to the bathroom affected them getting sick. It goes to show that people just need to be given knowledge that they might not have had, and that makes a big difference. I really like the solution this website talked about. It was simple, yet powerful.
Problem: Part of the eight millennial development goal is to make sure countries have clean water to drink. Niger needs this kind of help. They do not have clean water to drink. "In the rural lowlands and the mountains, the distance to water sources is great and water supplies are often polluted with naturally occurring arsenic. Open defecation also spreads diseases across living environments.
In urban areas, the water supply cannot keep up with growing demand – natural sources are drying up and water levels are becoming dangerously low." There are many reasons behind Niger not having clean water to drink. Some people are too far from clean water, while others make the water unclean for use. Another reason is that there is not enough water compared to all the people. There are many reasons that bar people from clean drinking water, and they suffer because of it.
"The village of Safo Soumarana is located in Niger’s southern Maradi region –the epicentre of the current crisis. At one time, the only source of drinking water for the village was a contaminated well. The unsafe water contributed to outbreaks of Guinea worm disease (a painful parasitic condition), cholera and diarrhoea, especially among children." Not having clean water to drink can cause serious problems, and so the problem needs to be solved quickly. It needs to be fixed so people can live healthier and be free from contracting disease after drinking water. Plus, there is the obvious that clean water is essential to life. Those in Niger need to be able to drink clean water so they can live healthily and to survive.
Solution: One solution to this problem comes from a video we watched in class about the special water bottles. This particular water bottle could filter out the smallest virus and bacteria from dirty water and make it clean to drink. And a bigger filter, which I believe was called a garicand, could give about 25,000 liters. This amount could sustain a family of four for three years, only running on half a cent a day. This could pretty easily solve the better drinking water problem in Niger. People could take the dirty water around them and just put it in either the water bottle or the garicand, and it would be clean for them to drink. This makes is so new water does not have to be brought to the people. They would just use the unclean water they have and make it clean to drink. Donated money could be used to buy this invention and keep it running. It also said in this video that it only costs $20 billion for all of the world to have safe drinking water. Large amounts of money such as this are already being spent to help other countries, so it might as well be spent to get people this invention. That way they could easily have clean drinking water, which would help them to live an to live healthily.
Problem: Sanitation is another problem Niger faces within the Millennial Development Goal of Environmental Sustainability. There is poor sanitation, "in rural Niger, where only 2 percent of the population has adequate sanitation..." This means that 98 percent of the population is living in filth. The problem is that people will go to the bathroom in places other people come in contact with. Obviously this spreads germs. Why people will go to the bathroom anywhere is due, at least in part, to the culture. "Not only were people in the Niger communities OK with open defecation - some thought it was better, villagers told IRIN. Some think many people using the same latrine is somehow less wholesome than everyone finding a spot in the bush." The root of the problem is that villagers think going to the bathroom where someone else did is not right. They are not aware of how it is actually better not to go the bathroom "in the bush" or wherever. They just do not know that going to the bathroom just anywhere can cause a lot of problems. Open defecation is what they are used to, and they think it is okay.
Solution: It seems that letting people know about the negative effects of defecation solves the problem. "'We put barely a speck of human waste [from the ground on the outskirts of the village] in a cup of water and ask assembled villagers who would care to drink it - no takers, of course,' Souleymane Atawaten, water and sanitation coordinator with Plan Niger, told IRIN. He and his colleagues demonstrated how flies swarm around human waste and food. 'People quickly realize the danger - the link between their waste and illness.'" One way to stop people from going to the bathroom just anywhere is to simply let them know what it does. They just need the information, and then they understand what defecating anywhere really does. I think that physically showing them is a really good approach to help them see the consequences. People just need to be shown. "But practices that contribute to this can change, Bevan told IRIN. 'Once people get [that they are regularly coming into contact with excrement], it’s transformative. The disgust over essentially eating one another’s faeces is universal. Very quickly the people agree they do not want to be doing so… and they see that they all have a responsibility.'" People in Niger simply did not know that going to the bathroom wherever was not a good thing. After people showed them what it does they did not do it anymore. "Beyond that, social taboos dictate that it is disrespectful to use the same latrine as one’s mother-in-law, say, or in the proximity of family members, according to Plan’s Atawaten.
'This is where we must address the cultural side of things,' he said. 'There are ways around these taboos; some families build more than one latrine, but usually what happens is a pattern will emerge - families will do a sort of ‘planning’ around who uses the latrine when.'" With these solutions, the Nigerien people could still hold to their beliefs, and be clean and safe from the bad effects of going the the bathroom anywhere. By having multiple bathrooms or a type of schedule of when to use one bathroom, people are being more safe and clean, while keeping their traditions. All it took to solve this problem was to let people know how the way they went to the bathroom affected them getting sick. It goes to show that people just need to be given knowledge that they might not have had, and that makes a big difference. I really like the solution this website talked about. It was simple, yet powerful.