I must turn on the tap on my kitchen sink, dozens of times a day. To wash dishes, for cooking, to fill up my dogs’ water bowls, to fill up our water filter for my little family of four. I access safe, affordable drinking water over and over again throughout the day, without a second thought.
Unfortunately, according to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water that is over 2 billion people.*
Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si wrote, “access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity.”
If you are interested in supporting a wonderful clean water project, please visit Mission Doctors, Mark and Molly Druffners Partners for Hope website. There you can learn about and support the Water-4-Life project, procuring 10,000-liter water tanks for homes in rural Tanzania, providing access to clean water throughout the year.
As a mother, myself, I can’t imagine having to ration water with my children or giving them water that I know might make them sick. So, today, on World Water Day, I ask you to join us in praying for all people, who lack this basic, universal human right-access to safe water sources. And, we wanted to share with you this wonderful prayer for World Water Day from the Catholic Health Association.
*World Health Organization
https://www.who.int/news/item/18-06-2019-1-in-3-people-globally-do-not-have-access-to-safe-drinking-water-unicef-who
Jessica Franks