In my personal opinion,
Liberians spend unnecessary time bragging of academic degrees, personal
accomplishments, engaging personality antagonism and trying to prove their
smarts by outdoing each other rather than involving in the Reconstruction
process of the country. Most, if not all, Diasporic Liberian organizations fail
for these reasons as mounting preventable health problems consume the nation.
To date, environmental pollution has reached an alarming stage to capture our
attention and contaminated water and diseases are destroying Liberians
astronomically.
March 22 is “World Water Day”
designated by The UN General Assembly in 1992 to promote awareness of the 1.1
billion people who have no access to safe and clean drinking water. Like any
other day, women and children in the developing world, including Liberia, will
spend hours collecting water for family’s needs. The average distance they will
walk to collect water on their heads weighing 44 lbs, is nearly four miles.
Liberian girls growing up without water will be far less likely to attend
school because they spend hours walking to and from the nearest contaminated
water source to fetch water for their families.
On March 22, this year,
according to The World Health Organization (WHO), more than 13,000 people
worldwide, including Liberians, will die from preventable water-related
diseases. Out of that number, 6,000 will be innocent kids.
Water, as one of the most
important substances in the world is 66% of the human body and 75% of the human
brain. That means safe and clean water is needed each and every day for human
survival!
WHO confirms that half of the
world’s hospital beds, including Liberia, are occupied with patients suffering
from water-borne diseases. It also claims that unsafe water is the world’s
number one killer responsible for 80% of all sickness in the world. And that
2.6 billion people in the world have no basic sanitation as one child dies
every fifteen seconds from water-related diseases. The WHO also confirms
diarrhea causes 1.8 million deaths each year as cholera and the prevalence of
water-borne diseases increase because many poor households in many developing
countries, including Liberia, are forced to rely on contaminated water.
Drinking polluted water continues to cause the spread of infectious diseases
serving as the single largest killers of infants in developing countries.
All of these staggering
statistics can be factored into the Liberian reality.
Today, most Liberian women
still carry water on their heads for several miles from contaminated water
sources in the country. To date, too many Liberian girls stay out of school
because they spend time fetching water for their families. Reportedly, closed
to half of the Liberian population lingers in hospital beds due to preventable
water-borne diseases. Out of more than 13,000 people that die daily in the
world, of which 6,000 are kids, Liberians form an integral part of that number.
Evidently, Liberians will have to wrap their minds around REAL solutions and
disengage personality antagonism to attend to these problems.
These statistics make it
imperative for Liberians to move beyond self-righteousness, blame-game and
unnecessary complaints. Because the Liberian political situation is not as bad
as we think. All we need to do is leave the past into the past. And move into
the future with certainty to maximize our possibilities by embarking upon the
following goals to assist our government:
· provide desperately needed safe
drinking water for our people to prevent water-borne diseases and deaths
· attend to our environment by
beginning to clean our cities, towns, streets, air &c.
· provide safe and healthy working
environment for our workers
· encourage education which is relevant
to national development
· find ways and means to tackle
malaria, HIV/AIDS &c.
· help to link the villages to the
cities
· help in narrowing the digital and
ethnic divide
· encourage Liberian entrepreneurship
· volunteer service in all aspects of
nation-building
These goals are sustainable
and attainable with a clear vision. The requirement is to wrap our minds around
REAL solutions because our help is crucial to the success of our Government and
country.
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