The Blog Action Day people write, "first and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is
to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their
schedule and focus it on an important issue. By doing so on the same day, the
blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses
audiences around the globe on that issue. Out of this discussion naturally flow
ideas, advice, plans, and action. In 2007 with the theme of the environment, we
saw bloggers running environmental experiments, detailing innovative ideas on
creating sustainable practices, and focusing their audience's attention on
organizations and companies promoting green agendas. In 2008 we covered the
theme of poverty, and similarly focused the blogging community's energies around
discussing the wide breadth of the issue from many perspectives and identifying
innovative and unexpected solutions. Last year, the conversation around climate
change brought our voices around the globe to discuss an issue that threatens us
all and mobilized tens of thousands of people to get more involved in the
movement for a more sustainable future. This year, with the theme of Water, we
are eager to shed light on this often-overlooked topic."


Often over-looked, huh?  Why is water, this basic human right something often
overlooked in the public's eye?  Water easily comes pouring out of any faucet I
turn on.  The 'undrinkable water' in my world means that it has come straight
from the tap, and not through the britta--  we deem that undrinkable.  The UN
recently had discussions on if water was acutally a basic human right to all. 
The fact that one dies quickly without water (much quicker than when we lack
food) wasn't enough to deem it so. 


I'll never forget the long walk in rural northern Uganda to the place where the
locals get their water.  It was hot and dusty, the night wasn't long off, but
they said that the source wasn't too far, so we decided to forge ahead.  We
walked.  And walked.  And walked.  And grew thirsty, and sweaty, and hot.  We
walked some more and finally came to the water hole.  I hope he didn't see the
expression on my face when that first man scooped low into the hole to grab a
glass of muddiness.  I winced to see him consume it so quickly as if it were
clear as crystal.  It was all he had, and he was as grateful for it as I'd be
when I got back to my bottled water back on our bus.  I felt ashamed and so
sad.  Why must people live this way?

I guess I made a choice that day that I would never overlook this issue.  It
seems simple, and over and over again I have heard that providing a clean water
solution to a community that has none is one of the most effective ways you can
aid a community in severe poverty.  When you are sick and your doc gives you
some meds, what does she say to take with your pills?  Exactly.  "Drink plenty
of water."  How much of the simple diseases that in Africa needlessly claim
lives because they wash pills down with water that makes them sicker?   There are so many reasons that giving clean safe water can drink can impact a community forever.  Eternity, even.  Water is life.  If you aren't involved in this cause, you should be.  Learn.  Know.  Give generously.