World Children's Day - and an email to highlight or enhance a picture please click itToday, Friday 20 November, is World Children's Day. However the picture below comes not from a UN website, as you might expect, but from an email I received on Wednesday from Avaaz, a worldwide protest group to which I've belonged for some years. The email began'Dear Friends, While the devastating pandemic is hitting us around the globe, billions of people are facing Covid-19 with no basic hand-washing facilities, access to clean water, or sanitation -- an even worse catastrophe in the making.' The email asked mepointing out that world leaders are meeting shortly for the G20 summit, to sign a petition to those world leaders. It says: 'We call on you to take all necessary steps to make sure every person on Earth has access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation and hygiene, and essential protection from deadly pandemics by 2030. The virus has shown us that we rise or fall together -- it's time to build a more resilient global population, and safer world for all of us.' I signedI've signed because I know that the huge number of signatures which Avaaz is able to muster can bring very effective pressure on those to whom a petition is addressed. Would you like to sign? If you are interested a click here will take you to the Avaaz site where there is more information and the petition itself. World Children's Day is intended to remind world citizens that children need to be cared for. That fits nicely with the Avaaz petition to G20 nations to provide funds for clean water. I've done a bit of checking during this past week. I consulted, for instance, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website. CDC is a US federal agency. From it's section Global Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) I copied this text:
Almost beyond understandingTo someone like me who has always had an in-house tap of clean water (both hot and cold), those sorts of stats are virtually incomprehensible. In addition, in these pandemic days I know I have no impediment to following the repeated government instruction 'wash your hands'. Many of the world's little ones just can't do that. So I think that, on a day set aside to remember children, signing a petition urging wealthy countries to finance access to clean water now and long term is a very appropriate action to take. I hope you will think so too. RealityMost of the inadequate water supply needs are in the so called developing countries. Here below are some images to visually underline what I've been saying and asking. I know that we see pictures like these sliding by without impact on TV news briefs, but that doesn't mean that they aren't depicting reality. We are today one big world. That, the pandemic has certainly reinforced. I may live in New Zealand but I think I have a responsibility to help children in Africa or Asia, or wherever, have easy access to clean water as they grow up. That's why I signed the petition. □ John McInnes Friday 20 November References: to link please click the red text World Children's Day Avaaz clean water petition page Global Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH): part of CDC ##########
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