Philip Rouwenhorst
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 26 2007 (IPS) – In a six day hunger strike in cooperation with a Belgian and Swiss radio station, Dutch station 3fm raised 12.6 million dollars for clean drinking water and sanitation programmes around the world. Locked in glass houses on major squares in The Hague, Leuven and Geneva, deejays raised the money by auctioning artist memorabilia and having listeners pay to request songs.
Gerard Ekdom, deejay at 3fm, participated in the glass house event for the fourth consecutive year. Every year the Red Cross finds us something they say is a major problem in the world that so far has not been on the radar screen of world society and press. These are the so-called silent disasters . This year they chose the problem of clean drinking water and sanitation, Ekdom told IPS.
It s something many people think of as not that big of a problem, but I can tell you it s extremely intense. If you hear stories from the field, you know why we are doing this. With 12.6 million dollars we will give access to clean drinking water to a lot of people , he said.
To educate himself enough to be able to brief the deejays participating in this year s project about the lack of clean drinking water and sanitation facilities worldwide, Eric Corton deejay at 3fm and international emergency ambassador for the Dutch Red Cross travelled to the Central African Republic.
Corton told IPS, I read about problems people can have with water. But still I was surprised to find out this devastating situation strikes every single one in a society. It s just the absolute elite which is a small group that can afford to buy small bottles of clean water. The rest of the people hit the streets with jerry cans and pots in search of clean water. The magnitude of the problem touched me, everyone is trying to survive day in day out.
Becoming sick is basically dying, Corton stressed. I ve been to distant villages where people get sick without NGOs being aware of their situation. These people have to look for medication themselves. In rainy season the water makes it impossible to travel and they get sick from that water, while in dry season there simply is no water to consume while travelling.
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Ekdom was especially shocked by one of the stories Corton told him. He met a 30-year-old man who lost four children in the past two years due to a lack of clean water. For a parent, losing your children is devastating, especially when you see it happening with your own eyes.
According to official Red Cross figures, one out of six persons have no access to clean drinking water and 42 percent of the world population lacks decent sanitation facilities. These problems result in over 4 million deaths every year, with one child death every 15 seconds.
The Red Cross will utilise the collected 12.6 million dollars all over the world. According to Corton over 1.2 billion people worldwide do not have access to clean water.
First of all informing people about the risks is very important, Corton said. People do know they are sick and most of them assume what the reason is, but they have to be explained that relatively simple precautions can prevent them from becoming sick.
Some water you shouldn t drink, other water has to be filtered. Once the water is clean, you shouldn t transport it in dirty jerry cans. Another part of the money will be used to bore for rainwater that has been naturally cleaned, but is 30 meters under the surface, he said.
The three Dutch deejays were locked in the glass house by Prince Willem- Alexander of the Netherlands, Chairman of the U.N. secretary general s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation.
At the launch of the U.N. s Year of Sanitation 2008 in New York, Willem- Alexander stressed, clean water and sanitation are not only about hygiene and disease, they re about dignity too.
We must focus our full attention on developing new technologies to dispose of and re-use human waste and waste water. The rapid growth of the world s population means increased urbanisation, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Every dollar invested in water and sanitation triggers seven dollars worth of productive activity, he said.
Part of the U.N. s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015 is to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
The MDGs also include a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; promotion of gender equality; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three- quarters; combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a North-South global partnership for development.
Asked whether it was hard to be locked in a glass house for six days without food, Ekdom said, the fifth day is by far the hardest day of all. For some reason is doesn t seem to end, it makes you violent. Of course it s a result of a number of factors. Lack of food makes you feel more emotional and intense, you re locked in a house, and with two other people you share just a few square meters.
The whole day hundreds of people spy on you through the glass walls. The project is being broadcasted on national television and journalists call every second for an interview. Because you work so hard, after a few days you become an emotional wreck and start acting rather strange, he said.
The three radio stations have already announced that in 2009 they will be raising money for another silent disaster .
