To the People of the World,
For the last three years I have been on a journey making a documentary film. The subject is water, and what I have discovered has left me thirsting.
My travels took me all over the world. I visited a township in South Africa where the community had somehow managed to tap off of the neighborhood hospital’s leaking pipe. Water that had been spilling out around the clock, squandered into the dirt, was now the vital source for a community garden, which fed the mouths of each and every inhabitant. Previously there had been no water access without walking for miles to reach it.
In the arid region of Rajasthan, I heard the echo of pumps where thousands of villagers practice rainwater harvesting. Here, water management is decentralized and community driven, and it’s working.
All the signs point to the fact that small solutions can make a big difference in poor people’s lives. This may seem obvious, the fact that community-based solutions are the answer in certain parts of the world: that they are what ensure a balanced and sustainable future: that in this way people’s lives can be radically changed. However, it’s not as easy as it should be.
These small solutions are not getting the support they deserve.
Speaking to us in an interview, Peter Gleick from the Pacific Institute said, “The World Bank knows how to spend a billion in one place - but not a thousand in a billion places, and that’s what we need now.”
In another, very poor South African community, I met a young man who, driven by his own sense of responsibility, was teaching the children through story-telling, drawings and song - the importance of saving and respecting water.
His words are still in my mind, that children are the future; water is dignity, that water is life. When water is becoming more and more precious, this is a lesson that none of us can afford not to learn. Following his inspiring example, Ministers of Education around the world should collaborate to implement an age-appropriate, inspiring program that teaches water awareness in schools everywhere.
This journey also brought me close to various bodies of water. I had the time to observe them in their natural cycles, to feel their power and know the wonder and life that is the very spirit of water. Rather than working against the natural current and flow, which is all too often the case, we must reeducate ourselves to work with it. There is a natural cycle and every time we disturb it - problems erupt at the surface.
It would be impossible to turn a blind eye to the deadly pollution that I witnessed, reminding me that what we do to water, ultimately, we do to ourselves. Rivers are dying, aquifers are being depleted, we are taking a lot without giving the Earth time to recharge. Without strong regulations in place, the vicious cycle of pollution, abuse and poisoning of our water resources cannot be broken. The state of water is a direct reflection of the state of our society.
All over the world conferences are taking place. Conferences where experts, politicians, government representatives and scientists share their opinions. I have noticed that, all too often, those who are truly in touch with the soil and its cycles from dawn to dusk, those who have first hand experience of the impact of the situation, are kept out of the decision making process.
All parts, civil society are responsible, politicians, industrialists, farmers, residents, and corporations, forming a united movement to redress the balance and ensure the planet’s future. Right now we are still lucky enough to have a choice. Either we really, wholeheartedly put all our efforts into entering an era of alternative energy, appeasing the Third World debt, protecting the bodies of water that give fertility and life to all living things, or we leave our children with a dying planet and a dry future.
It is with awe and great reverence that I’ve listened to and learned from the many stories of people around the world who have very little or no water. Knowing that so many women spend half of their lifetimes carrying the water that is their community’s life force - has irrevocably changed my way of seeing. It is with new eyes and perception that I look at reality, giving me complete faith when I say, “Unless all nations work together for a better future; there won’t be enough tears to repair the damage.”
Given that water knows no boundaries, holds no passport and freely flows through every niche of our biosphere, the effort has to be global - through water, all is connected.
