Think about how a day without access to clean, potable and safe water in your home to drink, cook or bath would be, hell I guess? But this is the current reality for about 2.1 billion people around the world says UNICEF. Fela Anikulapo Kuti sang a song “water no get enemy”, it is the source of life for all humans and our planet, without it we would simply be extinct. But access to water our most basic and fundamental human right is under threat by our development activities.
UNICEF says that about 800 children under five years of age die every day from diarrhea due to lack of safe water, sanitation and basic hygiene.160 million of this statistics live in areas at extreme risk of drought,deforestation and flooding thus making children the most vulnerable to these effects. Visiting Dawakin Tofa on a climate change project with YASUNI ASSOCIATION earlier this year 2019, we saw the devastating impacts of sand mining, deforestation, drought and flooding on the community.
We observed that the dug pit of the sand miners now act as store to the excess runoff from the rainfall which now serves as water collection point for the people of Tofa.
During our time here, we met a child fetching water from one of these pit into a jerrycan, he was using a treated mosquito net to act as filter to the water.
This to us is added trouble for a people are already troubled. Many questions filled our hearts; how many kilometers would this young boy have to travel to get water? how safe is the water? Won’t the treated mosquito nets used as filter poison the families that drink from this water?
People of Tofa need our help, they need access to clean, safe water for their daily lives. These kids need to be in school rather than be fetchers of water. They need our support hence message.
Sani Maikatanga, Sir Mk Photography, Anas Umar, Edgar Imafidon and Babawale Obayanju contributed to this project