#yourmovement

Stand up. Grab a glass or an empty water bottle. Fill it with water. If you can drink the water that you poured into your container without becoming ill, you are more privileged than 1/3 of the world’s population. Nearly 2.5 billion people across the world do not have access to clean and sanitary water. Inadequate access to water is an issue that we see everywhere, no matter where we live. Typically, people associate this type of thing with poverty-struck sub-Saharan Africa, but let’s look at our neighbours in the US. There was the crisis in Flint, Michigan in which the entire water supply of the town was polluted and highly toxic. Or think about California, one of the beacons of food production, is facing water insecurity. You know what, don’t even think that far south, let’s look at ourselves. Indigenous people all across Canada do not have access to clean water, and the water that they do have access to is dramatically inflated in price. Where we, in Ontario, pay no more than 5 dollars for a case of average bottled water, the Indigenous population must pay 21 TIMES as much. That is 105 dollars for a case of water. This is a huge disparity and is inequality.

Why does water insecurity exist? Well, a major contributor to this is the growing world population and in return pollution. But water insecurity and inaccessible sanitized water accounts for 1/5 of the deaths in children under five in developing countries. At least 80% of the illnesses in these areas can be accounted for by the lack of a clean water supply. This means that we can END 80% of illnesses in developing countries. But it’s not going to happen if you just sit around, take action!

Today is World Water Day and here’s what you can do to help find solution to the water crisis:

1. Raise awareness by sharing this post or creating your own

2. Appreciate the access you have to clean water

3. Try to really look at how much water you use and how much of that is necessary

After I returned from my trip, the first thing I heard after seeing my friends again was: "How was your trip?" 

Despite all the practice Lon, Brianna and Tim gave us on the trip about preparing for this conversation, when it actually came down it, it was still difficult. Depending on who I was talking to, I had variations of answers for that question. For some it was a short and sweet 'elevator pitch'-like response, for others it was a more detailed one, and a few lucky ones got to engage in an hour long conversation with me. 

No matter what, though, I still found it difficult because what I found was that it was hard for others to fully understand and grasp what I was saying, unless they had actually been there with me on the trip. Even people I knew who had gone on similar trips like these ones, I felt had a hard time understanding everything I told them. I think it's because my experience of the trip was so subjective. There were 15 of us there, but I guarantee that each of our experiences and how we were impacted by the trip was different. Therefore, you can imagine how difficult it must have been communicating such a subjective and unique experience.

I loved talking about my trip though, especially those long conversations with select few people. I found myself rambling on and on and on, while they kept asking questions, and before I knew it we had already been talking for over an hour, but I had gotten so caught up into talking about the trip and my feelings that it just kind of snuck up on me. I've never been someone who was super good at communication; I'm the type of person who prefers to talk about something over email or text than a phone call, but this all felt really natural to me.

Still, I felt like there was still some sort of barrier there between myself and my friends during our discussions. Even pictures don't do it justice, sometimes. I think of it as when someone says "You had to be there to understand, or you had to be there to find the joke funny." Same thing here - there's only so much my words can do. I think that the rest is up to you to go out and experience it, and that's what I told a few of my friends who showed a lot of interest. 

It was so rewarding though - the dialogue that I was able to have with people because coming back as someone who was more knowledgable and inspired from before I left, I felt like i was able to realize more about my friends and their interests, beliefs, and opinions. And now that I'm involved with World Vision here, after the trip, I still find it hard sometimes to communicate everything that I want to say or when I'm asked a question because there's just so much information, and so many exciting things that World Vision is doing. For example, today we were having a bake sale at the university to support our sponsor child in Senegal and a woman approaches our table and says to us: "I'm disappointed that more clubs aren't acknowledging that it is World Aids Day today." Then she went on to say how World Vision needs to do more to address the problem of AIDS and that though they work in these communities, HIV/AIDS is still a problem and a large pandemic they're not putting enough resources towards it. Honestly, I don't know the extent to which World Vision works on AIDS and even the clinical and medical side of things - that wasn't something I experienced in Nicaragua. But no matter what I said to her, and not once did I say she was wrong, I simply just stated that World Vision, like any organization, can't specialize in everything. I said that food and child security have always been major pillars for WV, but that's why it's important that organizations partner with one another because some have the resources with this, and others have the resources with this. And yet, she seemed to block out everything I said and continue to express displeasure. After, Brianna explained to me when I told her about it was that in fact, World Vision has done an immense amount of care HIV/AIDS. It was quite the experience though, and one that was largely due to a lack of communication - or the unwillingness to communicate.

“Can you tell me about World Vision?” 

How many of my colleagues from the WV club at school would be comfortable with answering this school? We have a hefty executive team, yet I doubt that 75% of the executive members would be able provide a correct and informative answer. And that’s not to say that I’m an expert about World Vision (trust me, I’m far from it), but when put next to my colleagues, it sure seems like I could be. 

This has been something I’ve been struggling with since I joined the WV club at university - coming to terms that a large portion of the members don’t know much about WV to begin with, and that they're probably on the executive team to further their own agenda and not so much a collective goal. it confuses me because how can we even be comfortable calling ourselves a “World Vision” club when there’s so much disconnect between understanding what World Vision does and what we do as a club? 

That’s okay though. That’s okay because there’s always potential for change. There’s potential to bridge that gap between the club and World Vision, and in some ways I feel like I’m that bridge. As a Youth Ambassador, and as someone who’s participated in a Leadership Trip, I have the experience, the knowledge, and the resources to fix that disconnect. It’s up to me to educate and to equip (haha get the blog title now??) - along with the resources and awesome people I have access to at World Vision - and to transform the club into something that I feel comfortable with putting “World Vision” in the name, It’s going to be tricky task, and will probably involve weeding out the ones who just there for the sake of being there from the ones who truly have a passion for propagating change (harsh, but it’s reality). 

Because change is what we’re working for at the end of the day right? And how is change done? By equipping people around the world with the resources to create change in their communities, and before you know it, we all will have created a movement.