Collision Between People and the Environment
[Applause]
good evening everyone
i’m isa from 12e before we start
let me ask you a question when is the
last time you worried about where to get
water and food
well my guess is that none of you ever
have
when we open the tap the water comes out
when we open the fridge
the food is just there but do you know
that in some other parts of the world
people are still struggling with these
concepts day to day
human needs collide with scarcity
nowadays a lot of natural resources are
being overused and over depleted
especially some non-renewable ones such
as coal oil and
water take on african country kenya as
an example
according to joint monitoring program
for water supply and sanitation
only 58 of the canyons had access
to at least basic drinking water sources
in 2015.
almost half of them need to worry about
where to get water to drink
but what causes the harsh
when we think of water scarcity we think
of sahara
the middle east we think of the climatic
problems
but do you know that there are also some
social problems presenting
that causes the harsh relationships
between
people and the environment
last summer i went to kenya with 10 of
my friends to explore the water crisis
there
we went to many slums including kibera
which is the biggest loan in africa
half of the population living there are
in a condition that is far from the
modern
this sanitation there is unimaginable
in kenya there are dry seasons and rainy
seasons
during the dry seasons the water is
gears
so people have to set up water
collectors or walk a long way
to get water from large rivers to
overcome this
so the climate is definitely a main
contributor to the lack of water in
africa
however during the rainy seasons we also
have the water wasting problem and
water pollution kenya has very poor
roads so the government
is always letting the workers to fix the
roads or build new roads
when pumping the ground the water leaks
doesn’t the soil go into the water
causing the water pollution so the
polluted water is still transporting to
the whole city
and the whole city will consume the
polluted water
and also in every local slum there are
several water vendors
they make their livings by selling water
but
in order to reduce competitions some of
them start to cut other people’s water
pipes
to prevent them getting their water
source so they can be the only water
vendors that have the water
and make more money
so not having the resources we need
makes us less human erodes our humanity
and for the polluted water the people i
met still don’t know how to make it
clean and safe to drink
i asked people in the slums how did they
drink water
they told me that if the water looked
clean and transparent
they would directly drink it no matter
where it came from
so in this way many water related
diseases happen
for example cholera typhoid they are the
most common diseases
caused by drinking dirty water with
symptoms such as
high vivid diarrhea occurring leading to
dehydration
and eventually deaths so the health
problems caused by drinking dirty water
also makes the relationship between
people and the environment
intense and harsh and in this video
our guide is directly drinking the water
from the tank as the water source
without any filtration or purification
and then what we should consider is how
to mitigate the situation
if we want to help first we need to
learn we first conducted research to
understand
the situation we interviewed the local
ngos
community members government officials
and so on
trying to find out how could we help
even in the milk manner
and then we summarized our findings and
published an article on a website called
china development brief
to raise the social awareness of the
water crisis in kenya
and also in every local slum we
made a brochure and the content was
about
how to make the clean drinking water
and my teammates and i also taught the
children in islam a lesson
about how to make about water security
we did an experiment and the content was
we did a experiment to let them to let
the children realize that the seemingly
clean water
was actually not clean
we let a little drop of water hang in
the top of syringe
and then use a laser pointer to point at
the water drop and the image would be on
the
wall and the student could see that what
and the student could see that there
were actually black spots moving around
which were the bacteria
and thus they could understand that what
was making everyone so sick
and after that they will start to boil
the water or using the water guard to
kill the bacteria in the water
and after the class we also uploaded the
video
to youtube so more people can see it and
spread the knowledge to more children
my teammates also made a teaching
booklet to direct the teachers to teach
the young
thus people will treat the water in the
right way that prevents the conflict
between people and the environment
for the water crisis here i’m fully
aware that what i could do to change the
situation was minimal
however i believe if everyone could
understand the relationship
between people and the environment we
can be the future change makers
to solve the problems and to help more
people
there are also many other environmental
issues to be dealt with
for example global warming deforestation
overfishing etc it is a time for us
to find a harmonious way to get along
with the nature
to achieve a symbiotic relationship and
to develop sustainably
thanks for listening