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