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Sports |
Clean water supply vital for better
lives
THE letter by Jacko Gargarhadahan of
Tabubil (The National, April 11) regarding Bart Philemon’s call
for an emphasis on clean water supplies to the villages of Papua
New Guinea is so far off the mark that I feel compelled to reply.
First, I can just imagine Jacko running down to the Ok Tedi River
to fetch a pail of water.
People living in well-run towns like Ok Tedi and public servants
living in their glass houses in Port Moresby have forgotten how
hard village life really is, when fetching water is not a luxury
but an every day grind for the women of PNG.
He is quite right to state that in remote places in PNG, there is
still fresh clean water, but close to many villages right
throughout the country clean water is hard to come by and a long
hot walk every day.
Be it from illegal logging and clearing practices, unpoliced
mining or general over-population problems, in many parts of this
heavily-populated country, river water is polluted.
In the atolls, the sea is rising.
Everywhere the need for reliable cheap clean water supplies in the
villages is not only desperately needed but vital to a long-term
viable and sensible poverty reduction plan for PNG.
Clean water supply will alleviate poverty.
The main food supplier in the villages are our mothers.
The women throughout PNG spend large portions of their days
fetching water for drinking, eating, and washing.
Any reduction in that burden will free up time for mothers to
better tend their gardens, cook better food and have more quality
time with their children.
Prevention is better than cure. A healthy child learns better, is
more alert and nothing helps improve health than quality water.
Therefore, clean, cheap water supply is essential for the
improvement in the average Papua New Guinean life.
It is a basic and essential right that has been neglected since
independence.
Clean water reduces poverty by preventing diseases, improving
hygiene and diet and therefore improves education standards and
reduces the costs of curable health problems.
New roads, better schools and health facilities are of course all
important but nothing is more important for a better standard of
living than clean water supplies.
Any mother whose first task every day is to fetch a pail of water
knows and appreciates this fact.
Sorry Jacko, you have fallen down and broken your crown.
Philemon’s policy statement regarding water is basic yet visionary
stuff and PNG hopefully will see the sense in what he is saying
and not come tumbling after you.
Mad Kiwi
Lae
 
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