Kiwis walk to show daily water woes

IT is a world away from the highlands of Papua New Guinea but a group of people yesterday tramped up the main street of Auckland, New Zealand, laden with water bottles, to show the daily trials of villagers in the Pacific nation.
Organised by Oxfam, the urban hike up Queen St hoped to raise funds and awareness for this year’s World Water Day on March 22.
A small group, including Oxfam executive director Barry Coates, left Britomart at lunchtime and marched to Aotea Square carrying water bottles.
Oxfam hopes New Zealand can raise NZ$250,000 for this year’s appeal to improve access to clean, safe water for millions of Pacific people.
Over the next six weeks, dirty water will kill 368 people in PNG, Coates said.
The Queen St trek is a much shorter version of that made by Papua New Guinean villagers every time they need to access drinking water.
In the dry season, people of the Western Highlands village of Omkolai spend eight to 10 hours per trip to the Waghi River where they collect water and wash clothes – time Oxfam said could be better spent on farming if villages had access to taps or water systems.
On the return trip they have to carry heavy water bottles, wet clothes and children too young to walk.
A water source is available 10 minutes from the village in the wet season but is used by 2,500 people resulting in waits of around two hours.
According to Oxfam, families in the PNG Highlands use one per cent of the water used by the average New Zealand family.
An NZ$35 donation can provide a tap stand so five families can have safe drinking water, and NZ$80 will provide
fittings for a village
water system. – Stuff.co.nz