World Water Day: Children call for action on access to safe water

MEXICO CITY, Mexico, 22 March 2006 ? On World Water Day, as the 4th World Water Forum here draws to a close, the voices of debate and discussion have fallen silent to hear and consider a clarion call to action from children. Ten young water activists took the stage yesterday, side by side with over 30 ministers of water and environment at the global meeting, to discuss children's role in the world water crisis. They represented the 112 participants in the Children?s World Water Forum, a parallel event ending in Mexico City today. And they spoke out for the hundreds of millions of children worldwide struggling to survive without safe drinking water. Standing tall in their national costumes, the children from Africa, Asia and Latin America faced world leaders with dignity and the special unity of childhood. Ibrahim Adamu, 15, President of the Nigerian Children?s Parliament, opened the children?s ?water manifesto? with a demand: Governments must accept responsibility for children?s unacceptable suffering as a result of water deprivation. ?Today, 400 million children do not even have enough safe water to live healthy lives,? he said. ?This is wrong. This is killing our future. We call on you to bring safe water to all the world?s children as our human right.? For all the children at the Children?s World Water Forum, this was the crowning moment of a week filled with energy, excitement and, most of all, hard work. Throughout the forum, they have heard ideas from more than 30 cultures and discussed dozens of examples of child-driven water and hygiene projects. They have shared stories of courage and imagination, of children working for children to bring permanent change. Some of the projects have shown great innovation, such as 13-year-old Suresh Baral?s efforts to set up a microfinance project in his remote Nepalese village as a means of helping local people build latrines. Other projects have brought social change that reaches far beyond water and hygiene. Dolly Akhter, 16, shared how her group of UNICEF-supported teenage hygiene educators in a Bangladesh slum helped to stop four child marriages in her community, simply by going house-to-house to teach better hygiene behaviour and lobbying for girl-friendly sanitation facilities at her school. Through their work and determination, these children are transforming lives in some of the world?s poorest places. They are proving that change is possible ? spreading better health, higher education rates, empowerment and hope.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico, 22 March 2006 ? On World Water Day, as the 4th World Water Forum here draws to a close, the voices of debate and discussion have fallen silent to hear and consider a clarion call to action from children. Ten young water activists took the stage yesterday, side by side with over 30 ministers of water and environment at the global meeting, to discuss children's role in the world water crisis. They represented the 112 participants in the Children?s World Water Forum, a parallel event ending in Mexico City today. And they spoke out for the hundreds of millions of children worldwide struggling to survive without safe drinking water. Standing tall in their national costumes, the children from Africa, Asia and Latin America faced world leaders with dignity and the special unity of childhood. Ibrahim Adamu, 15, President of the Nigerian Children?s Parliament, opened the children?s ?water manifesto? with a demand: Governments must accept responsibility for children?s unacceptable suffering as a result of water deprivation. ?Today, 400 million children do not even have enough safe water to live healthy lives,? he said. ?This is wrong. This is killing our future. We call on you to bring safe water to all the world?s children as our human right.? For all the children at the Children?s World Water Forum, this was the crowning moment of a week filled with energy, excitement and, most of all, hard work. Throughout the forum, they have heard ideas from more than 30 cultures and discussed dozens of examples of child-driven water and hygiene projects. They have shared stories of courage and imagination, of children working for children to bring permanent change. Some of the projects have shown great innovation, such as 13-year-old Suresh Baral?s efforts to set up a microfinance project in his remote Nepalese village as a means of helping local people build latrines. Other projects have brought social change that reaches far beyond water and hygiene. Dolly Akhter, 16, shared how her group of UNICEF-supported teenage hygiene educators in a Bangladesh slum helped to stop four child marriages in her community, simply by going house-to-house to teach better hygiene behaviour and lobbying for girl-friendly sanitation facilities at her school. Through their work and determination, these children are transforming lives in some of the world?s poorest places. They are proving that change is possible ? spreading better health, higher education rates, empowerment and hope.