27 October to 3 November

Water we doing?

I think it is funny that people who live in so-called 'developed' nations, so often feel 'called' to educate the rest of the world about how they should live. It is almost as if we think they know nothing. A case in point is the way we talk about water and health, where emphasising scientific information about the risks of dirty water, fails to take account of what people in developing nations already know. After all, water is their main concern; their need for it shapes their lives. They are the ones who often walk for miles; who give up their time, and whose children may sacrifice education to collect life-giving water, unpurified though it may be.

The way I see it, perhaps our thinking has been clouded by the call to help those with harder lives than ours. Perhaps in our quest to educate them, we forget that relationships are never one-sided, but always involve an element of give and take. While our relative wealth might allow us to help them practically, we should not be too proud to learn from them and their lives, which remind us to keep really valuing life at the top of our priorities.

Natalie Weiner, 4th year Philosophy/Religion major at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.