Walk For Water
If you want to take the 'Water Trivia' test, just click here!
This year, students at L'école Saint-Augustine and Gulf Shore Consolidated schools marked World Water Day by walking in solidarity with children in Africa. With the support of the Wheatley River and Hunter-Clyde watershed groups, in partnership with Farmers Helping Farmers and the Sierra Club, they took part in a "Walk for Water" on Friday morning, March 27th on the wooded trails at Gulf Shore School in North Rustico.
PEI school children, who don't often have the occasion to question the quantity and quality of their water and the importance of it in their own lives, will be "Walking For Water" so that children in parts of Kenya may attend school. They will be gathering pledges within their communities, talking to their sponsors about the event and about water quality and availability in PEI and around the world.
World Water Day is held annually on the 22nd of March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of safe freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating the 22 of March 1993 as the first World Water Day. Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. In 2009, the theme for World Water Day is "Shared Water - Shared Opportunities".
The possibility of creating heightened awareness of the serious water quality/quantity issues that are occurring both on PEI and internationally is something, our Island watershed groups, Farmers Helping Farmers and our elementary schools are undertaking together to help rural island children make a connection to their drinking water. In return local children will make an important impact in a Kenyan Village.
The object is for these two rural schools to walk together, carrying empty 2 litre jugs to a water collection site, to fill those water jugs with clean Island water, and then return with full, heavy, containers of water to their schools. Island children will walk in solidarity with many children in Africa who cannot attend school because of the amount of time they must spend finding water for daily family use. The money raised by sponsors supporting the children of L'école Saint-Augustine & Gulf Shore Consolidated on this "Walk for Water" will help to purchase a water collection tank through Farmers Helping Farmers in Ruuju, Kenya.
If you would like to contribute to this endeavor, you may give directly to Farmers Helping Farmers - P.O.Box 2623, Charlottetown,
Prince Edward Island, Canada, C1A 8C3 or contact the schools.
For more information about this Walk for Water, please call Tracy Gallant at 964-2351 or email tralou @ pei.sympatico.ca