Water 'is a basic human right,' Canadian charity

leader tells MPs

Kate Jaimet, The Ottawa Citizen

   When, as Margaret Trudeau, she travelled the world as the wife of the prime minister, she saw only the glitz and glamour that foreign leaders wanted her to see. Now, as the honorary president of a charity that digs clean drinking-wells in small African villages, Margaret Kemper has just returned from an 11-day tour of some of the poorest places on Earth.

   What shocked her most were the children dying from drinking contaminated water.

   Next to that came the drudge-ry of women and young girls, walking 10 kilometres or more from their villages to reach the nearest watering hole.

   "Animals would be in it. The women would do their washing in it. Children would play in it, defecate in it, and then the women would collect the water and then walk back 10 kilometres with the water strapped on their backs," said Ms. Kemper, honorary president of WaterCan. "What happens, once we put water in, is that that drudgery is at an end. ... What we are doing is providing them with what I think should be a basic human right: clean, safe, accessible water."

   Yesterday, at a breakfast meeting of parliamentarians and journalists, Ms. Kemper urged the Canadian government to live up to its longstanding promise to increase aid to developing countries, to 0.7 per cent of GDP, or about $8 billion annually.

   Currently, Canada's annual foreign aid budget stands at $3.4 billion, which the government has promised to increase to $4.1 billion by 2011. Included in the foreign aid budget is the $500-million Canada Fund for Africa, which has $50 million earmarked for water and sanitation.

   Ms. Kemper said it costs between $14,000 and $20,000 to dig a well that will provide water for a village of 200 to 500 people.

   "They can start irrigating the land that they have, they can grow crops, they can sell them in the villages," she said. "The children start to thrive: they can go to school, they can start to learn, it's the most basic first step, I think, in alleviating poverty."

   According to the World Health Organization, nearly two million people die every year from diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery, transmitted through unclean drinking water.

WaterCan aims to prevent those unnecessary deaths by funding non-governmental organizations to build sanitary latrines, protect freshwater springs, and dig clean wells.

   The wells are typically dug a short distance from the village, which gives women the opportunity to do their washing -- and their talking -- away from the prying ears of village men, Ms. Kemper said.

   As well, WaterCan provides funds for each village to set up a water committee, composed of women, that takes care of various aspects of water provision, such as keeping the well clean and in good repair, and collecting a small fee for each container of water dispersed.

   "It's the first time that the women have been given any power, usually, in these villages," Ms. Kemper said. She said the men often try to take away the committee positions from the women, but WaterCan stands firm in insisting that the women, who do the work, must also have the authority over the water.

   "Even nine months pregnant, their loving husband will not carry the water. It's very, very male-dominated, although the women do everything," she said.