York woman heading to India to see importance of safe water and sanitation (From York Press)
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York woman heading to India to see importance of safe water and sanitation
8:04am Tuesday 19th February 2013 in News
By Haydn Lewis, haydn.lewis@thepress.co.uk
Caroline Beavers gets ready for her trip to India to see how international aid is helping people and communities
A CHARITY fundraiser from York will see first-hand how international aid benefits people on the ground in India.
Caroline Beavers, of Holgate York, who works as a manager at a service partner for Yorkshire Water in Bradford, has been chosen to represent the company on a week-long trip to India along with fundraisers from 11 other water companies.
The 32-year-old will visit communities to find out what life is like without safe water and sanitation and visit WaterAid projects in both urban slums and rural villages to see how the money raised by herself and her colleagues is making a difference.
Miss Beavers said: “It’s shocking that 2,000 children die every day from diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation.
“Clean water is something we take for granted in the UK but some people have no choice but to drink dirty water that could make them ill, or worse.”
As part of the trip, to the Madhya Pradesh region of India, Miss Beavers will spend time with a local family living without clean water and sanitation, learning first-hand about the challenges they face without access to these vital resources.
Brought up in the Acomb area of York, where her family still lives, Miss Beavers went to Manor CE School and York Sixth Form College and then Durham University.
While out in India she will also meet children from local schools, sit in on hygiene education sessions, take part in some construction work and learn how access to clean water and sanitation has helped transform people’s lives.
Miss Beavers said: “This trip is a chance for me to see for myself the work that WaterAid is doing to change this and I hope to use my experiences to inspire even more people to get involved and raise funds for this vital cause.”
India has a population of more than one billion.
Diseases are common throughout the country due to contaminated drinking water sources and poor sanitation.
WaterAid estimates that only 31 per cent of the population has adequate sanitation and 320,000, children under five die every year as a result.
Comments(7)
capt spaulding
says...
9:29am Tue 19 Feb 13
Big Bad Wolf wrote:I agree, and dont forget the billions in Foreign aid we send.
Raising money to help reduce these terrible conditions is very admirable but I ask myself..
1) India is a Nuclear power and an emerging super power.... shouldn't the Indian government sort their own conditions before developing their nuclear weapons capabilities out?
2) Wouldn’t the money spent sending 12 people to India be better spent helping them?
I cant see the point of any charity towards those who will not help their own people.
Makes me wonder if they keep a section of the community in dire poverty and without clean water just to qualify for our cash.
Oncebitten
says...
11:42am Tue 19 Feb 13
It's pretty much common sense that humans need clean water and good sanitation to remain healthy...maybe the cost of this trip could have been spent providing well pumps and water filters....think a lot could have been purchased with the cost of this trip!
Garrowby Turnoff
says...
2:11pm Tue 19 Feb 13
They often ring me as well.
coldcoffee
says...
4:12pm Tue 19 Feb 13
CHISSY1
says...
10:22pm Tue 19 Feb 13
coldcoffee wrote:" Get your head out of the sand India has more money than us .
Very sad to see the negative and ill-informed comments above. WaterAid does great work around the world, helping people get access to clean water and sanitation, simple things that make a huge difference to their lives and make them better able to help themselves. Good luck to Caroline and her colleagues, what you are doing is thoroughly worthwhile and worthy of the widest possible support.
Kevin Turvey
says...
8:12am Wed 20 Feb 13
Or a disguised fact finding trip for future business opportunities in new markets!
Was it send to the Press as a press release? I suspect so!
The problem is not charity per say but the wrong ones or the wrong actions!
‘coldcoffee says... 4:12pm Tue 19 Feb 13
Very sad to see the negative and ill-informed comments above. WaterAid does great work around the world, helping people get access to clean water and sanitation, simple things that make a huge difference to their lives and make them better able to help themselves.’
When I was on a trip in the deep Sahara I came across a well that had been built with donations by a Canadian church group. There was a plaque on the well that had the details of the church group in Ontario.
Very nice new well for the locals to use you may think!
No, the new well was built to be used with an electric pump however there was no power for approximately 1000 miles in either direction and therefore literally useless.
The locals used the old well 200 metres away that had a rope and bucket that had been serving the local community in this manner for thousands of years!
The Canadians think they have done a good deed and the locals look on with amusement.
The Canadians could have given away thousands of new ropes and buckets for the existing wells that were getting used rather than the costs of the build of a folly to their own stupidity/naivety in the middle of the desert!
On returning to the UK I contacted the church group to give them feedback and show them photos of their well and its lack of usefulness to the locals.
I did not get a reply! Funny that.
By the way I also do not see why a country with a nuclear weapon and space programme that we should be sending billions in so called aid!
Big Bad Wolf says...
9:13am Tue 19 Feb 13
1) India is a Nuclear power and an emerging super power.... shouldn't the Indian government sort their own conditions before developing their nuclear weapons capabilities out?
2) Wouldn’t the money spent sending 12 people to India be better spent helping them?