and not a drop to drink.
That was the horror faced by the cursed inhabitants of Coleridge’s poem The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
Not a modern horror that keeps me awake at night but a terrible reality for over one billion people who don’t have access to fresh potable water.¬† Read that statistic again … it’s mindblowing. That’s the equivalent of 142 London’s in which no-one can easily access¬† fresh water.
This Christmas the Financial Times has been running a campaign to support the work of WaterAid, a charity that aims to bring universal access to fresh water.
As part of the FT campaign Barney Jopson has put together a persuasive audio slideshow on how WaterAid is bringing clean and legal water to the illegal slums of Dhaka in Bangladesh.
Unfortunately I can’t upload photos to the blog from where I am in France but you can view the audio slideshow here.
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