faith in dialogue

The world celebrated UN World Water Day on March 22. Rabbi Jack Bemporad and a group of high-level faith leaders issued the following “Sermon for World Water Day” which appeared on the front page of Huffington Post/Religion [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/23/world-water-day-2011-a-se_n_839449.html] We hope you will take just a few minutes to read about this crucial world problem – and solution – and more importantly, introduce this issue to your church, synagogue, temple or mosque. Because together, we really can make a life-giving difference: 

We Don’t Honor God when 4500 children die every day. But they do…from the lack of something so simple, each of us takes it for granted each day – a clean glass of water. 4500 children — that means every 20 seconds, one child dies, that little life extinguished. But you’ve probably not heard that tragic statistic because the lack of safe water is the greatest under-recognized global humanitarian crisis we face and its impact is staggering. 4500 children really do die every single day from water-related illnesses, and that is just the tip of this very unhealthy iceberg.

Almost a billion people do not have access to safe water globally and 2.5 billion lack the dignity of basic sanitation. This lack of access translates into more staggering numbers: 80% of all disease is related to a lack of sanitation and at any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases. We are acutely aware of the plight of starvation and all too familiar with the heart-wrenching pictures of distended malnourished bellies. But did you know that 50% of that malnutrition is due to a lack of safe water – 50%! This water crisis kills more children than malaria, AIDS, and TB combined resulting in a catastrophic 2 million, mostly preventable deaths, Continue reading →