Dear Editor,
Ever since the announcement by the Minister of Education which suggested that parents may be asked to take not only drinking water to school for their children but also water for sanitary use, I began to have nightmares.
The thought of the school corridors filled with all different sizes and shapes of containers labelled with children's names and then seeing a student hurrying to the bathroom with his of her bucket or bottle would be devastating to morale if parents complied.
At the time of the announcement there were parents who had no water supply at home to take care of their own needs. And what of the parents whose children take public transportation? How would they transport these containers daily to school? This is a sure recipe for a gastroenteritis outbreak.
Fast-forward to the current situation. We have been receiving a significant amount of rainfall; water is flowing abundantly in some areas. The National Water Commission has been chastised for allowing the excess water collected in catchments to just run freely when they become filled. However, my concern is, what systems were put in place to collect this excess? What did we do during the dry spell? Did we make additional dams, fixed major leaks along roadways, what was done so that people would not experience the level of drought that was experienced over the last two months?
We need to stop crying when we are hit and employ prevention tools. It made no sense to hear senior personnel talk about existing water problems and challenges they were facing when there is nothing that was done or will be done to ensure that these problems do not recur. Let us start a culture of being proactive and not reactive.
Dee Hunt
bedeeinspired@gmail.com
Having nightmares over water
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Ever since the announcement by the Minister of Education which suggested that parents may be asked to take not only drinking water to school for their children but also water for sanitary use, I began to have nightmares.
The thought of the school corridors filled with all different sizes and shapes of containers labelled with children's names and then seeing a student hurrying to the bathroom with his of her bucket or bottle would be devastating to morale if parents complied.
At the time of the announcement there were parents who had no water supply at home to take care of their own needs. And what of the parents whose children take public transportation? How would they transport these containers daily to school? This is a sure recipe for a gastroenteritis outbreak.
Fast-forward to the current situation. We have been receiving a significant amount of rainfall; water is flowing abundantly in some areas. The National Water Commission has been chastised for allowing the excess water collected in catchments to just run freely when they become filled. However, my concern is, what systems were put in place to collect this excess? What did we do during the dry spell? Did we make additional dams, fixed major leaks along roadways, what was done so that people would not experience the level of drought that was experienced over the last two months?
We need to stop crying when we are hit and employ prevention tools. It made no sense to hear senior personnel talk about existing water problems and challenges they were facing when there is nothing that was done or will be done to ensure that these problems do not recur. Let us start a culture of being proactive and not reactive.
Dee Hunt
bedeeinspired@gmail.com
Having nightmares over water
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