OPINION:
The Olympic Games is not only a celebration of the greatest athletes, but it is also a moment when the world is on display. During both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games every two years, we are exposed to people from other cultures and we applaud our diversity even while we are unified in the achievements of these athletes. Still, not everything that is exposed during these games is worth celebrating.
There has been much talk during the Paris 2024 Olympics about water, specifically the famed Seine River. Like many historic cities, Paris has a combined sewer system, which means its wastewater and its stormwater use the same pipes. For this reason, it is known to be highly polluted with harmful bacteria, viruses and parasites including E. Coli, and swimming in the Seine has largely been banned since 1923.
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Leading up to the Paris Games, city officials were determined to hold athletic events in the Seine and worked tirelessly to clean the water to the tune of $1.5 billion. The quality of the water has been one of the most closely watched elements of the Olympic Games. Leaders have been testing the water continuously and on July 30, though an independent monitoring group classified the health risks as being in a “gray zone,” samples of water from the Seine apparently passed the water-quality tests. The games must go on and triathletes dove in to take their chances.
While a contaminated city river certainly poses a challenge when you are hosting the biggest event of the year, in this case we are talking about games. The heartbreaking reality is that for millions of people around the globe, contaminated water is a case of life or death. These individuals are not simply searching for a safe place to swim, they are looking for safe water to drink. They cannot just skip a race. They are forced every day to drink the very water that could kill them. It is a no-win scenario.
For most of us sitting in comfortable homes with seemingly unlimited clean water freely coming out of our faucets, it is difficult to understand what the world water crisis actually means to those experiencing it.
As the founder of The Bucket Ministry, an organization that shares God’s love through the gift of clean, safe drinking water, I have traveled the world and seen this reality firsthand. I’ve witnessed people wrestle with drinking only enough water to stay alive while not consuming so much that they become desperately sick.
Drinking and washing with contaminated water are linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid and polio. One of the leading causes of death each year, especially for children under the age of five, is diarrheal disease, which some 829,000 people are estimated to die from each year.
Yet, this is all preventable with access to clean water.
Our nonprofit, The Bucket Ministry, is at the forefront of giving communities most in need access to clean water and Jesus. We certainly believe both are vital to healthy lives, families and communities. The work is accomplished through distributing a simple Sawyer PointONE water filter connected to a bucket and building relationships.
We have seen the power of this work unfold in more ways than one. Located in Nairobi, Kenya is Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa where 408,478 people live with no running water, no permanent electricity, no social services and only 78 public latrines. We have trained a team of 100 Kibera locals to distribute water filters to their fellow residents. Because of their faithful work, we will celebrate a milestone of access to clean water in 100% of the homes in Kibera by the end of 2024.
As we continue to watch the saga unfold, I hope we will be reminded that poor water quality stretches beyond the Seine and the length of the Olympic Games, causing detrimental effects to thousands each day. Solving the global water crisis is possible, and it has the power transform communities worldwide through clean water and the Gospel.
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Christopher Beth is the founder, chief storyteller and director of The Bucket Ministry, a global nonprofit sharing God’s love through the gift of clean, safe, drinking water.
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