by Dr. Hakim
On 31st Jan, I followed Zekerullah, an Afghan Peace Volunteer who coordinates the Borderfree Street Kids School in Kabul, to visit Zuhair and his family in their rented room. Zuhair attends the School on Fridays with 92 other working and street kids, a minuscule number in the context of 6 million working children in Afghanistan.
My heart squirmed at the unequal math of today’s economics.
In any world, children should have access to water, but in an internationally supported, ‘most-drone-attacked’ and ‘democratic’ Afghanistan, Zuhair is one person among 73% of the Afghan population who do not have access to clean, potable water.
Partly, Afghanistan and the world’s drinking water is drying up. And contaminated.
A recent analysis estimates that 4 billion people, two thirds of the world’s population, are affected by a falling water table.
I was challenged; since the Afghan and allied international governments don’t seem too bothered about resolving the root causes of the water, environmental or any crisis, what could the Afghan Peace Volunteers and I do?…