Walk for Water in Florida
In many parts of the developing world, people have to walk for miles every day just to get the water they need to drink and cook. To highlight that daily challenge, activists in Hialeah, Florida, plan to hold a Walk for Water walk-a-thon.
The walk is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, March 22 (which is World Water Day), at McDonald Park, 7505 W. 12th Ave. The event is part of Hialeah Water Fest 2008, which is being organized by Common Ground for Conservation and the city of Hialeah. Admission to the park is free, but there’s a registration fee for anyone participating in the walk-a-thon.
The goal of the Hialeah Water Fest is to “raise awareness about the importance of the Biscayne Bay to South Florida’s history, commerce, arts and culture as well as the sources and threats to Miami-Dade County’s well-known drinking water supply.”
As Common Ground for Conservation points out, more than one billion people around the world lack access to clean, reliable drinking water. Another 2.5 billion live without any decent sanitation system. Both of those factors contribute to huge numbers of water-borne illnesses and deaths each year.
Established by the United Nations, World Water Day was first observed in 1993. Since then, the U.N. has also designated 2005-2015 as the Water for Life Decade. The designation is aimed at calling greater attention to the need for improved water and sanitation, and implementing programs to help the U.N. meet its Millenium goals.
