2.3 billion:

It can be easy, in this time of instant access to information,

To be ground down by the misery in the world.

The oppressed, the starving, the refugees,

The folk caught in natural,

And unnatural, disasters;

Man’s inhumanity to his fellow creatures.

It can seem that there is so much dark,

That it will inevitably continue,

And may someday smother totally the light,

A sort of humanitarian total eclipse.

I came upon this piece of information a couple of days ago,

And I didn’t know where to put it in my heart or mind. 

It didn’t compute;

It is so big,

It is emotionally incomprehensible,

A sort of black hole

With regard to my compassion

Or ability to relate,

But it also made me angry,

Wildly angry in my heart,

Because this should not be!

2.3 billion people in the world,

(That’s around one in three of the world’s population)

Do not have access to a decent toilet. 

289,000 children under 5 die each year

Due to diarrhoeal diseases

Caused by poor water and sanitation.

That's 800 a day,

Or 1 child about every 2 minutes,

All under 5 years old,

Their lives snuffed out,

Before they have really begun.

2.3 billion is a number so large

It is, ironically, meaningless

In terms of comprehensible numeracy,

To me, at least,

But is hugely powerful in

Presenting that which is vast,

Vast beyond my imagining.

It’s like saying,

‘Nearly as many stars as there are in the sky’

Or, ‘Not quite so many as grains of sand in the Sahara.’

  

I needed to find an equivalence. 

It’s almost the same as all the people in:

Europe - 738,849,000

Africa - 1,216,130,000

South America - 422,535,000

Added together.

That equals 2.3 billion plus a few million,

And all these people

Do not have a decent toilet.

Can you imagine all across

Europe,

Africa and

South America

There isn’t a decent toilet anywhere?

There are whole areas of the world,

Massive communities like that. 

All those people are going

To relieve themselves in hedges, woods,

Buckets, holes in the ground. 

And we’ve heard about the young girls who get raped

Because they go to the jungle in the night time to go in private.

How do you fancy that?

You and your kids,

Your grandchildren,

And your grandma?

Now for those 289,000 children under 5 dying each year 

Because they don’t have access to clean water. 

That’s like the entire population of Doncaster

Dying in one year,

But these are all under 5 years old.

800 dying a day is easier,

And I can make it personal,

Personal enough to really hurt me. 

That’s the number of kids

In one of the schools

Where I was headmaster,

All dying in one day -

Except they’re all under 5

And it’s every day,

Day after day after day.

Picture an under 5 year old. 

Picture, if you have one,

Your child as an under 5 year old. 

Imagine now an under 5 year old

Dying every 2 minutes.

Let it be personal. 

Feel the fear. 

Feel the grief. 

Feel the anger. 

Feel the sense of raging inadequacy and impotence. 

Every 2 minutes there are people feeling that, for real – 

Mothers, babes, toddlers, fathers, brothers and sisters.

It’s overwhelming, isn’t it!

Because I saw an appeal from Wateraid, OneDrop,

I was caught now, and went online to look at it further.

They reckon children are dying at the rate of 1 a minute,

Not 1 every 2 minutes. 

Maybe they’re not all Under 5

I don’t know. 

It doesn’t matter. 

It’s totally appalling! 

And when I‘ve thought about this ghastliness

It has seemed to me to be both

An awful, and totally unnecessary, tragic loss of life,

And a huge, intractable problem for anybody to deal with.

These people at Wateraid, though,

Seem to be a little loopy. 

They think they can make a difference.  

They apply to their work, the principle using the,

‘How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time’, model. 

You have to admire their excellent madness,

Especially since they’re saving lives, daily.

That would be some job to do,

Going to bed at night knowing

You’ve been saving children’s lives.

And for me,

‘I can’t do anything’

Changes to,

‘I can help them to

Make the difference

That will save lives.’ 

I guess we all could.

If you’re not convinced,

Think about your granny

Having to go out at night

And go to the toilet by some bushes;

Think about that under 5 child as yours.

https://www.onedrop.org/en/campaign/