Ways To Recognize World Water Day

Tomorrow is World Water Day. There are many ways we can celebrate World Water Day not just tomorrow; but, for the rest of the year as well. Water is something we in the Americas tend to take for granted sometimes. We are not always as careful with it as we should be. However, after viewing Mr. Wasif's photos, I have renewed my personal vow to be even more careful with the water I come into contact with.

I hope that Mr. Wasif's pictures touched you in the same way they touched me. It does us all good to have our senses and sensibilities shaken up once in a while. It has been a long time since images have spoken to me so loudly and so profoundly.

Here is my list of ways to celebrate World Water Day: March 22 every year.

1. Visit the World Water Day 2009 website and the official World Water Day website. They have tons of good ideas.

2. Encourage those you talk to to visit Munem Wasif's photo gallery, "Salt Water Tears: Lives Left Behind in Satkhira, Bangladesh" - a moving exhibit.

3. Do you have a blog, Facebook account, MySpace page or other website or know someone who does? Set up some links and become a water advocate.

4. Visit the websites of such water-oriented charities and organizations as WaterAid, Ecover (associated with WaterAid), the WaterAid channel on YouTube, World Health Organization (water division),the Global Water website or the Water Environment Federation website. These sites should provide enough food for thought for a 15-course banquet!

5. Write letters (either snail mail or email) to your various levels of government urging them to help provide clean water to all earth's inhabitants. Calendar this and send out one letter a month (on the 22nd). Twelve snail mails and/or emails a year is very little in comparison to the gravity of the world's water situation. The steady influx of mail will prove your sincerity about the problem. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

6. Encourage others to join in writing letters. It takes just a few minutes and the more voices that are heard, the more likely it is that change will occur.

7. Use water frugally. The more water I save, the more water there is for others.

I think the theme of exhibit says it all: "Whether we live upstream or downstream, we are all in the same boat."