Water, water everywhere?

Photo from charity: water

As Dr. D and I grow together and begin to have those grown-up conversations about what we want to do with the rest of our lives, it seems like "helping people" comes up as a major theme. But my goodness, sometimes it can be so difficult to nail down exactly how we want to go about doing that, especially when there is so much to be done.

Obviously, Dr. D is well on his way to learning some incredibly valuable skills that will inevitably help people in the future. When the goal is to help people, the medical profession is a great place to start. But he and I have known for quite some time now that we want to do something more, beyond a profession, beyond work-hours. We feel called to help under-served populations in some capacity, mostly in relation to health. For Dr. D, this will most likely take the form of free clinic work, both domestically and abroad. But what can I, the non-medical partner, contribute?

I suppose a good start would be to support him in those endeavors, and to volunteer and do some legwork where I can be used. But I think I'm coming to realize that beyond that support and the limited help I can provide as a volunteer, I can also offer my words. I can attempt to make others in my life aware of great need by writing about our experiences, and the causes that we are passionate about.

Today, Blog Action Day 2010 is giving me that opportunity. Dr. D and I have been following the efforts of an organization called charity: water for a while now, whose goal is to bring clean water sources to people around the world who have none. And it just so happens that this year, clean water is the topic of Blog Action Day, which is an effort to unite bloggers all over the world in the dedication of one day each year to talk about one particular issue affecting humanity. So I'd like to take a quick moment to join that conversation.

Almost a billion people in this world don't have access to clean water, and 42,000 people worldwide die weekly from using and/or consuming unsafe water---a vast majority of them are children. Organizations like charity: water or water.org, or even general ones like UNICEF or World Vision are doing great work to bring clean water to these people.

Clean water is truly something that I take for granted daily. I hope that by the time Dr. D and I are finished with this world, we have helped not only to cure people of illness, but prevent them from illness by helping them get the clean water they deserve.