Dream for clean water

We are imagining that we are members of the international fresh water group under the supervision of the United Nations (UN). The mission of this project is to offer fresh and clean water for most of the Myanmar citizens, but not for everyone at one time because Myanmar is split in two geographical parts.  One of the halves is smaller, it's the dry zone in the mid of the country and the other one, which we are focusing on, is the wet areas in the sides of the Myanmar. We decided to take area with mostly contaminated water, because it's acreage is larger and it has a bit more people living in there. This area includes much of different landscapes, from mountains to valleys and to deltas.

The water is unclean, because climate is always highly humid and most of the population doesn't know what sanitation is, -or they don't take it to use/can afford it. As a result of people leaving their feces where ever they want, feces will stream with rainwater to the water sources. The issue gets worse in Myanmar's wet parts, because of the typical rainforest soil, which filters new organic matter to nutrients fast, will lead to that they flow to surface water reserves. The most common problem with the contaminated water is that it includes pathogens, which will cause that the people who drink this water, can get differentes kinds of diseases for example diarrhea. Even if the surface water isn't polluted, people shouldn't drink it straight from the ground, because it can still have particles or unwanted microbes.

Other challenge is floods. Myanmar has every now and then very bad floods, which will make people leave their homes. Floods will combine different water sources so one combined water source  can pollute all connected sources, also dried organic matters will dissolve into the water and humidity will rise even more. Humidity and hot climate is just basically bad for water purity, because it increases the growth of the bacteria and other harmful micro-organisms like algae or protists.

The task isn't easy to complete. In the long run it isn't worthwhile to do all the work for the villagers. Instead, we should teach them and give them the resources they need so they can purify water by themselves. That way it will be used more effectively. What comes to the language should be used, it’s with no doubt the native language of the country. With Myanmar, there is a small inconvenience. There are multiple groups of people who speak different languages or to be specific, different dialects. In this situation, you should use the language or dialect the people speak in the village. There is no use in speaking a language no one or a tiny portion of folks understand.

You might think, what’s the big deal of the language barrier. There is always someone who speaks English and they can translate it to the others. Let’s think it the other way around. What if someone -let’s say Burmese- would come up to you and talk about all the things wrong with your country. Would you believe anything they say even if somebody would translate it to you? Probably not. It’s one of the cornerstones to use the correct language and -if possible- native people. That will build up the trust between you and the villagers.

In most of the developing countries, it's the women's job to get water for the family, That's why we should focus on the development of women's education. If women know what kind of water is safe to drink, there's a better possibility that the people in the town drink water that won't give them diseases. That alone will help increase the health of people. 

The reason why we should give them resources to built wells is to increase the amount of water they can use. The process of getting water takes usually the whole day. You have to walk several kilometers one way and you can't carry much of it with you. If we would help to built wells in Myanmar, people would actually get enough water. Dehydration is a serious matter and can cause even kidney failures. 

What obstacles could this project face on behalf of the government? The biggest ones must be funding and the fact that Myanmar is a socialistic country. Not only it would be hard to get there, but it would also possibly cause political tightness between Myanmar's government and ours. They don’t have the resources to start a war or anything, but there is a risk that the military government wouldn’t like if any country acted on their conflicts or problems. Since the meaning of the project is to help, it wouldn’t make much sense if we would work behind the government’s back. The most mature way to handle the political part of the project would be to contact the head of Myanmar and ask them what they think should be done to the problems in the countryside of Myanmar and if there is anything we can help with.

It wouldn’t surprise me if that didn’t work since people rarely want to admit their need of help. Still, that would probably be the most effective way on getting things started with the project. 

In most countries, the government isn't willing to give money away from the country, for for example developing countries. You can't actually get anything from it and that is the biggest reason why countries prefer to keep the money and use it to the amenities in their own country. Corporations like UNICEF or Red Cross could help to fund the project. They collect money internationally so the amount of money they can donate is much more than any country can. Finland has been willing to help finance developing countries but it has changed with the new government. They aren't as much about giving money to any country. Finland still does it, of course, but not as much. That makes different kinds of corporations our best option. Also, the church would probably donate from their fundraising, but the amount they can give isn't nearly enough. Different kinds of public fundraisings are an option, but especially in Finland, people don't usually give much money to that. 

A combination of all of these is the best option that might just work. A collaboration with other countries is also an option that will help the project to work.