BOOK 1:
Asher
Is Thirsty
Asher loved to go places- anywhere
really – the park, the pool, over to a friend’s house.
He was up for anything; especially today, because today was special.
Today was Asher’s birthday, and
he had an idea.
Asher wanted to meet someone new, and he knew just the way to do it.
He rushed to the Machine,
opened it,
and leaped inside.
In no time he found himself high among
the limbs of an acacia tree, and he was HOT,
hotter than hot.
As he looked across the field, he spotted a soccer game going on. So, he hurried down from the tree and ran over to the group of kids on the dirt field.
Since Asher had the confidence of a true adventurer, he quickly introduced himself and asked if he could join the game.
After playing for hours in the scorching African sun, Asher and his new companions were thirsty. So, they rushed into the city in search of something to drink.
Before long, he realized that none of his new friends had money to buy a drink, and not one had a nice
home with water from the sink and ice in the freezer.
Certainly he had met more than just someone new.
And Asher wondered,
“What is this strange feeling?”
The boys searched and searched for something to drink,
and when they could find nothing else,
they found a tiny stream in a back alley.
In an act of desperate thirst, the boys drank.
And Asher thought,
“No one should have to drink from a street alley.”
Instantly, Asher found himself back at home,
the Machine lifeless beside him.
But the thought had not left him.
“No one should have to drink from a street alley.”
But some kids do, every single day, because there are no fresh water wells where they live!
So Asher decided,
“Someone should dig fresh water wells in every town so every kid can drink clean, healthy water.”
And then he realized,
“I can be that someone!”
Fact Sheet about the world’s Water Crisis:
In most developed nations, we take access to safe water for granted. But this wasn’t always the case. A little more than 100 years ago, New York, London and Paris were centers of infectious disease. Child death rates were as high then as they are now in much of Sub-Saharan Africa. It was sweeping reforms in water and sanitation that enabled human progress to leap forward. It should come as no surprise that in 2007, a poll by the British Medical Journal found that clean water and sanitation comprised the most important medical advancement since 1840.
The health and economic impacts of today’s global water crisis are staggering.
- More than 3.5 million people die each year from water-related disease; 84 percent are children. Nearly all deaths, 98 percent, occur in the developing world.
- Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.
- Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection.
- Millions of women and children spend several hours each day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. This is time not spent working at an income-generating job, caring for family members, or attending school.
- 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related illness.
(source: water.org)
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