Close to the top

Jan 11th, 2010 4:59 PM UTC
By Kara Arsenault

Elizabeth Gore, the executive director of global partnerships and Nothing But Nets for the United Nations Foundation, is currently hiking up Mt. Kilimanjaro with the Summit on the Summit team to help raise awareness about the global clean water crisis. Here’s an earlier post she wrote on the ONE blog about the trek. Stay tuned for more updates atop Africa’s tallest peak as the week continues!

Today we reached 15,331 thousand feet and I’m exhilarated (and admittedly a bit out of breath)! Tomorrow is the big day; we’ll wake up at midnight to climb to 19,340 feet to yell about clean water from the top of Africa—from Mt. Kilimanjaro. We’re all buzzing with excitement. My friends on the Summit on the Summit team (Jessica Biel, Lupe Fiasco and Alexandra Cousteau) are doing awesome. Our leader Kenna continues to be an inspiration to the whole team.

We’ve been keeping it “Pole, Pole”—the Swahili word for slow. The thing about climbing Kili is that technically it’s the altitude that’s difficult. You need to come in great shape, but even those that are healthy and fit can have a really hard time. It’s the luck of the draw really—some people have difficulty, and some don’t. That is why slow is key.

Moving slowly up the mountain has given me time to think about why we’re climbing—for the global clean water crisis. Some people are born into societies that freely use enough clean water to drink, bathe and prepare food, and some are born needing to walk hours upon hours to find and then carry home barely enough clean water to sustain life. Again, it’s the luck of the draw. If you live in the US, you draw oh, 300 liters a day. If you live in an Ethiopian refugee camp, you draw 20 liters a day.

Before heading up Mt. Kilimanjaro, the entire Summit on the Summit team headed to a Maasai village around Arusha. We saw first-hand the devastating effects of the lack of clean water. Emile Hirsch asked the leaders if their government provided any water infrastructure. They responded that neither water access nor clean water was a priority for their government. It reminded me how important it is for a strong water federal policy and financial budget, not only for the US as a donor country, but also for recipient countries so that they can provide sustainable long-term infrastructure.

In our new decade, water will cause many people to be displaced. They’ll have to move great distances to find suitable land and sustenance. Because of this displacement, we’ll see the world’s refugee population double, we’ll see more war and conflict, and we’ll see more and more people making due with water that’s not clean—causing more water borne disease.

We don’t need a vaccine to fix the global water crisis. It requires technology and systems—which we have. We just need more resources. To make an impact or to see us summit, visit summitonthesummit.com or check http://www.facebook.com/GoreUN and follow our progress. And don’t forget to send good thoughts and prayers so I can reach the top tomorrow!

TAGS: From Our Partners, ONE