Lion Heart's Solutions: How to Save Millions from Water Borne Ailments

Water borne illness is one of the top causes of death world wide. Millions of people die every year from diseases they get from the water they drink. What makes this even more tragic is that these deaths are easily preventable. Lion Heart the real life African Superhero from Liberia has been doing everything he can to inform people what they need to do to avoid unnecessary death in the family from this terrible scourge.

Not only is there one solution but there is even two solutions. The first solution is the one that Lion heart prefers people use but the second one is better then nothing. The first simple solution to this terrible problem is simply to boil your water. This applies to people who have water from sources like a stream or lake. If people are getting water from pipes or wells then the water typically is safe. Even pipes and especially wells though can get contaminated or not be kept up as they should and can still cause problems. If people in a village are getting diseases which are water related such as diarrhea even if they have a well they should assume the well is contaminated and boil their water before drinking. Boiling water before drinking could save millions of lives every year.

The other solution is known as SODIS. This is a solution the World Health Organization has been trying to spread. How SODIS works is you get clear plastic PET bottles and put water in them. You then put them in the sun for up to a couple of days. In some sunny locations 8 hours may be all you need for the light of the sun to slowly kill off bacteria. However Lion Heart prefers people wait 2 days to be safe. This does not work in locations that are cloudy, however if people live in a cloudy location of have rainy or cloudy seasons they can just collect rain water instead. If the water is very muddy it will also not work. You also need to clean out the bottles before using and take off any stickers that may be on the bottles.

If you know anyone that does not have access to clean water make sure to let them know to boil their water or at least use SODIS if you can not afford to boil your water.

For more information on the work Lion Heart does you can go here. To learn about his work with the NGO Generosity Water you can go here and here.