Panama City may be just like your city (you, the reader) saying, "water is fine here, I don't get it," while others "in your/our/their backyard" are drinking unsafe water. Even in Louisville we can say this about people in parts of our own state.
Tori and I knew we would be working with the teens and that they wanted the full scope beginning with, "what is the water crisis?" to "what in the world is WaterStep and why are you here?" to "why me?"
We did it! With a little prodding, the youth became entertained when Tori and I began by speaking about the weekend. It was Satuday so we asked the class what plans they had for the evening. After hearing da variety of responses, we asked, "so you all have many different plans today - how many of you plan to drink water today?"
Slowly, they began to raise their hands as they realized drinking water was not a Saturday night "thing"but an everyday "thing": to shower, flush the toilet, wash dishes, wash our hands, etc. We presented them with one bottle of water and asked how they would choose to use that bottle of water if that was all they could access. Then, we mentioned that the limited water they had to utilize was dirty, and would make them ill...PS- this wasn't as depressing as it sounds. We were getting to know each other and our mutual admiration of Panama!
Next, Tori presented an informative, interactive activity that required 10 volunteers. With each student standing on one piece of paper, this represented the equal distribution of the world's resources that are available. But when she asked nine of the students to share one piece of paper, leaving one student with the other nine to himself, the students were surprised to realize this is how the world's resources are ACTUALLY distributed.
That means 10% of the world's population has available access to 90% of its necessary resources. Or, 90% of the world's population has to share only 10% of the world's resources.
Surprised? So were they.
After the volunteers were seated I wanted to speak to them about our WaterStep experience learning about Panamanian culture. Together we all noted that Panama has a rich history in water and how neat it was for Louisville, another international city of water, to create a friendship. From there we thought about other aspects of Panamanian culture - dancing in particular. As most of out friends know, Tori and I LOVE to dance, so this was fun for us. We asked for a volunteer to come to the aisle and teach us a dance move that they enjoy. One student reluctantly taught a move, to the class's great entertainment. We wanted to inspire the idea that with any kind of knowledge, anyone can be a teacher. So, they learned how WaterStep teaches people to wash their hands #teacher #empowerment (so they could teach others = SUSTAINABLE! #Sustainia100_me #WeTeachThat).
From there we went one step further. What if someone has knowledge and uses it to solve problems to make the world a better place? They are an AMBASSADOR!
Tori and I, among others (**shout out to Josh and Nathan**), hold the job title: WaterStep Ambassdor.
What's cool about being in a smaller country is people think about ambassadors more often. Ambassadors are a regular part of life. I walked by two embassies this morning on the 10 minute walk from our residence to the university. What a relevant role an ambassador plays here!
We split up our class of ambassadors into four groups each with their own community prompt to guide their problem-solving minds:
1) There is a community with trash on the streets and the people are often very sick. They believe it is caused by the trash and unclean conditions.
2) There is a community where families do not have safe water to drink in their home. The water is making them sick.
3) There is a school with a large rain catchment systems, but only one faucet to distribute water to 100 people.
4) There is a community center that serves 400 people and the water there is dirty.
Each scenario was followed by the question, "what are the problems and how can we use our knowledge to help these communities?"
The students offered some great ideas, a lot of very applicable ones (especially once we asked them to think about solving the issue with little or no funding). They suggested organizing groups to pick up trash, creating handmade filters, asking for donations to expand infrastructure, and using some type of water purifying system.We loooved these responses! They were really thinking! Annnnnnnnddd, for all you #DistanceLearning fans out there - 3/4 of the groups use SMARTPHONES to help them with their answers and show pictures/diagrams to the class! Virtual connection is on the rise (and virtual training with D-Learning at WaterStep).
We them showed the class different ways WaterStep teaches people to combat such issues too: using fly traps to catch the germ-spreading varments that love hanging around trash, boiling water and filtering it through a t-shirt, building tippy-taps to create handwashing stations using very few resources, and using an M-100 chlorine generator that runs on easily found salt and a car battery to make safe up to 10,000 gallons (38,000 liters) of water in a day. WaterStep has great solutions - and these teens seemed to get it!
Then of course (**shout out to M2, Katie, and Mark "the boss man" Hogg**) we did a social media pitch because, these days, what better way is there to keep up with your water ambassadors?!
All in all, Saturday was a great and empowering day.
Tori and I spent the rest of the afternoon networking and planning events for Quality Leadership University. That night we even were invited to hang out with our lead connector at QLU, Stephanie - a fellow Sigma Kappa (1 <3 1 -->), and her friend Eric. We went to a "economically rationed" Panamanian seafood restaurant, one of their favorites. We were able to get more acquainted with the culture and livihood of the population here.
What a day..shoooo-weeeeee!
Love and aqua potable,
Natalie
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