VOA常速英语:水污染引起的健康危机

The World Health Organization says unclean water, poor hygiene, and bad sanitation are linked to four percent of deaths in the world,
and six percent of debilitating illnesses including cholera, dysentery, and typhoid.
Many charities are helping, including one group of volunteers based in California.
This is one of the drill bits.
It’s about four inches.
This is a clay cutter.
Employing local drillers water wells for Africa has dug 230 wells in villages in Malawi,a landlocked country in Southeast Africa.
The group has identified 30 other sites for future wells.
Dahlan was working for a faith-based organization in 1994,when he saw how rural Africans got their water.

Even if you have a local river nearby,its polluted by wild animals, livestock.
They wash in it, they drink it, they bathe in it, you know, it’s their only point of water, so every open water source is contaminated.
Malawi is one of Africa’s poorest nations.
But Dahlan says its people are known as warm-hearted.
In fact, their slogan is were the warm heart of Africa.
And they really live up to that.
We found the most hospitable people you can imagine.
He says local people form committees to keep the wells operating,a crucial component for each community plan.
So we get five key leaders, male leaders and five female leaders, you know, for not only equality purposes,
but we all know the power of women, and they’re the primary water collectors,
so this thing breaks down, they’re gonna make sure that it gets fixed.
He says after more than 20 years, most of the earliest wells still work.
Dahlans group is one of many organizations providing clean water to local communities,
addressing the worlds other major health crisis.