World Water Day grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. The goal is to recognize the central importance of water to life on earth and to recognize the way competition and lack of water can be a source of conflict and suffering.
In recognition of World Water Day 2011, an inter-faith consortium of American religious leaders belonging to a group called Faiths For Safe Water wrote a collective ‘sermon’ to emphasize the religious importance of water and the access to it.
A Sermon For World Water Day 2011
We Don’t Honor God when 4500 children die every day. But they do … from the lack of something so simple, each of us takes it for granted each day — a clean glass of water. 4500 children — that means every 20 seconds, one child dies, that little life extinguished. But you’ve probably not heard that tragic statistic because the lack of safe water is the greatest under-recognized global humanitarian crisis we face and its impact is staggering. 4500 children really do die every single day from water-related illnesses, and that is just the tip of this very unhealthy iceberg.
