Mike and Alison
Farley Mount Water Station
(Community, Health and Sustainable Environment)
Raising funds for CHASE Africa
On the Clarendon we have sixteen water stations and three of these are located in the Farley Mount area. The Farley Mount Monument water station is just after the 6 miles to go marker and is located in the car park together wtih the relay change over.
Mike Wheeler and his team have been happy to run this water station for 4 years, on behalf of the charity CHASE Africa for which he is a long standing Trustee.
Here is some of the background to CHASE Africa.
When David Attenborough was born the world’s population was 2.3 billion people and 66% of the planet was wilderness. The world’s population now is more than 8 billion and the wilderness left is 37%. It’s no surprise these figures are connected.
For most of us living in the UK, food and water are not matters of life and death, but they are for the 700 million people we share this planet with who live in extreme poverty.
There has been much in the press recently about how falling populations around the world are going to be a real problem. How will Governments afford to look after the elderly with ever fewer people of working age? But this is not the situation in Africa where the present population of 1.5 billion is predicted to rise to 2.5 billion by 2050 and to more than 4 billion by 2100. There are already 450 million people in Africa living on less than £1.50 a day, hunger being a daily reality. This number can only rise over coming years.
CHASE Africa (Community, Health and Sustainable Environment) is working on an issue which many ignore but which is the root cause of so much poverty, namely the lack of family planning. With 120million women in Africa, currently without it, this means the majority have their children by chance, and not choice.
Enabling a woman to plan the number, timing and spacing of her children, has multiple benefits for the entire family. Her health and her children’s health will improve, she will have more time to look after her children, their life chances will improve and she will have more time for productive work, making her family better off.
There are other health benefits that family planning can bring. A reduction in teenage pregnancies & longer gaps between children reduces low birth weights and stillbirth. Having fewer pregnancies can reduce complications & subsequent health problems caused by multiple births.
Wider benefits include better educational opportunities for children as the chance of completing secondary school is much higher for children from smaller families. Being able to choose when to have children empowers women & enables them to build resilience which is deemed critical in coping with other challenges such as economic hardship and adaption to climate change. Working with its partners in remote areas of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, CHASE Africa provides primary health services such as childhood vaccinations and family planning. Many of these services are delivered by back-pack nurses riding on a motorbike.
Many thanks Mike. We all look forward to seeing you on Sunday 6 October.
