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Dubai-based schoolboy Aqil Rashid has raised enough money to build 12 wellsin remote areas of Afghanistan, having a major impact on the lives of families there. Sangeetha Swaroop meets the dedicated 15-year-old, who says his work is far from over
The Dubai schoolboy saving children in Afghanistan
Dubai-based schoolboy Aqil Rashid has raised enough money to build 12 wellsin remote areas of Afghanistan, having a major impact on the lives of families there. Sangeetha Swaroop meets the dedicated 15-year-old, who says his work is far from over
The facts are truly disturbing - around 1.4 million children die every year from diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation and drinking unclean water, according to WaterAid, an international non-governmental organisation. Cholera and dysentery cause severe, often life-threatening, forms of diarrhoea which can last a few days, even a few weeks.
Impure water is also a major cause of gastroenteritis, a bowel infection caused by bacteria. According to the World Health Organisation, gastrointestinal infections claim more than 2.2 million lives globally each year, most of these children in developing countries.
In several Asian and African countries including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia, women are forced either to travel great distances to get clean drinking water or resort to using unclean sources of water. Children, too, are forced to fetch water for their families, balancing heavy pots on their heads - a daily routine that denies them the opportunity of going to school. It was this image of children having to work so hard for something we take for granted here in the UAE that first struck a chord with Aqil Rashid, a Grade 11 student at St Mary's School in Dubai, two years ago.
The Dubai schoolboy saving children in Afghanistan
Dubai-based schoolboy Aqil Rashid has raised enough money to build 12 wellsin remote areas of Afghanistan, having a major impact on the lives of families there. Sangeetha Swaroop meets the dedicated 15-year-old, who says his work is far from over
The facts are truly disturbing - around 1.4 million children die every year from diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation and drinking unclean water, according to WaterAid, an international non-governmental organisation. Cholera and dysentery cause severe, often life-threatening, forms of diarrhoea which can last a few days, even a few weeks.
Impure water is also a major cause of gastroenteritis, a bowel infection caused by bacteria. According to the World Health Organisation, gastrointestinal infections claim more than 2.2 million lives globally each year, most of these children in developing countries.
In several Asian and African countries including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia, women are forced either to travel great distances to get clean drinking water or resort to using unclean sources of water. Children, too, are forced to fetch water for their families, balancing heavy pots on their heads - a daily routine that denies them the opportunity of going to school. It was this image of children having to work so hard for something we take for granted here in the UAE that first struck a chord with Aqil Rashid, a Grade 11 student at St Mary's School in Dubai, two years ago.
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