Thursday 28 August 2014

The Wisdom Wire: A.L.S. Challenge Anyone?

So, I've noticed these ALS - Ice Bucket awareness missions & posts all over social media pages , I.e. Facebook , Twitter , Instagram etc, and have given it some real thought.
The whole ALS - Ice Bucket awareness program, was set up and put into action to raise awareness and to educate those people who were not aware of the ALS disease that gets passed down through generations, its severity and how dangerous it is. Majority of the people worldwide were not aware of such a disease, or of it existence and/or the severity of it due to previous awareness programs/campaigns and previous steps of actions taken to try educate the people about it, has failed to educate the world and make us aware of such a disease or its existence. It did not go global and spread at a rapid pace until the recent "Ice Bucket Nomination & Donation Challenge" awareness program/campaign was set-up and the video was up loaded onto the web . It only became a powerful awareness program due to the fact that people/you get challenged to either do the "Ice Bucket Challenge" and share it to raise awareness of ALS or "Donate a some of funds" to the donation link provided at the end of the video; to help raise enough funds to possibly create a pharmaceutical creation/vaccine/treatment to either cure, treat or slow the process of the disease down because of the fact that ALS is not a well known disease and not too many people world wide can contract it - it only runs down the generations of those who already have it. Its not contagious, doesn't spread like wild fire and cannot be picked up through means of touch, water or air. It is irreversible and cannot be cured  treated or have the process slowed down as of yet and by that, hence making it no major threat to the human race. Too few currently have it and suffer from it to be a global risk such as Ebola , Malaria or Aids etc... Hence giving government and major pharmaceutical companies no real objective or desire to seek/create a treatment for it, as the amount of money that would be spent to acquire vaccines, means of treatment and/or cures is of high demand unlike common, well known illnesses and diseases. The money required for pharmaceutical companies for research and tests is way too high/too much for government's payroll these days apparently and hence do not want to fund it when they have the means to [Because government is just fucked up like that and they just thrive of destruction and not peace, money control and power control] They declare it not a deadly enough disease to effect the human race on a major scale because of the number of people worldwide who currently suffer and die from it , which is apparently not on a high enough scale to try develop vaccines , treatments and/or a cure ..
[Fucked up yes , but that's the high ego and extensive greed our worlds governments have today]
All Governments have the worlds amount of money for military purposes to "Conquer and Control" , to harm and cause unnecessary destruction and to destroy the fellow human brethren due to our different Religious, Cultural, Political, Colour and Sexual views that cannot be accepted by one another, that they won't fund/aid to help one another when in need and to try bring life back to fellow brothers and sisters and not take from them the limited time on our planet Earth we call home. Enough on that part, now for part 2.
Some facts that we all take for granted everyday and every way:
More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Nearly all deaths, 99 percent, occur in the developing world.
• Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.
• Of the 60 million people added to the world's towns and cities every year, most move to informal settlements (i.e. slums) with no sanitation facilities.
• 780 million people lack access to an improved water source; approximately one in nine people.2
• "[The water and sanitation] crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns."
• An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the average person in a developing country slum uses for an entire day.
• Over 2.5x more people lack water than live in the United States.
• More people have a mobile phone than a toilet.

Now you knowing that, here's my issue on this awareness program/campaign and the moral of this story of mine: What difference does it make when millions of people worldwide are deprived and die, each day at a rate that cannot be controlled, stopped or slowed down, which is more than all diseases and illnesses known to man. I repeat , people are deprived and die from the most basic necessity of life: water. We have at least 4 taps or more sources of fresh flowing water in our homes and surroundings, unlike millions who walk miles or more from their homesteads to find and retrieve water for their families and communities - which is not always clean and healthy, but they still need it to survive and most likely end up suffering with deformities, malnutrition sicknesses, diseases , illnesses and underdeveloped growth and last but not least: a sad painful cold death ignored by the world. They died from something that they were deprived from, something basic and simple. The essence of life that we take for granted everyday in every way. Millions of people are throwing buckets of ice cold, fresh clean water, retrieved from meters away [not miles away, but meters] from a tap nearby, that we take for granted and thrown over our ignorant, ego-filled and greedy heads to raise awareness of ALS. Why not use sand/soil or something else? There is no life in sand/soil and has no potential to SAVE MILLIONS OF LIVES, it makes us dirty and that's about it! Raising awareness for something should not disrespect the need/necessity of life in many suffering people's lives worldwide in underdeveloped countries. People smile and laugh during the challenge and then challenge another to do the same to raise awareness for something they honestly really do not care about, or that is so minute compared to the bigger picture of humanity. Well smile for all the lives you have chosen not to help, taken for granted and most probably have now died in the time span taken to read this message because that water, the most basic necessity needed for growth and life in every organism/species alive, is now wasted and taken for granted and disrespected due to poor awareness/campaign steps taken and shared globally.

-Nayt Smith and The Wisdom Wire
(images courtesy of: World Resource Institute, AFK Insider and rappler.com)

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