KPU TALK course discusses human rights and the climate crisis around the world

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In 2010, the human right to safe drinking water was recognized by the United Nations as part of a binding international law. Only 81 per cent of the global population will have access to clean drinking water, leaving 1.6 billion without, by 2030, according to the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene between the World Health Organization and UNICEF. 

Dr. Ross Michael Pink, Samantha Jack, and Kine Afework gave a presentation called “Water is Life” on Oct. 14 as part of Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Third Age Learning (TALK) program. 

TALK offers people 50 years old or older presentations both online and in-person from a volunteer panel of expert guests. 

“Water is Life” was one of the climate-oriented courses TALK is offering this year, and discussed water rights issues with specific examples from Thailand, Ethiopia, and on Indigenous reservations in Canada. 

Pink, a KPU political science instructor and the co-founder of the NGO Global Water Rights, co-hosted the presentation. In “Water is Life,” he shared information about the impacts of climate change and water irregularities in Thailand, including a discussion about the “Royal Rainmaking Project,” where the king of Thailand in 1969 implemented novel cloud seeding to fight droughts in the nation and was largely successful. 

“Unfortunately, two million children a year die of bad water that you and I would take a Pepto Bismol for, and these poor kids die because they don’t have clean water,” Pink says in a follow-up interview with The Runner. “I’m very focused on this issue.” 

Jack is a member of the Nuu-chah-nulth and Yale First Nations and a recent graduate of KPU with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. She brought her background in student support, policy consulting, and reconciliation work to the presentation. This prompted discussions with the class about the restricted access to clean water Indigenous Peoples face on reservations in Canada, focusing on the situation of the Shoal Lake 40 Reservation where the water-related state of emergency that lasted decades led to a mental health emergency. 

Pink describes the distinction between the water situation on Canadian reservations and other Canadian communities as purposeful neglect. 

“The smallest towns in Canada have safe water, and yet dozens of reserves in town have water so bad that people are sick if they drink it — and the only answer is racism and indifference from the federal and provincial governments, or the municipalities,” he says.

Afework is a KPU student from Ethiopia who has worked with Pink as a Climate Change Ambassador in the past. She travelled to local high schools and gave presentations on the realities of climate change in Ethiopia to students. 

In the presentation “Water is Life,” she spoke on the complicated topic of water rights in Ethiopia where around 60 per cent of people are unable to access clean drinking water, and the effect the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that taps into the Blue Nile River has had on the politics of Africa.  

Pink hopes the presentation sparked curiosity for the audience, leaving them with a greater understanding of the water rights crisis in the world and what is being done about it. 

“What we try to do is, first of all, emphasize that water is the number one human right in the world, secondly, that water is precious,” he says. 

An annual membership for TALK can be purchased for $10, with individual courses costing between $15 and $20 more each. KPU students can attend for free.