A LITTLE TALK BY PAUL, MSF HUMANITARIAN WORKER

Admin116/03/23  

He came on February 24th and the talk and experiments were done from 12:30 to 14:30 h.

Doctors Without Borders (also known as Médecins Sans Frontières) is an international humanitarian-aid non- governmental organization (NGO) best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases.

Founded in 1971, Doctors Without Borders provides independent, impartial assistance to people based only on need and irrespective of race, religion, gender, or political affiliation.

Paul had the role of Watsan (Water and sanitation),  where  their  main functions are to find water, treat water, store water… and much more.

Paul came to talk about his work, he explained us some real problems in the world, he told us he worked cleaning water, giving it, making it accessible to people who live in dry places. Then, we went outside, and looked at the procedure of cleaning water.

Why Paul’s work is so important is because he is in charge of making water safe to drink by eliminating anything that can spread disease. Water purification is part of medical action and, like other preventive activities such as vaccination, clean water can reduce diarrhoea, malaria, chagas, infections and numerous other pathologies, clean water can improve mortality and morbidity. Every year, Médecins Sans Frontières distributes hundreds of millions of litres of water.

The activity took place outside.

The objective was to turn brown dirty water into clear and drinking water, using chemicals.

  • First, we mixed up the water while pouring the chemical powder.
  • Then, we kept mixing during 5 straight minutes.
  • After that, the dirt started to get separated, turning into a heterogeneous mixture.
  • The dirt came to surface or stayed in the bottom of the bucket.
  • After 20 minutes we poured the water into another bucket, filtering it with a cotton cloth.
  • In order to be sure that the water is drinkable, we made a pool test, by measuring the chlorine left.

CURIOSITY:

In the counties where they purify water, they must drink it before them to proof they’re not poisoning the water.