2022 Teens Dream - Save the Young
“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work”. As a teenager my love for children is incomparable. Every day, I wish I had a younger brother or sister but, due to the circumstances, my parents are unable to give birth anymore. This made me cherish and love other people’s children and also treat them like they are family.
Unfortunately, I heard the story of a woman that lost her 3-month-old baby. Doctors confirmed that it was caused by using impure water to nurse her, and this was indeed a very painful event. Hearing this news made me so unhappy and ever since then, my urge to know more about the cause of her death broadened.
I carried out a series of research and found out that she died due to BCG(bacillus cancer) which damaged her bladder and she was not the only victim of this great cause.
According to UNICEF, Nigeria records an infant death rate of 117,000 yearly with the Niger Delta Communities contributing 30.2% to it. This is due to the heavy amount of hydrocarbons present in the water bodies around the area which is spreading widely to neighboring communities. The use of contaminated drinking water and poor sanitary conditions result in increased vulnerability to water-borne diseases, including diarrhea which leads to the deaths of more than 70,000 children under the age of five annually. Contaminated water is the second-biggest cause of premature deaths caused by pollution globally. At about 1.4 million fatalities annually followed by lead with 900,000 casualties and workplace chemical exposure at 870,000 deaths. Hydrocarbon contamination is one of the causes of this high death rate.
In Nigeria, the Niger Delta Region communities are subdued to little or no amount of pure and portable drinking water due to the contamination of their groundwater bodies by petroleum products.
After carrying out a series of research, I decided to create a purification system considering the low cost of living of the affected community. I also decided to use natural and recyclable products(sand, gravel, activated charcoal, and plastics) to create this purification system and I also went to the laboratory to carry out a test and confirm if this solution is implementable to help in achieving the Sustainable development goal 6, clean water and sanitation.
This solution would not only reduce the cost people in the affected community spend yearly on water but it would also reduce the rate of plastic pollution. I believe that this project is a good start to reducing climate change in my society and as I get more investors I would expand and reform this project.
The purification system was built using a sand filter consisting of fine sand and gravel which helps to trap the minute substances from the polluted water. This wouldn’t remove the petroleum smell from the water which is why we introduced the Granular activated charcoal to help adsorb the hydrocarbon vapor from the polluted water. And this was passed through cotton wool to help remove excess bacteria and fungi from the water. After doing this we took our results to the laboratory to get the test result and confirm if we indeed met our target goal, of purifying the polluted water and providing portable drinking water for the said community.