A closing ceremony for World Water Day activities with the participation of the Water Authority, UNICEF, and the Ministry of Education, where the Director-General reviewed desalination and sanitation projects.
Under the Theme "Water and Sustainable Development"
CMWU Organizes a Closing Ceremony for World Water Day Activities
CMWU - Gaza
As a culmination of World Water Day activities, CMWU and the Palestinian Water Authority, funded by UNICEF, organized a closing ceremony for World Water Week's activities and events, with the participation of the Ma'an Development Center, the Environment Quality Authority, the Ministry of Education, the Palestinian Youth Empowerment Foundation, and numerous other institutions participating in the activities.
World Water Week's activities varied to include numerous media awareness activities, with great efforts intensifying to convey a message reminding the world and the local community of the state the water situation in the Gaza Strip has reached and the necessity of combining all efforts by institutions and individuals to reach safe, healthy water. The activities included educational meetings in schools, awareness workshops for women and men in centers and associations, academic workshops at universities, painting murals on water, and radio segments, with the activities targeting all segments of society in the various governorates of the Gaza Strip.
The children Ola and Israa from Ramez Fakhoura Secondary School took turns presenting the segments of the closing ceremony for World Water Day activities, with the first remarks given to Eng. Rebhi Al-Sheikh, Deputy Chairman of the Palestinian Water Authority, who pointed out that the occupation controls 90% of our water sources, using them to grow its economy, agriculture, and industry, while a few meters away the Palestinian citizen suffers from salty, scarce water and a siege that hinders development programs and projects even where water exists, and affirmed the existence of bright spots despite the many obstacles, as there are preparations to provide alternative water sources through implementing desalination projects and developing sewage treatment plants and benefiting from treated water.
Al-Sheikh noted the homeland's right over the citizen not to encroach on the limited water sources and to preserve them, also to pay the water bill to contribute to developing the water sector so we can rely on ourselves.
In his remarks, Eng. Monther Shoblaq, CMWU's Director-General, called for optimism, but optimism built on effort, even though the Gaza Strip is still stuck in place in terms of the lack of a reliable water source to prevent the health damage occurring to residents for many reasons, most importantly water, given the health standards for water set by the World Health Organization, as we find high rates of chloride salts exceeding 1,500 mg/liter and astronomical figures for nitrate salts.
Shoblaq said, "Development cannot occur anywhere in the world without the main ingredients, the most important of which are water and the human element," adding, "Despite the wars and incursions, we are proud of the Palestinian element that accepts the challenge and works tirelessly," and spoke about the desalination plant in northwest Gaza and developing the Deir al-Balah desalination plant to reach a production of 5,400 cubic meters per day, and also spoke about the small-scale desalination plant with a production capacity of 14 thousand cubic meters per day as a first building block for the central desalination plant, pointing to expectations of producing 13 million cubic meters annually of desalinated water, to be blended to obtain about 26 million cubic meters annually by the end of 2016.
On another note, Shoblaq spoke about sewage water treatment projects as a sustainable water source to be relied upon in the agricultural sector and recharging the groundwater aquifer, and pointed out that solving the sewage problems in the middle area and Khan Younis has begun to see the light, and called on all partners (international and Palestinian bodies) to radically solve the Wadi Gaza problem by lifting the encroachments and violations on the valley's boundaries and course and cooperating to find a solution to the water problem.
The ceremony was not limited to speeches but also included educational and entertaining artistic segments, with heritage songs by a group of children from the Music School and folk dabke by the Shams Al-Karama troupe.
So as not to overlook the effort made by the institutions participating in World Water Day activities, all the activities and events were displayed, expressing a great, joint effort made by all the institutions with great harmony and keenness from everyone.
The ceremony concluded with an artistic painting by the talented child Mohammed Qariqe' affirming all rights on this land.
