P.U.C. celebrates Water Day
Desiree Cain
Potable water; it’s a resource many Belizeans take for granted since it is easily accessible in most parts of the country. But without sustainable usage, it may be a luxury we won’t always have. So for World Water Day on Thursday, the Public Utilities Commission is inviting the general public to a forum and fair to learn about ways to keep this valuable commodity in their homes. The event will involve government agencies, NGOs as well as private sector businesses educating attendees on water and food safety. Public Relations officer for the P.U.C., Desiree Cain, told News Five today that the last World Food Day event was two years ago, but with a refreshed committee they hope to continue it annually.
Desiree Cain, Public Relations Officer, Public Utilities Commission
“Every year on March twenty-second, we celebrate World Water Day as designated by the United Nations at a conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. In 1993 they started celebrating World Water Day and in Belize we started in 1996. And for tomorrow we have planned a World Water Day forum and fair, which he committee came up with two months ago when we started planning this event. And the World Water Day forum and fair will start with an opening ceremony planned for nine in the morning. We have presentations for the poster competition that we had for the primary school. We have four winners—we decided on four after we only got four entries for the poster competition. And then we have the winners of the essay competition; for that we had twenty-eight entries and we also have four winners in that. We also have a forum planned for tomorrow morning immediately after the ceremony and that forum will entail presentations of technical papers by experts from various fields in water and some of the ministries that have to do with that. During the course of the day as well, at the Princess where we’re having the event, we’ll have booths on display. That’s the fair aspect of it where we have about twelve booths that will have their displays out there where students as well as the public can go by and get information in regards to this year’s theme which is actually Water and Food Security and how to relate both aspects of it.
For the most part we have potable drinking water so we need people to realize that this is a blessing for us; one and two there are ways that we can practice sustainability so that we can have this for many years because simple things like leaving the pipe water running when you’re brushing he teeth or for example in some villages where we have a flat rate for water, people don’t worry about how much water they use because at the end of the day they pay the same flat rate. So we need to emphasize and instill in individuals that it’s a very valuable commodity and if we lose it then we’ll be in deep trouble so we’re blessed. We invite everybody out to come to the princess Hotel tomorrow beginning at nine until three p.m. for World Water Day forum and Fair. It’s going to be an exciting event, you can come and learn a whole lot about what you can do to help protect the environment, to help do something in order to sustain this vital resource.”
Winners of the poster competition will receive cash prizes sponsored by RFG Insurance. The essay competition winner gets a new Netbook and one year free internet from Belize Telemedia Limited, second place gets a kindle and pen from Fultec Systems while third place gets a digital camera from GS-COM. The P.U.C. also contributed financial donations to the event.
