Social Impact with Emma » water : A Jamaica Gleaner Blog

COVID-19 and Water

April 30th, 2020

As I have noted in previous posts, COVID-19 has brought us face to face with the stark inequalities in our society. Of course, this is not only true of Jamaica. In the United States and the United Kingdom, it has quickly become clear that racial minorities are suffering disproportionately as a result of their lower […]

WASH Your Hands in the Time of COVID-19

March 16th, 2020

I know we have all been overwhelmed by the news and the latest developments, both globally and locally. I have been veering from one press briefing to another; from late-night updates tweeted by Minister of Health and Wellness Christopher Tufton, to alarming global news on the virus. Europe seems to be the new epicenter. I […]

Didn’t We Just Forget World Toilet Day?

November 20th, 2019

World Toilet Day is a rather awkward title for a very important day. One imagines the whole world sitting on a toilet. Of course, that is the point. The whole world is not sitting on a toilet. In fact, 4.5 billion people do not have access to proper (by proper, I mean safe) sanitation and 2.3 billion […]

“The End of the World Is Nigh”

July 1st, 2019

This was the message on a placard that a man on our London high street used to carry. Or rather, it hung around his neck as he shuffled along, head down. He was a gloomy sight: shabbily dressed, his features perpetually downcast. He was what we used to call a “sandwich man,” with a placard […]

But…Can It Be Business as Usual?

April 27th, 2019

Perhaps it’s just me, but the year 2019 seems to have been one of considerable upset for the world. A second, extremely fierce cyclone has arrived in Mozambique (the first one killed over 900 people, although it hardly received mainstream media coverage). On the beautiful island of Sri Lanka, which I visited in late 2017 and […]

Those Neglected Places That We Don’t Want to Care About

May 14th, 2017

Here’s an important question, in this “information age” where we try to know everything about everywhere (at least superficially): How is it that there are some parts of the world that we simply ignore? No matter what disasters befall these places, we just shrug shoulders and move on. That is, if these places ever make […]

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