One of Emily McLane and Brooklyn Belcourt's year-end projects, ended with dozens of their classmates carrying jugs of water through Cochrane's core last Tuesday to bring awareness to a dire reality. "A child dies every day from not having cleaner water," said Belcourt, who co-led a five-kilometre walk for her classmates as part of an assignment researching the realities of water cleanliness in some African countries. Each student was armed with two four-litre jugs of water, which were carried from Manachaban, through Historic Downtown and to the Cochrane Ranch where they were used to complete a second important task. All the water was used for trees that were planted by the school along the river bank the weekend before as part of the Branches and Banks initiative. "It was heavy," McLane said of the jugs of water they had to carry, though she acknowledged many children in developing countries face much worse than that. "I mean they have to carry a lot more than we do so we were pretty grateful." McLane said they chose to do a "Walk for Water" event to emphasize to their fellow classmates on how difficult it is for other kids in the world to access clean water. "We were hoping that we could spread awareness and let everyone know just how lucky they are and that not everyone has the same (privileges) as we do," McLane said. "We're so lucky that we can walk to a tap and turn it on and just drink and not have to worry about getting sick or anything. Whereas these people have to clean their water and use filters to drink it." "It really makes you think how much water you use in a day," Belcourt added. In total, the students said their classmates carried roughly 153 jugs. Nancy Pollard, the teacher who organized an environmental fair that was held the Friday before, said it was the second time the school has completed a walk for water event. "After walking about two kilometres, they were pretty tired of carrying the water. I think it's just making that awareness that 'wow, these kids in Africa carry at least two times what we're carrying for at least two times the distance,'" Pollard said. "A lot of them said they really didn't think that carrying that water would be so heavy and they were very thankful to pour it out."
