Saucon Valley HS’s UNICEF Club held a Walk for Water event Sept. 26 to raise awareness of the obstacles that many individuals around the world face as they simply try to get water for themselves and their families. UNICEF President Sarah Duffy, a high school senior, and club adviser Jennifer Screnci mapped out a 200-meter obstacle course for seventh grade students at Saucon Valley MS to travel through as they carried jugs filled with water.

“The goals we attempted to accomplish with the Walk for Water event include: awareness and education for water scarcity around the world, and fundraising to provide people around the world with access to clean water,” Duffy said. The middle school students participated through their social studies class, with donations collected following the event.

After gathering in the bus loop, each Saucon seventh grade student was assigned to a water jug that contained a colored mark representing the storyline that the student must follow through the course. After a quick introduction, the students carried their heavy water jugs to the “heat tent,” where they stood under a heat lamp for two minutes to approximate the sweltering heat that many individuals need to travel through. Then they progressed to the “flood zone,” where they were sprayed with water as they walked over a tarp, representing another obstacle in their journeys.

After arriving at the health tent, the students were randomly assigned a disease, either malaria, diarrhea or parasitic worms. They learned about their disease’s symptoms, treatments and preventative measures, and had to undergo further delays. Students with malaria sat under mosquito nets and used jellybeans to learn about medication use, while those with diarrhea sat on prop toilet seats for two minutes and those with worms learned about water safety.

Picking up their water jugs again, the students wove through the “bump in the road” station, a small obstacle course designed to show the rugged terrain of many locations. They lugged their heavy jugs over stepping blocks and through twisty paths of traffic cones. At the debriefing station, students were asked to express their thoughts about the journey and were given some final information about water scarcity and sanitation.

“The most rewarding aspect for volunteers is definitely hearing how this is one of the middle schoolers’ favorite things they do during the year, and hearing kids discuss the story they followed as they walked,” Duffy said. “I feel the most rewarding aspect for the kids is being able to go through a simulation of what different people go through around the world to get water.”

The seventh grade students agreed.

When asked what she learned from this experience, one student stated, “I learned that it is kind of hard for people outside of the United States.”

It is evident that this event is very successful in bringing both awareness and funds for those around the world who struggle to get water on a daily basis. This was the second annual Walk for Water, and adviser Jennifer Screnci of the Saucon Valley History Department seems confident that it will continue next year as well.