WATER FIRST Reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is an award-winning film directed by Amy Hart about the relationship of water and the MDGs.

The MDGs and Water:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
How can people grow crops without water?

2. Achieve universal primary education.
How can girls attend school if they must spend their days hauling water?

3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
If a woman is raped on the way to a distant well, it is unlikely that she will feel empowered.

4. Reduce child mortality.
More children under 5 years old die from water-borne diseases than any other cause.

5. Improve maternal health.
Bathing in contaminated water after giving birth increases the risks of infection.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
No amount of medication will help a patient with HIV/AIDS or malaria if they are washing down their pills with filthy water contaminated with human and animal waste. While bed-nets are helpful at night, many people get mosquito bites at the murky ponds where women get water - often with babies on their backs.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
Burning firewood to boil dirty water causes the destruction of forests. Deforestation causes global warming and decreases gentle rainfall that replenishes groundwater.

8. Develop a global partnership for development.
How can we say we are helping a country become 'developed' without first assuring that everyone has the most basic necessity of life?

CONCLUSION:
Water is a key ingredient to reaching all of the goals. By putting water FIRST we can increase our progress to reaching all of the goals by at least 30%.

To learn more about the relationship of water and the MDGs, order the the film WATER FIRST Reaching the Millennium Development Goals online at BULLFROG FILMS or call Bullfrog Films at 1-800-543-3764.

HART PRODUCTIONS PO Box 286588, New York, NY 10128-0006 USA,
212-419-3578,