APRIL 12 — I saw a picture today of a little boy, lying flat on the ground, drinking from a puddle of filthy water. The caption on the picture read something like “we have come so far as humanity that we are searching for water on Mars but cannot yet provide safe water on Earth.”

Those are exactly the thoughts that have been running around in my head, but which the photo and text captured.

That little boy is not just a photo to me. I know those children, many of them by name. I have been part of bringing water to them, though not very successfully due to a myriad of reasons stemming from other issues, namely that at the time I was a well-meaning but ignorant outsider thinking I knew how to change a community, but I didn’t do it well. I have learned, grown, adapted and humbled myself a lot since that time.

Sadly, many of these children are still drinking this water, shared by both animals and humans alike.

They are drinking water which makes them sick, and some of them are dying from it, and I am typing on my computer, sipping a cup of coffee, while political leaders in the US are pumping their fists and promising more money in our pockets, walls to protect its borders from outsiders, a bigger military, better gun rights and the list goes on.

Meanwhile, my Instagram feed is filled with selfies, vacations, incredible food, new cars, and new homes. My Facebook feed is littered with complaints about bad meals, delayed flights, TV shows, frustrating coworkers, and lots of politics.

All of these things are fine to some degree, as long as reality gives us pause.

Bad meals, or incredible culinary delights for us; no meal for the street boy in India. Vacations and delayed flights for us; the bars of a prison for the homeless orphan caught stealing in Ghana. Frustrating coworkers and TV shows about sex for us; a trafficked prostitute in SE Asia left beaten and bloody by her pimp for saying the wrong thing to a client.

Priorities.

While Nasa searches for water on Mars, and China expands their ever growing space programme, programmes that cost roughly US$18 billion (RM70 billion) and US$2 billion a year, children are drinking from puddles and sewers. 

China has a massive orphan problem, though I will not state numbers as my own experience from many years of living there is contrary to the official number Beijing gives, but the majority of these “orphans” who reside in government facilities are not true orphans but are abandoned due to medical needs or major disabilities. 

So while money is being poured into a space programme, seeking to do what has mostly already been done in space exploration, children are being forced to live without parents, indeed not all of them even live, because their families did not have money or support to keep their children. Keep in mind a heart surgery of medium complexity can often run upwards of US$20,000 and there is no health insurance to pay for this for children.

Humanity’s priorities were also put in front of us during the Oscars where Leonardo DiCaprio gave a long speech about climate change and for the next week he was lauded a hero on social media for his outspoken comments.

All I could think about was, if our children are dying, what is the point of saving our planet. Please understand I am not against environmental protection and I think that Leonardo would probably argue with me in approach. 

Internally displaced children look at an African Union - United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) peacekeeper standing guard near the vicinity of a UNAMID base near Labado, South Darfur December 9, 2013. — Reuters pic

He thinks if we don’t save the planet, what is left for our children? I get it, really I do, but it still makes me cringe. Just as large campaigns about saving elephants, or tigers, or any other animal or plant species. I get it, I want all of those things on this planet; but first I want to make sure our kids have the same priorities.

Women, children and marginalised groups of people in low, sometimes middle income countries, are at risk of death because they do not have the basic things needed to sustain life: clean water, food, sanitation, medical care.

Assuming each child who is currently counted as an orphan needed food, not all are true orphans and not all are not eating, but assuming this was the case, Nasa’s budget alone could feed one third of them every day for a year. 

China’s space budget could essentially pay for enough wells in the world to eliminate the need for any person to ever not have access to clean water or it could pay for 100,000 of its children to have complex heart surgery in one year (which is not a realistic number as there is not the need for 100,000 heart surgeries at this cost.)

These are just numbers. Money alone will not solve the problems facing our world and these populations of people. But what will go a long way in solving many problems is getting our priorities right. 

In the last few weeks, I have been advocating and raising money for a young girl who was brutally attacked with acid and when we found her, she was in critical condition, and little money has come for her. 

My heart has broken wondering where our priorities are, yes she isn’t our sister, or our daughter, but actually she is. What if she was ours and we had no way to care for her and we had to watch her suffer and die?

The problems of a child in Africa who has no access to water or food and is dying is not just Africa’s problem, or his parent’s problem; it is humanity’s problem. As long as I have access to all these things; it is my problem. 

And our priorities as humanity should reflect this and just as we actively are careful of our own environmental impact, as far as what we are leaving behind, we should be also actively involved with making an impact on our world as it is today.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.