Orlando Bloom Web World

Orlando is involved in a fund raising with a football match to be held Sunday 07-09-08 at Wembley Stadium and Orlando is spokesman for a campaign in support of Nepal.

This is his testimony:

Every day, 5,000 children around the world die and many more become ill because of diseases spread by unclean water and poor sanitation.
I travelled to Nepal recently and saw how children and their families have no choice but to drink contaminated water from local wells and rivers.
Around 13,000 children under the age of five in Nepal died last year due to diarrhoea.
We drove an hour from the capital Kathmandu to Dhulikhel, where I met six-year-old Manisha who lives with her grandparents.
Manisha's grandmother gets up at 2am every day and walks to the well to get water. It's their only source of water.
If she goes any later, there is likely to be a long queue and she probably wouldn't get enough for the whole family.
I walked with Manisha to the well along a busy main road. It was very hot and humid. I wondered what it must be like for Manisha's grandmother, who often carries 20 litres of water three or four times a day. It is real back-breaking work for people in Nepal. In another village I also met women and children collecting water from a river.
Looking around, I could see the different ways that the river gets contaminated.
There was a dead rat on the river bank, people bathing and washing their clothes in the river, and runoff from the paddy fields contaminated by animal waste. Water is essential for life. But many people in Nepal can only get water that is contaminated.
I was able to see firsthand how water taps have made a huge impact in Kaaldhara, a remote mountain village.
People there can just pop outside their homes to get clean water from taps dotted around the village. Naya, 74, told me how they used to walk for 30 minutes to get water.
She added: "The taps were installed seven years ago and it has made a big difference to our lives.
"I can get water easily and our children don't get ill."
Unicef has been doing what it can to supply safe water to families but much more needs to be done.
My message is simple - by donating to Unicef and helping to supply clean water, you would change not just one person's life, but the lives of a whole community, for years to come.
Last year in Nepal, 13,000 children died as a result of illnesses caused by drinking unsafe water
Just £10 could supply clean water for one person in a community in Nepal
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- Orlando Bloom with 12 year old Rita who often carries 20 litres of water three or four times a day to her house, which is half a mile away. During the school holidays and when needed Rita collects water from the local well and helps their parent’s with the daily chores. To get an idea of how difficult it was for Rita to carry the vessel, Orlando carried one with Rita as she walked to her house.

- Orlando looks on while women and girls collect water by Sankoshi River. The river is the only source of water for the local community but it is contaminated. People by the river make an attempt to purify it by digging a hole and putting stones at the bottom, so that large bits of dirt can be filtered through. This only means that the water looks cleaner when actually it still contains harmful bacteria.

- Orlando drinks water from the taps at Kaaldhara village where thanks to UNICEF and its partners, villagers do not have a problem getting clean drinking water. There are numerous water points dotted around the village that children and their families can use.

- Orlando collects water with local children at Kaaldhara village where thanks to UNICEF and its partners, villagers do not have a problem getting clean drinking water.

If you want to do a donation, and please do it, you can find more informations UNICEF.