A case study: “water stress”

Posted by in general discussion, GRS


It seems that there are no absolute or prefect answers in regards to ethics.
The case study “Water Stress” presented a situation where a loss of access to electrcity for an indefinte amount of time implied no piped water access, as the water was only accessible through electric-powered pumps.
Our group decided to rent a generator to pump water for team use as having water would be better than being without it. At first, I thought it would be wrong for only volunteers to have access to water. Even if there may not be enough, it should be shared.
The case study went on further, where someone from the community, comes to the youth center to ask  for water. Now the question was should I give the water to the youth or should I turn that youth away? It may not be the best to share the water with only the youth for both the community and the volunteers alike.
By sharing water with only the youth, this youth will likely be asked by other members of the community to know where and how they received water. By sharing water with only the youth, the community may all come to the youth center asking for water, and what then? By my decision to give water to the youth, I may inadvertently be placing the youth, the rest of the community and the volunteers in danger.
Coming back to Dr. Dharamsi’s lecture earlier in November, ethics presents a question of : “‘To Do No Harm’ but to whom?”. It seemed, whether the youth was given water or not, as the region was semi-arid, it would not be long before people in the community would begin to feel the effects of dehydration.
This case study brought to light how we should be questioning ourselves before acting.
By giving the youth water, I may have initiated a start of something that may have consequences that I am unable to handle or may affect the community and the organization as a whole.

As an aside, I would like to believe that there are must be reason for policies; it may be that such “water stress” situation had occured before and not sharing the water was the best policy that the organization had decided on and put in place….however, it is a semi-arid region and we know that people do not have any access to clean water.
What would you do?