‘American Diagnosis’: ‘Water Warriors’ Tap Diné Resilience to Increase Access on Navajo Land
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Episode 6: Appropriate to H2o
In 2020, throughout the to start with wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Zoel Zohnnie was experience restless. Increasing up on the Navajo Country, he claimed, the significance of caring for family and community was instilled at an early age. So Zohnnie needed to locate a way to enable associates of his tribe. Just one need in unique stood out: water.
American Indian and Alaska Indigenous households are 3.7 times as possible to deficiency complete plumbing as homes whose members do not detect as Indigenous or Black, in accordance to a 2019 mapping report on plumbing poverty in the United States.
“Climate change and too much h2o use is exacerbating these struggles,” discussed George McGraw, CEO of DigDeep. “Much of the western United States has been in intense drought for years. Numerous rivers and wells on or in close proximity to the Navajo land have dried up. As groundwater recedes, men and women are pressured to find drinking water from unsafe sources.”
To respond to that need to have, Zohnnie began hauling drinking water to people today who were with no, and he launched Drinking water Warriors United. In this episode, listeners occur together for the trip as he ― and his truck ― make one herculean trek throughout snow-lined roads in New Mexico.
Episode 6 is an exploration of the root causes guiding the Navajo Nation’s h2o accessibility challenges and a tale about the h2o rights that some communities have effectively missing.
Voices from the episode:
- Dr. Ernestine Chaco, emergency medicine medical professional and attorney — Twitter
- Brianna Johnson, local community overall health representative with the Naschitti Chapter, Navajo Country
- George McGraw, CEO of DigDeep — LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter
- Jeanette Wolfley, assistant professor of regulation at the College of New Mexico — LinkedIn
- Zoel Zohnnie, founder of Collective Medicine and actor — TikTok
Year 4 of “American Diagnosis” is a co-creation of KHN and Just Human Productions.
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