Archive for the ‘Non-Fiction -2nd Place’ Category

by Deanna Bourne
Nepean ON

In an office building in downtown Toronto, a man takes one last swallow of water before mindlessly throwing his half-empty plastic bottle into the garbage and returning to his work. Meanwhile outside a small village in Ghana, a child hoists a bucket of muddy water onto her head, preparing for the five mile walk home.
In North America, safe drinking water is so abundant that we take it for granted. But in many parts of the world, particularly in third world countries, people are not so fortunate. In fact, UNICEF estimates that there are 884 million people in the world who do not have access to safe drinking water.
With our privileged lifestyle, it is hard to imagine being truly thirsty. In some areas of the world, people are so thirsty that they resort to drinking any water they can find, including water that is evidently unsafe to drink. This leads to the spread of waterborne diseases, the leading cause of death for children under five around the world. These diseases kill about 1.4 million children every year. Read the rest of this entry »

by Matthew Tucci, Pickering College,
Markham ON

In Canada, it is estimated that there are over twenty million guns. Only seven million of these guns are legal and registered. Our government has implemented programs to bring illegal gun use to a stop but with hundreds of millions of dollars invested into these programs they are still failing miserably when it comes to reducing crime involving illegal guns.

The government’s efforts have not only been ineffective, but they have enraged many of the honest citizens of our country, mainly farmers and hunters for whom a gun is a valuable tool. At the same time, illegal gun users are still able to get their hands on firearms. In the end, it appears that these gun laws have had minimal effect on criminals, yet are leaving honest people frustrated. Read the rest of this entry »