Time has been vital in my success – i can’t imagine losing three hours of it a day walking for water

OPINION

Time is precious. We can’t rewind, renew, or undo it. Still, we can use our time to daydream and turn our dreams into a positive reality.

Everything has its time and place. Without that luxury of time to plan and save, my father would have never made a move from Nigeria to the UK to fulfil his dream to study here – a move unbeknown to him then, that enabled me to follow my passion for acting, cultivating the foundation for my future.

How different would my life have been if I had to spend three hours a day collecting water? That’s the time millions of women and children worldwide spend walking for this basic human right. Globally, a staggering 200 million hours are lost by women and girls collecting water every day – time that could be spent in education or earning a living.

In Nigeria, 44.5 million people – that’s one in five – don’t have access to clean water close to home, and climate change is making it worse. Nigeria is one of the countries that is most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, experiencing both intense flooding that contaminates water sources and longer dry seasons that deplete springs and wells, forcing people to walk even further for water.

Karimatu, 17, from Kwaja Village, makes at least three trips a day to collect water that isn’t clean from a stream before school and again in the evenings. In the dry season, the stream dries up, and they must dig for water. Karimatu aspires to become a doctor, but fetching water affects her schoolwork. How many potential doctors, scientists and visionaries are missing out because of a lack of this basic human right?

Clean water should not be a luxury. As a teenager, I faced homelessness and struggled without access to essentials; I had to fight to survive. That experience shaped who I am today. It’s why I refuse to turn a blind eye to this reality of living