Story
My name is Kevin. I'm 15, I go to school in the UK, and up until recently, I'd never really thought about clean water. It's just... there. Always has been.
Then I went to Tanzania to understand water insecurity firsthand.
At first I pictured adults hauling buckets from wells. What I didn't expect to see were 7-year-olds doing the exact same thing. That’s when I met Nasinyari, a mum of 8 kids from the local Maasai tribe, and she walked me through her day to day routine.
Me (Kevin) with Nasinyari's family in her village in Arusha. Nasinyari is 5th from the left in the image.
Nasinyari has to walk up to 5km each way to fetch water from a pond, sometimes 2-3 times a day. Her young daughters wake up before the sunrise to do the same, since fetching water is often a household chore for girls. Besides the grueling physical strain on her kids, I didn’t realise what this meant for education.
I learned that her girls often arrive late to class from fetching water, exhausted and unable to learn. Many times they skip altogether as they are so fatigued. Without a proper education, many doors in life are closed which can keep a family trapped in poverty. What’s more, fetching water can turn the spark and creativity of a young child into brainless hours of labor – huge amounts of wasted time.
In another Maasai village, a girl (6) is walking to fetch water with her mother
I am raising money to bring clean water to a grade school of 250 children in the Meserani Area of Arusha, Tanzania. Education should be a child’s right, and something like clean water shouldn’t be what stops it. Let's help our brothers and sisters across the world have the same opportunity to learn that we do.
100% of the £5000 will cover:
- rainwater collection tanks (to collect water in the wet season)
- cement + sand for the structure
- PVC pipes (piped water during the dry season)
- wire mesh + reinforcement steel rods
- sealants to avoid leakage
I am walking 1000km in total over the next few months to raise awareness for this. Many of these will be 10km walks to simulate what it's like for kids in Tanzania, but some will be longer: marathons, 50kms, etc. I'm walking so a child across the world won't have to one day #walkforwater
Clean water should be a human right. Let’s make that a reality one step at a time.
All progress will be documented on our instagram page: