Today’s the day! It’s World Water Day, and I’m totally #PUMPED.

The water crisis issue is one that I’m extremely passionate about, probably more so than most other issues.

Why?

Because it’s not a complex issue on the surface. It’s water. Our earth is filled with it. But for some reason, nearly 900,000 million people lack access to clean, potable water. I’ve only experienced a sliver of the detriments of this lack of access, but it’s been enough for me to know that something needs to change. There is no reason for 4,000 children dying each day due to water-related illnesses. With a death toll of 3.5 million a year, the water crisis takes more lives each year through disease than any war claims through guns. It kills more young people than AIDS, measles, and malaria combined.

So we have some great organizations like Lifewater International building wells for communities and training people on how to maintain good health through sanitation. Love that.

Another organization I love, of course, is The Adventure Project. Co-founder Becky Straw was checking in on water wells in developing countries when she realized that an absurd amount were broken shortly after being built.

And so she began TAP, which has a water-focused program that doesn’t go in and build wells though; it goes in, hires local men and women, and trains them to become mechanics. Simple. One mechanic oversees 50 wells, which provides clean water to 5,000 people.

Sustainable access to clean water for these communities. No more costly and disappointing breakdowns. Just empowered men and women, healthy communities, working water.

Beautiful.

Help support The Adventure Project in its movement towards sustainable clean water.

Between being really sick for the past 24 hours, trying to still work today, and having some valuable discussions on the IC controversy, I didn’t get around to acknowledging #IWD on the blog!

This world is filled with some really amazing women and girls doing some really amazing work with great social impact. I can’t give every individual and organization a shout out, but I do encourage people to check out the following:

 
The International Rescue Committee: Wake Up
As most of you know, I’ve always respected this organization and am a huge fan of their work and the integrity with which they do it. Recently, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and working with some of their staff (who aren’t even on the program side), and I can see the integrity, diligence, careful thought, and passion with which they work.

Below is a video from their Wake Up campaign, which seeks to educate people on the violence and injustice that women face around the world. I think the statistic is 1 in 3 women globally will have been raped, beaten, coerced into sex, and/or abused in her lifetime.

The Wake Up campaign was listed today in Mashable’s “5 Social Media Campaigns Rocking International Women’s Day.” Makes me glad!

 
The Adventure Project
Yeah, I know you all are probably sick of me always talking about TAP, but the vision that Becky Straw and Jody Landers have is incredible: to eliminate extreme poverty, not through charity but through job creation.

TAP wants to educate Americans on smart giving. Donating to an organization is a social investment, and the women of TAP believe that investing in economic empowerment programs, training programs, and job creation for women in developing countries is an investment in sustainable solutions to poverty, hunger, the water crisis, and global health issues.

This is an old video from over a year ago, but it highlights one of the projects in one of the communities that they partner with: training women mechanics in rural India to repair the broken wells in surrounding areas. Love their projects so much.

(On a side note, co-founder Becky Straw was invited to speak today at the UN on International Women’s Day and women’s empowerment through social business.)

 
Camfed
Camfed fights poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa by educating girls and empowering women to become leaders of change. The organization began in 1993 with a goal to improve the lives of two million children by 2013, and is currently at over 1,400,000 impacted.

“When rural girls and young women graduate from high school, they enter an adult world of massive unemployment.”

What I like about Camfed is that it doesn’t just stop at education; they continue to walk alongside young female graduates by providing seed money (microloans) to help them develop their economic skills and launch small businesses.

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Okay, I think it’s time for me to pop some meds and get some rest. But let’s continue celebrating women and girls (not just on March 8th)!

The reality is that I know nothing about Africa. I have never even stepped foot on the soil of the continent (yet). Therefore, I do not pretend to be knowledgeable in matters I am not well-versed in.

And also therefore, it’s important to hear from the voices of people who are actually tied to these countries.

TMS Ruge, founder of Project Diaspora, writes an honest and real post about the #StopKony campaign, African agency, and respect for the people of central and east Africa.

“Let me be honest. Africa is not short of problems, epidemics and atrocities. But it is also true that it is not short of miracles, ingenuity, and a proclivity to surprise. We as Africans, especially the Diaspora, are waking to the idea that our agency has been hijacked for far too long by well-meaning Western do-gooders with a guilty conscious, sold on the idea that Africa’s ills are their responsibility. This particular affliction is called “white man’s burden” in some circles. Please don’t buy into this. Africa’s problems are our own.”

While I don’t believe in absolutely no aid or collaboration with any non-Africans, I do agree that more local/grassroots empowerment is needed to bring any real change.

Ugandan journalist, Rosebell Idaltu Kagumire, made a video response to this Invisible Children debacle. She takes a very calm and diplomatic approach, I think, but gets the point across that what the IC video represents isn’t going to cut it for the people of central and east Africa.

Rosebell implores us to focus on “intelligent campaigns” that are geared towards “real policy shifts rather than a very sensationalized story that is out to make one person cry, and at the end of the day, we forget about it.”

She adds that how the story of Uganda is told might be more important than the story being told:

“If you’re showing me as voiceless or as hopeless, you have no space to be telling my story. You should not be telling my story if you dont believe that I have the power to change what is going on.”