As I write this, there is a cooler filled with fresh, clean water that gets delivered to my office twice a week within two feet of me, and a bathroom with running water within 10 feet. I keep a water bottle within an arm’s length at all times that I refill whenever I want. Just like most Americans, I don’t have to work for clean drinking water at all. It takes something like The Thirst Project to remind me of just how lucky we all are.
Why? Because in the section titled “The Problem” on the project’s website, they remind us that 1.1 billion people in the world don’t have access to potable drinking water and proper sanitization. That works out to one in six people. Water-borne diseases account for 80 percent of all global illnesses and are responsible for for 2.2 million deaths each year — 4,500 children die from these illnesses every day.
Not only is clean water not available to a vast majority of the world, water is not easily accessible, which causes an endless cycle of poverty. “The average distance a woman walks to collect water is 3.75 miles. The task of water-collecting falls on young girls, leaving them no time or energy for school. Without an education, it is nearly impossible to break the cycle of poverty. Lack of access to water prevents every other element of community development from taking place effectively. Water empowers agriculture, education and micro-finance. Without water, there is no life,” says The Thirst Project.
The solution to breaking the cycle is actually quite simple: the water is right there under the ground in many places. Unfortunately, communities in developing nations lack the funding and the tools to drill into the earth for it. That’s why The Thirst Project has made it their goal to raise awareness and build wells. All it takes to build one clean-water well for up to 500 people is $5,000. Once the wells are built, The Thirst Project forms a “water committee” in the community to educate residents about the importance of sanitization, hand-washing and keeping the well clean.
The project started when 19-year-old Seth Maxwell saw a photograph his friend had taken on a humanitarian service trip to Uganda. He knew he wanted to help, but wasn’t sure what a college student living in Los Angeles could do. They started small: “I gathered seven of my closest college friends together and we decided to tell these people’s story. We pooled all of our money together (which literally amounted to $70) and were able to purchase 1,000 bottles of water,” Maxwell writes.”We raised awareness to over 1,000 people about the water crisis that day and were able to turn $70, into $1,700. This was used to fund our first rehabilitation of a freshwater well.”
The group thought they were finished, but then the calls started coming. People wanted to know if Maxwell’s “organization” could come to their school or church to speak about the water crisis. It wasn’t an organization then; it was just eight college students, but the group decided to make something out of their efforts. Now, The Thirst Project travels around the country speaking at schools so that students can run their own fundraisers to help build freshwater wells.
On June 29, 90210 star AnnaLynne McCord hosted the Inaugural Thirst Project Gala in Hollywood to recognize people who are raising awareness about the global water crisis. Among the honorees were actor and singer Drake Bell, who was given the Pioneering Spirit Award for his work to help raise the profile of The Thirst Project. Other stars who turned up to support Maxwell’s cause included Glee stars Naya Rivera and Harry Shum, Jr. and actor Samm Levine from Inglorious Basterds.
Click here to get involved with The Thirst Project today.
Photo by Julien Harneis via Flickr.