This week, hundreds of men and women are lifting yellow buckets on their heads to walk in solidarity with the women and girls in Africa who spend three hours each day fetching water for their families. Reply to this blog and share with us what it meant for you to be a part of this year’s BH2O+ experience.
Here’s an inspirational piece (written in collaboration by Nuru Media) on what it means to “Be Hope to Her”:
Water.
Life.
The daily need.
Shared by all,
Humanity.
Earth.
Skin.
Cracked dry as dust.
Inescapable thirst.
Here the dividing line is drawn.
The hemispheric separation
Of faucet and family:
The many muddy miles to fill your child’s cup
A never-ending necessity.
With salted brow and weary step
As duty leads the way,
Her journey–no stranger,
The miles–no friend,
She traverses day by day
Toiling without a passing nod.
In torrid heat, dark-red-earth-sod.
Though urban streets and crowded quads:
With her, we walk.
We will walk.
Boldly, step upon rugged step,
To advocate for the millions bearing the load,
Gallon after gallon along that road.
With yellow buckets
Our makeshift crowns,
Today we walk for her.
Enduring weight
For justice’s sake,
Bringing change to her
Together in stride.
Her future our pride.
We will walk,
And be hope
To her
Cutting for a Cause
Today I skipped all three of my classes and a test. I didn’t skip because I find my classes boring nor did I skip to lounge around in the beautiful 70 degree Blacksburg weather. I cut class today so I could be a part of Be Hope to Her at Virginia Tech. I am blessed to live in a society and attend a school where catching up with my classes is not terribly difficult. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to go to college and get a higher education. Many girls and women in Africa never have that opportunity. While we in the west dream about wealth and success, women and girls in the developing world dream of attending school and getting an education. They want to have a future but they have not the resources to do so. It is for these women that I have cut class today. I took a day off from a busy schedule to be in solidarity with them, to walk in their shoes and experience their plight, to take a glimpse of what they experience everyday. Thankfully that is changing for many women in Kenya. The girls of Kuria, Kenya are getting an education, they do not have to walk far distances to get the water they need to survive, they have hope, they have a future and none of it would have been possible without Nuru International and Be Hope to Her. I hope that as the rest of the campuses do their events this week that the participants keep in mind these things. This week you are giving up an hour or two of your time to bring women and girls in Africa hope and a future. Good luck at your events this week! Tuko Pamoja!
As I arrived at the event, I was excited to see my friends and I was still caught up in my busy schedule of checking things off my to do list. But as I began the walk, I found that my heart grew closer to those girls in Kenya. I began to reflect on the fact that this is what those girls do all day every day, and there I was doing it for one hour in far better conditions than they are in.
As we reached the Drill field with the buckets on our head, I didn’t think I was going to make it. But as we walked, I began to push myself to keep going. As we yelled Tuko Pamoja together, I began to believe it. We are together. That is what we did yesterday. We walked in solidarity with the women in Africa. To surrender the comfort of our lifestyles for women who have never experienced that in their lives. It stretched my physical ability, it stretched my perspective, and it also stretched my heart to care for people who are in need. That is in fact God’s command for us.
This walk was incredibly moving for me, once I was able to drop out of my surroundings and immerse myself completely in the purpose behind the walk. Tuko Pamoja brought more meaning to me by the end of the walk. The girls in Kuria, Kenya brought me to the end of the walk. Without them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to finish…
Check out the BH2O+ comments from the event at Marshall University:
“It deeply saddens me that for millions of women this is what they do every day…several times a day! I’m so elated that I was able to help improve the quality of their lives! BH2O+ Rocks!
“A Difference” –Allie
“Amazing!!” –KNB
Walking with the bucket across campus today reminded me of 2 things: 1) Our route was my old route to class back when I was in undergrad for Int’l Studies/ Africa & the Middle East, walking past the small African Church on Beechurst everyday and dreaming of when I’d go back to Africa to use my degree; and 2) today was a manifestation of how I feel everyday, post-Sudan and Kenya– part of Africa is with me although I walk through the streets of Morgantown, certain smells can bring me back to Kenya, and the next thing I’m walking on a dirt road with Francis and Eunice. That is the thing about Africa, once you experience it– even a piece of it, like walking through your campus with a bucket on your head– you will NEVER be the same.
This event was incredible! I was so impressed by the number of students who showed up for the cause–it was really exciting to see Seton Hall take an interest in ending poverty.
Yesturday I had the humbling opportunity to take part in the BH20+. It was a first time for me carrying water on my head and mostly will be the last. But it was an opportunity to see how other people live their lives.
This event brought the hardship women in other countries face every day to my attention. I can now partially sympathize with those women. This event made me thankful for the water that we so often take for granted here in the States. I now have a better apprciation for our technological advances and our resources.
In addition to being more appreciative of what we have here, it has inspired me to conserve water and be less wasteful.
My prayers are for better irrigation in Africa and around the world, that they may not have to travel such long distances for water, and that that water would be clean and nuritioning.
Do you ever get that feel good, goosebump feeling when you know something is right? Well, I did today as I looked back at the other 39 people with buckets on their heads, walking TOGETHER, in solidarity…
BH2O+ walk today was such an inspiration to take action. SOme of us go everyday, in and out, not being effected by extreme poverty and the lack of water, causing us to not think about our brothers and sisters around the world who are without vital things such as water. Today, I experienced a small portion of what it’s like to support my family on a bucket of water and what it takes to obtain it. It wasn’t easy.
This movement is big, way bigger than we even know. But the only way it keeps going is through us, through the compassion, caring,understanding of being together, supporting one another, and sharing that suffering.We’re a new generation rising up, who says that we can’t join together?
I have never in my life been a part of something that changed me so much. In school, doing those career aptitude tests and stuff, I always got humanitarian and I didn’t really understand what that meant until recently. Coordinating this event has completely made my life. The whole process was a little bit awful at times, haha. I swear everything that could possibly go wrong, DID. We came up against so many obstacles, and yet somehow, we MADE IT! I realized doing this, that I kept trying to make everything happen by my own power. And God wasn’t having it. Everything I tried to do, fell through, but somehow, it all still ended up working out in the end. It was absolutely amazing. I had a great team and I can’t believe how incredibly blessed I was. I felt so discouraged when I saw that only 39 people were registered. And then I actually saw what 39 people looks like walking across campus with bright yellow buckets. It was so many people!! We stretched out so far!! And we definitely got people’s attention. I can’t wait to do this again next year. The whole time I was walking I just kept thinking about all the statistics. The fact that 1.1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water and they make the walk we made today 3 or more times every day. And sometimes they walk further. They walk barefoot over hilly, rocky land. And they start that life at the age of 5. They do it because they have to. If that was my life, if I had to do that every single day growing up, I don’t know what I would live for. I don’t know how I could wake up everyday and make that trip. Just to make it again the next day. And the next day. And the next day. Every day, forever. I don’t know that I could do it. I can’t believe that I had a part, in breaking that cycle. There are girls in Kenya right now who won’t have to make that trip anymore, because of what I did today. The sheer weight of that, is crushing. The fact that me, a 20 year old with nothing of any material worth to offer the world, that I can make a difference for someone, that I can literally change a life, change a lifestyle, that I can alter someone’s world… It’s absolutely amazing. And I don’t ever want to stop altering people’s lives. I want do whatever little things I can to impact the world that I live in.
I will never again look at myself and think that I am only one person.
I will never again think that I can’t make a difference.
Tuko pamoja.
We are all together. We all share this world. Why shouldn’t women in Kenya have the same opportunities that I have??
I want to give them the life that I have lived.
I will never be the same.
Words really can’t describe it.
I read over this and realize that this doesn’t come close to doing justice to what today meant for me.
Thank you Nuru International.
You guys are doing something amazing, and by the grace of God, I got to be a part of it too. I have the utmost love and respect for all of you.
My grandmother used to always say, “Take life one step at a time.” This same theme arose today during Pittsburgh’s first Be Hope to Her walk. During the opening statements, the representatives from Nuru consistently proclaimed that we will be the generation to change the world, one step at a time. As we all walked one by one, helping each other with our towels and yelling African chants of encouragement and of working together, I could not help but repeat “one step at a time” over and over again in my head. Each step we took is mimicked multiple times a day by so many women and girls in African nations. The accessible resources we are so fortunate to possess, such as running water, are blindly taken for granted simply because they are what we have always known. Nuru did a fantastic job at relating the struggles of those around the world to our lives and placing everything into perspective. The event today was excellent, and I definitely hope it continues to grow and touch more people each year.
We are a little more than a month behind the Be Hope to Her April events, but just yesterday my 6th grade students each walked a mile carrying yellow buckets of water so they could experience for themselves the difficulty lack of easy access to water has on the individual, a family and a community. They repeatedly told me they had know idea just from photos and videos they watched on Nuru’s website how hard and exhausting carrying water can be. Collectively, starting at 8:30 a.m. until the last bell at 3:30 p.m., my 6th graders logged over 100 miles carrying buckets of water. They all wanted to be able to say that for 1 day, they “walked a mile in someone else’s shoes”. I am very proud of them for their sincere desire to learn about your work, and to want to take an active interest in ending extreme poverty. Nuru folks: please let me know if you are interested in the photos & videos from this event. I had parents sign permission slips for their child’s participation as well as permission to take their picture or interview them (video) for press release. Thank you to everyone working with Nuru. Your work is desperately needed and you are an inspiration to me and my 6th graders!