While reading Reader’s Digest the other day(RD is old school..I used to study the vocabulary words when I was young!), I stumbled across a story about a teacher named Patty Hall who was about to retire after 35 years of teaching. She had spent much time in Kenya and received an email about a river drying up in a village she had visited. Not thinking she wanted to devote the time needed to this kind of project when she was retiring, she almost hit the delete button. She decided not to and started getting her students involved. When she asked how much it would cost to build a dam in the village, they said 480,000 Kenyan shillings which is the equivalent of $7,000.
She involved her students in this process to raise the money for the dam. The students were shocked that people had to spend most of their day transporting water. Many children could not go to school because they were getting water for their family. Her students felt like they couldn’t do anything to help situations like this but with the class banding together, they raised more than enough to build the dam.
A whole village now has water. A WHOLE village. $7,000 is not a drop in the bucket but would you trade that amount of money for the lives of the residents for the village, the animals that live there, and the ecosystem in the area. All three of these rely on water to survive. A thought for this summer....as we spend money on our homes, going out to eat, or a vacation, considering putting the equal amount to a cause like this.
It's about Africa.....
