Remember our Campus Celebrity from April 2013, Caroline Hettermann? If not, here’s a quick run-down: Caroline is a senior chemical engineering student at the University of Maine who has made it her personal mission to make some serious changes in the world’s water crisis. Caroline has been busy since we last spoke to her. Whether she’s organizing a fundraiser or traveling to Ghana to help empower women and implement clean water sources, Caroline is constantly doing her part to raise awareness and make a difference. Below, check out Caroline’s editorial about her life changing trip to Ghana. If you’re interested in making a difference yourself, head over to the Saha Global website, where you can learn more about their abroad opportunities.
“As college students it seems that society deems us as consumed in our own world (regardless of whether we actually are), and in our case, the tiny bubble of Orono. The majority of us spend ridiculous amounts of money fighting to stay caffeinated during the week and trying to get drunk on the weekends. We stay glued to our phones as if they are vital to our survival, yet sometimes know very little about what is going on in the world. I admit that I am guilty of many of these things and while I don’t necessarily agree with all the things society portrays us as, I can say that we are extremely selfish with our water waste.
It’s so easy for us to completely take water for granted when the world we live in is so dependent on this natural resource. Thousands of gallons go into food production, recreation, personal hygiene, and sometimes even curing weekly hangovers. In Maine, and many other places throughout the United States, it’s so easy to forget how lucky we are to feel safe when turning on the faucet and partaking in a human right–access to clean water. Imagine if we weren’t so lucky; if females had to wake up with the sun and travel miles a day to a water supply filled with bacteria and diseases, and were then forced to drink the water and give it to their growing children to survive.
I have made a handful of bucket lists in my life and the very first thing on all of them has been to travel to Africa to help solve the water crisis. Since I was a senior in high school, the idea of the water crisis has absolutely blown my mind. To think that we have grown up with water in excess to the point where tons of houses have pools, we play outside running through sprinklers and take the longest showers while kids just like us all over the world would fight for a single glass of contaminated water on any given day. Last year, I finally decided to check this off my bucket list. I applied for a fellowship position with Saha Global. I was accepted, and left for a three week trip to Ghana the day after Christmas to begin the most humbling and life changing experience.
After arriving in Accra, myself and the 19 other college students from around the world embarked on a 12 hour bus ride to the Northern Region of Ghana. Upon arriving in Tamale we got right to work. We learned the ins and outs to the water crisis worldwide and in Ghana. We learned of the water borne diseases that so many were suffering from, the culture, and how we were going to give them clean water.
Years ago in Ghana the government went around to these small communities and simply dug out a hole, then deemed that the community had a water supply, and that was it. However in Ghana there are two seasons; a wet season and a dry season. So for roughly half the year, these communities become extremely flooded washing away animal and human feces among many other things into these water dugouts. After drinking this water, many become ill and eventually die from diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, etc.
I have never been as excited as I was on my first drive out to my community, Namdu, regardless of how car sick I was from the roads we traveled on for over an hour. After our arrival, where we greeted by many of the elders and stared at by the kids who had never seen a white person before, we began our meeting with the chief because we were in a stand still until we received his permission. For me, one of the coolest things about Saha Global is what they do for the women in these communities. In the Northern Region many practice poligamy. The households would be set up with one husband to a handful of wives and many children from each wife. Needless to say, the women struggled for a voice. However, the women are entirely responsible for retrieving the water from the dugout. So each morning, the wives and the daughters set out to fill numerous buckets with dugout water and carry them back to their huts. Saha sticks to this tradition, and after speaking with the chief, we asked the community to nominate two women to run the water business. I know that many athletes get excited about winning a game, or some may be pumped after receiving an awesome grade, but never again will I witness excitement and pride that measures up to the look these women had. For once they would be making a small profit, they would have a voice in the community, and they would be the ones the elders and chief came to with any questions regarding the water business. Another unique thing about Saha Global is that the products we supply the women to treat the contaminated water is all from local markets and can easily be replaced. The women fill a black Polytank with water, clean it up, disinfect it, and then sell it to the members of their community at an affordable price to make a small profit to maintain the business.
We traveled to Namdu almost every day for the three weeks that I was there. In the days leading up to the opening day of the center we continued to educate the women on how to maintain the business, to clean the water, and to educate others on how important it was drink this water rather than the water straight from the dugout. During this time we traveled to each of the thirty one households in Namdu and gave each household a Safe Storage Container which was to be used only for water from the center. Then it was finally time for Opening Day. I like to think Iíve experienced a handful of cool things in my life, but to date, opening day was by far the coolest day of my life. We arrived at the dugout at 5 am because this was the time we were told the women begin going to the dugout, however time doesn’t really exist in Ghana so by 6am women began filing down with their blue Safe Storage containers on their heads, so excited to start a new lifestyle, be healthy, and drink clean water. I remember people saying we saved their lives, or that finally their kids will be able to grow up happy and healthy.The water that was once brown now looked as it does when it comes out of our faucets at home. We had changed the women who were running the center’s lives, and saved so many from dying of waterborne diseases.
As much as I know myself, my team, and Saha Global gave Namdu, I do believe that they gave me so much more in return. They sleep on floors, eat beans and stews for every meal, have absolutely nothing, and wear the same clothes every day, yet they are the happiest, kindest, most forgiving, and lovable people I’ve ever met in my entire life. By the end of my time in Namdu. I couldn’t walk anywhere within the community without have a child hanging off of every finger, and every leg. The kids who were once scared of me because of my skin color were running up at the site of our taxi pulling in.
They would run up to me to stare at every picture I took on my iPhone to try to point themselves out. They’d die of laughter because they had never even really seen themselves before. They embody everything I want to be, everything I want my kids to be, and the kind of people that set an example for so many of us back in the States. At the end of my time in Namdu, women were trying to pass their kids off to me, wanting me to bring them back here in hopes of a better life in the United States. Although there was a language barrier between us, I wanted to tell them that the life they are living is remarkable and their happiness outweighs the happiness of so many people back home. Saha Global not only helped me check things off my bucket list and educate me even more on the water crisis, but they helped me see so much more beauty in the life I am living and challenged me to be a better person. Since 2008, Saha Global has empowered 164 women entrepreneurs who have launched 71 clean water businesses and 5 solar businesses. They have provided 38,108 people access to clean drinking water and have a full-time staff in Ghana that continues to monitor the businesses daily. I would encourage everyone to look into Saha Global and the programs they offer.”