Meet Kelsey Burke and Caroline Corbett: friends, athletes, and advocates for solving the global water crisis. Pretty impressive huh? These two remarkable students have ambition and a strong friendship backing up their involvement in The Thirst Project. Read on to learn how they have made their mark on Conn through Project in Community Action (PICA) and Water for Life.
Kelsey Burke
Class year: 2013
Major: Economics
Hometown: Kingston NH (but just moved to Atlanta, GA)
Involvement on campus (clubs, teams, etc.): Women’s Lacrosse, Housefellow of Wright, PICA, Senior Giving Committee, Water for Life and The Thirst Project: Conn Coll Chapter
Favorite place on campus: Athletic Center
Caroline Corbett
Class year: 2013
Double Major: Economics and Environmental Studies
Hometown: Norwood, MA
Involvement on campus (clubs, teams, etc.): Varsity Ice Hockey and Lacrosse, Housefellow, SafetyNet, President of Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Water for Life and The Thirst Project: Conn Coll Chapter, and Social Support Network member, Senior Giving Committee
Favorite place on campus: Anywhere with a good friend
2. Where did your interest in water preservation/advocacy come from?
Kelsey: I read an article about water issues in Africa and spent an afternoon doing research on it and was hooked. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about it and what a major problem it is in the developing world. I thought if more people learned about it they would want to help too.
Caroline: It all started with a statistic that took my breath away and made me feel grateful for what I have. Nearly 1 billion people across the globe do not have access to clean, safe drinking water. This is incredible. It is unfathomable. Every day nearly 4,500 children die from water related diseases? Statistics like these are where my interest in water preservation and advocacy came from. It all began the day I started to feel so fortunate to have a basic need: water.
3. I know you each had different experiences, but please explain how your PICA projects have evolved and what they entail.
Kelsey: My PICA interest is water and sanitation issues in sub-Saharan Africa. I wrote my PICA application about water issues and have stuck to that theme ever since which is pretty rare for PICA. I added the sanitation component after studying abroad in Kenya my junior fall and doing an independent study project on sanitation in the informal settlement of Kibera. When I returned from abroad, I did the junior year PICA internship. There were no organizations near Conn that dealt with global water issues so the PICA staff let me work on The Thirst Project as my internship. This past summer, I interned at the Carter Center, which is President Carter’s foundation. A large part of he organization work is to eradicate diseases caused in part by water deficiencies. Now I’m doing an honor’s thesis on how water privatization impacts development. For the club, Caroline and I are trying to raise more money and strengthen our organization so it continues when we graduate.
Caroline: My PICA project has definitely evolved. At first, I applied to PICA with the idea I would go study abroad in China and work for the WWF on a integrated river basin management project. However, as I began to realize I knew not one word of Chinese, I started to do some personal reflection. Over time, my interests were focused on the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility and the rising role of corporations in society. As an Economics and Environmental Studies double major, I had a natural interest in finding a balance between business that is bound to happen in our global society and our use of the environment (water included). Leaving a lot of minor details aside, here I am as a senior currently writing an Honors Thesis entitled, and bound to change many times, “Corporate Social Responsibility: a Critical Analysis of the ISO and International Law” for the Environmental Studies
4. How did PICA affect your college experience?
Kelsey: PICA has had a huge impact on my time at Conn. PICA has allowed me to focus my interest and gain incredible skills. I have learned how to fundraise, plan a large scale event, debate an issue, and write persuasively. Additionally, I love all of my peers in my PICA class. It’s nice to have a group of passionate students that have grown together over the past three years. I believe that the skills I have gained from PICA will set me apart from other job applicants and will help in my future career.
Caroline: Through PICA I have had a very invaluable interdisciplinary experience. I feel very lucky to be surrounded by so many bright students from different subject areas and with so many different passions. PICA classes have been very humbling and I have learned a lot from my peers. At the same time, I have also enjoyed sharing my outside coursework with others and find PICA to be a great environment for respect and collaboration. The issues we focus on within our PICA seminars- such as homelessness, poverty, education, and healthcare- provide us with a perspective that builds a bridge between our coursework and lives outside of the classroom.
Tell me a little bit about the Thirst Project and how the two of you got involved.
The Thirst project is a non-profit based out of LA. Seth started the organization as a 19 year old college kid. After learning about the water crisis he got his friends together and bought about $70 worth of water bottles and handed them out for free in downtown LA. People ended up donating money and they made $1700 dollars. People then started contacting them to come speak at there schools. They now travel around the country talking about the water crisis. They have raised $2.9 million for water projects and brought water to over 100,000 people.
Kelsey: One of our PICA classmates heard Seth Maxwell (the founder of the Thirst Project) speak at a conference in New York City the summer before our junior year. She gave us his contact information and passed along information on his organization. When I returned from abroad, Caroline got in contact with them and as luck would have it Seth was going to be in the area a few weeks later. He came to school and gave a presentation that got us really excited to start a partnership with him. We have been raising funds to build a well through the Thirst Project ever since. We also welcomed the Thirst Project this past October and a lot of students attended and were interested in learning more and helping out.
Caroline: At first, Kelsey had come to me and basically said she wanted to start a group on campus that addresses the global water crisis (Water for Life) and would serve as our sophomore year PICA internships. So we started working under that guise and mainly focused on acting as a middle-man for The Soap Project, a non-profit organization based in Georgia that asks hotels to redirect their guests leftover bars of soap from the trash can into a collection bin so it can be reprocessed into new bars and sent to vulnerable populations abroad (this prevents about 1.4 million deaths related to sanitation issues). If you haven’t notice yet, I like stats and pitching causes I care about through them- I hope they have reeled you in.
What has been your most rewarding college moment thus far?
Kelsey: Playing on the Women’s Lacrosse team has been the best experience of my college career. While lacrosse itself has been fun and taught me a lot, the experience has been so meaningful because of my teammates. My teammates are some of the greatest people I have met and are talented in so many ways. When Caroline and I had our first Thirst Project event with Seth, our teammates came straight up from practice to support us even though they knew very little about what we were doing. They have been supporting us every step of the way and I can’t thank them enough.
Caroline: Oh man, I find these questions to be so hard. I don’t mean to be a cop-out but my most rewarding college moment thus far has definitely been when I look back and feel happy about my time here. I feel grateful to be at a place where I can get involved in a lot of different things and find connections between my various interests. I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by so many supportive peers, teachers, advisers, and coaches. I just feel very lucky to have been able to take on everything I wanted to when I matriculated in back in 2009. Conn is a great place to give things your best try.
Did the two of you know each other much before the Thirst Project? Has working on it impacted your friendship?
Kelsey: We met as lacrosse teammates but didn’t know each other very well. When we started PICA sophomore year, we started to get to know each other better and have become great friends over the past three years. I now consider Caroline one of my closest friends. We’re teammates, housefellows, and have this organization together and have really been there for each other through everything. Caroline and I like to joke that we’re opposites in almost every way but we seem to balance each other out. I feel really lucky to have such a great friend and I know Caroline will be one of these people who is part of my life long after college is over.
Caroline: Kelsey and I played lacrosse together since our freshman year and our relationship on the field, during practice at least, consisted of her standing in the net and me pelting her with shots. I definitely gave her a few bruises in those days, but my shot is better now and our friendship couldn’t be stronger. Our friendship outside of lacrosse definitely evolved when we began our PICA experiences and realized we were both interested in the same subject. Working together has definitely made our friendship one of the strongest ones I have here. We often joke about how different we are (very), but yet how we always seem to be on the same wavelength. Whatever it is, it works and I have enjoyed working with her. I trust Kelsey a lot and have a great amount of respect for her. With all of that said, I would definitely say working together has positively impacted our friendship.
If you could tell all of the Conn community 3 facts about water what would they be?
Kelsey:
1. 3.4 million people die every year from water and sanitation related diseases.
2. 200 million hours are spent collected every single day. Water is usually collected by women and children hurting equality and educations measures around the world.
3. A five minute shower uses more water than a person in a slum uses in an entire day.
*Find these and more facts at water.org
Caroline:
1.”[The water and sanitation] crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.” (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2006). Human Development Report 2006, Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis)
2. Each year, 3.4 million people die each year from a water related disease. That is almost the entire city of Los Angelos. (http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/)
This last one really shows how you can make a difference!:
3. Every 21 seconds a child dies from a water related disease. In 2009 a child died every 15 seconds. (http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/children/)
What would your freshman-year-self say about all you have accomplished in your senior year?
Kelsey: I think my freshman self would be proud of how involved I have gotten on campus, how many opportunities I grabbed, and how many people I have met. I think my freshman self would be happy that while staying busy, I’m still having a lot of fun and making senior year a time I’ll never forget. I don’t think I’ll really know how much I’ve grown and changed until after I leave Conn but I’ve loved the journey.
Caroline: I think my freshman-year-self would be pumped and say something like “I knew you had it in you!” If my freshman-year-self were talking about my thesis they’d probably say “just keep swimming.”
Give us some advice. How can we get involved to solve the water crisis?
Kelsey: First, I would say go online and learn as much as you can about the issue. Once you know what a major problem this is you won’t be able to forget it and will want to do something. Next, tell everyone you know about the problem. Spreading the word is the only way this can be addressed. Finally, consider supporting an organization building water wells. Look for one that focuses on sustainability, tracks the well to ensure it continues to function, and uses 100% of donations to build wells. Also make sure to keep an eye out for Connecticut College Thirst Project events throughout the year and let Caroline or me know if you want to get involved!
Caroline: If you want to get involved, just get started! Reach out to us! As Seth always says, “you are a world-changer.” If you want to make a difference, don’t ever for a second think that you can’t.