See Beautiful Grant Applicant: HOW Global

The feature below is brought to you by HOW Global, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. 

To learn more about HOW Global  please visit their website page: here.

Drilling for hope Ready, Set, Drill

As the founder of HOW Global Inc. I am never disappointed at the hope and love that drilling for water brings to the community. Nineteen years ago, I was invited to a United Nations meeting where I promised to help make a dent in the millennium goals. This is when I decided my focus would be water for school children that have no voice. 
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Like wildfire, word of water coming to a school spreads throughout a community. When you live in a place that has no water, electric or media to feed on, you are counting on your neighbors in the rural villages of Africa to bring the latest news at the local market on Tuesdays or  while you are washing clothes in front of your humble home. Then there are the students who run home from school with exciting news as they were asked to create poems to honor the event of water coming to their school and they show their parents the illustrations they drew that day to prepare their minds for what is to come.

Once a community meeting takes place it is no longer rumor but truth that water may be coming to your child’s school and that means water for the entire community.

Echorro Primary school waits for the word of the date this miracle will take place. Over the last years they are lucky to have had borrowed water from a neighboring project however that water goes off and on and does not belong to the school.   The local leaders meet on the grounds of the school to discuss the fact that they will help to dig the trenches needed for piping for this new water well that will soon be theirs.

They will also start a garden area so that when we arrive in August, we will plant 100 Moringa trees. As you see, water is only the first step in guiding this school towards sustainability. Word has come that because there is now water coming to the school, perhaps this property will now be on the list to get electric.  How amazing it is that when a school leader shows motivation and wanting more, that so much more follows this desire for bettering the lives of the students who live in extreme poverty.

This story is told here is the states. Primary grade schools, women’s clubs and other non-profits are touched by the stories of the children who live without basic needs.  When they know exactly who they are helping as they collect coins every year and do various small fundraising towards the next well, it helps to form what I call an emotional connection to each other across the globe.  They know that they are a part of something much bigger than the small part of the world where they live. This is when the projects feel more like a movement than a simple act of charity. As the energy of so many coming together as one creates a force to be reckoned with! I would say that is purely beautiful!
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Yes, hope is in the air, can you feel it?

Written by: Rachael Paulson

Founder of HOW Global