After we adopted our children in 2007, I began looking at organizations doing humanitarian aid and community development work in Ethiopia. The experience visiting the country to pick them up was transformative. It is such a beautiful place, with kind, hardworking people that left a lifelong impression. Extreme poverty and preventable disease had brought our kids into our lives and the injustice of it all really hit me. I was determined to try to do something.
Serendipitously, I learned about Water 1st International, a Seattle-based non-profit seeking to involve individuals in solving the vast global problem of access to safe water. There are many organizations doing this work worldwide, but Water 1st's approach is different, bringing piped water to every home (rather than a community hand pump or kiosk.)
According to a 2025 WHO/UNICEF report, one in four people on earth (2.1 billion people globally) do not have access to safely managed water — the most basic ingredient to sustain life. And 3.4 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation -- toilets and easy handwashing. The illnesses resulting from the lack of these necessities cause the deaths of more than a million people each year — the majority of whom are children under the age of five, like Tizita & Fekadu were when they came into our lives.
In addition, in some countries like Ethiopia, searching for and fetching water has a devastating social impact on women & girls, who are traditionally responsible for water collection. Women and girls typically spend up to six hours each day walking long, steep rugged trails with a heavy pot or jug on their backs or heads. This depletes their energy, compromises their health, and prevents them from participating in economic activities or attending school.
Water 1st provides well-designed, community-implemented and community-managed sustainable water supply and sanitation projects through indigenous partner organizations in Bangladesh, Honduras & Kenya. (At the time I met them, they were working in Ethiopia as well...) The solutions they enable not only address the basic needs at hand, but provide the invaluable side benefits that come with community organizing: empowerment of villagers, development of a community revenue stream, empowerment of women, and time for young girls to attend school instead of work.
$150 can ensure clean water and sanitary latrines for one person for their entire lifetime, plus all the side benefits. This is a transformative organization that enables better health, more time, and greater educational and economic opportunity. All this from a lean five-person staff located here in our great city.
Read the Water 1st story here. Or travel with them to see their work firsthand, as I did. Details here.
And, to learn more about the serendipity that connected me to Water 1st, click here.
