Capsun's Corner – by Capsun M. Poe

Remember when I blogged about Twestival (as did several other Hawaii bloggers)?  In short, it was a worldwide social media effort and fundraiser for charity: water that wants to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.  In Hawaii, we raised over $7,000 for this cause.

Recently, I received this update from them:

April 11th – April 14th 
Watch us drill the first Twestival well from Ethiopia. 

 

When people from 202 cities from around the globe came together in February to support our work through the Twestival, we knew we had to do something special to honor their commitment. An astonishing amount of money was raised, and as always, charity: water will use 100% to give people clean and safe drinking water. But it’s one thing to say it, and another to show it.

And we’re going to show it.

So we’re off to Ethiopia next week with Twestival lead organizer Amanda Rose. Together, we hope to show supporters around the globe exactly what their money can do.

We’re going to do something different on this trip. We want to help YOU understand more about the conditions and solutions on the ground. So we’re giving YOU a chance to ask questions and get them answered by the drillers and community members.

If you want to know what life is like for a mother who walks 5 hours a day for dirty water, here’s your chance. If you want to know why a family would live in a village with contaminated water and not move somewhere else, ask. Even if you’re just curious about well depths and casings or mobilization costs, ask that too.

As we go from rural village to village, we’ll pose the best of your questions to our drilling partners and those getting clean water for the first time, and let them answer in their own words.

 

Here’s how to ask a question:

Tweet it: find us @charitywater or use #charitywater
Email it: twestival@charitywater.org

Here’s what to expect as we post daily videos to our website:

 

Day 1 – April 11 – We’ll drill the first Twestival well in Ethiopia.
Day 2 – April 12 – We’ll visit villages in need of water that will receive wells through Twestival funding.
Day 3 – April 13 – We’ll visit more rural villages, posing questions from you to people living in them.
Day 4 – April 14 – Complete the first Twestival well. (hopefully)

Drilling wells isn’t an exact science, and if we have to stick around longer to see it through to completion, we will.

Videos will be posted each day to charitywater.org/twestival by 5 PM Eastern Time.

 

As a former non-profit employee myself, this is an amazing achievement for engaging donors.  As someone who supported this cause with money, time, and blogging, I will be checking out what our collective efforts (and funds!) have achieved.  

So Twestival continues to provide us with good news.  About the only bad news is that with the Hawaii Superferry leaving Hawaii, my cousin and I can’t take that trip to Maui that he won.

Mahalo!

Tags: charity, charity water, Hawaii, superferry, twestival, water