I haven't had time to go through my pictures and write up all the stories behind them yet... but they are coming! But for now - the students and the team have been in the news again, in the Abbotsford Times. :)
I love hearing thoughts from our UNION team - I get to share with friends & family (and anyone else who follows my blogs!) about what I've seen and what I make it of it - the communities, families, and children we've met; the projects and programs that change lives that we've had the chance to see. But, I am ALL the more excited to see those experiences through our UNION team's eyes, and seeing what they take home with them from it all. Things like,
I have hundreds and thousands of hopes and dreams. It is a part of life in Canada. I didn't know it was a privilege and a gift to have hopes and dreams.
And who would've known? We take it as such a given, with all the other things we enjoy and don't need to think twice about - clean water, food to our tummies, a doctor when we get sick, the opportunity to go to school... it is pretty amazing. And amazing when more of us realize just how amazing it is... and then can't help but to tell this story. Anyways, more thoughts from me will be on their way... for now, here's a bit from the students!
By Michelle Watrin, For the Abbotsford Times March 28, 2011
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Run for Water's Jana Ratzlaff, Renita Wiebe, Yale students Tori Wong, Kristen Dey, Madi Gibbes, Tanya Drouillard and Curtis Uhryn arrive safely in Ethiopia as they begin their spring break tour of villages in the Bonke District of Southern Ethiopia. The group learned having dreams and hopes are gifts not all people in the world can have if the focus is on gathering water and survival.
"There is hard work in life and then there is torture." It's a riveting statement from Yale Secondary's Tanya Drouillard that comes from a first-hand account of walking with young girls in Ethiopia as they make their daily trek to a spring in the ground for the water for their families.
"There are frail little girls as well as women eight months pregnant walking on treacherous paths with 50 pounds of water strapped on their backs by coarse ropes wrapped around jerry cans. No girl anywhere should have to do this."
Drouillard was part of a group of students who travelled to Ethiopia for spring break with Run for Water representatives to learn about the water crisis in the Bonke region.
Along with her was social studies teacher and former Run for Water board member, Stan Wiebe, his wife Renita, and Run for Water's Jana Ratzlaff, four other students, Kristen Day, Madi Gibbs, Tori Wong and Curtis Uhryn, made the trip.
"Wherever we went, whether the village had clean water or not, people would say we give them hope and encouragement," Wong said.
"But we were there to learn. They were the ones who became life within us. I will always remember these people. We will tell our stories to anyone who will listen."
In the heat of low 30s Celsius and high humidity, the group travelled with the guidance of Hope International's local staff to villages in different stages of the clean water process.
One village had received a clean water system through the fundraising of Run for Water events in Abbotsford.
The students learned how the next step after attaining water for villages was a small loan initiative sponsored by Hope International. Families with ideas for family businesses were given an opportunity to grow their business.
"The small loans allowed the people to save money for their kids to go to [post-secondary] school," Drouillard said. "They had a lot of hope for their futures, and they had dreams for the future."
The group also visited a village where the people were working with Hope International and digging trenches for a life-changing water system. "We carried some rocks and helped with a retaining wall," Wong said.
"The people were in good spirits, working really hard - young and old, men and women."
One of the last villages visited was scheduled to already have a clean water system, but government paperwork has held up the process.
Years ago, a river ran beside the village, but now the dried up riverbed provides a rocky and steep path for the young girls to travel daily for water for their families. "The journey to get water was a lot harder than I thought it would be," Wong said.
"On one side of the path was a rocky face and the other side was a huge drop off. We travelled to a spring found at the bottom of a hole."
The Yale students watched village girls jump into the hole onto a slippery rock and fill small jars to pass up to their friends. The students had their chance to go into the hole. Drouillard summed up the experience by saying, "This water they were travelling for, filling up their containers to take back to drink, our moms here in Canada would slap it out of our hands, it was so dirty.
"Little girls in Canada would be making mud pies out of it. And this was all they had to drink. This was it. I know it was full of parasites and bacteria. They did all this hard work, and it was all for something that could end up killing them."
The students wanted the full experience, so after the water jugs were filled, they strapped on the jerry cans and tried to take them back to the village.
After walking a mile in the different villagers' shoes, a surprising, non-tangible reflection was formed by the group. The students realized some people they met were so focused on survival that suffering clouded any space to dream of better days.
Drouillard said: "I have hundreds and thousands of hopes and dreams. It is a part of life in Canada. I didn't know it was a privilege and a gift to have hopes and dreams."
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Yale student Kristen Dey (above) spends time with people in the Bonke District of Ethiopia. Dey was part of a group of students that travelled to the African nation and got a firsthand look at the trials people there endure for clean drinking water. |
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Curtis Uhryn, Tori Wong, and Madi Gibbs work with villagers preparing trenches for water pipes bringing clean water to a village in the Bonke Region of Ethiopia. The trio of Yale students learned about the water crisis on a special spring break trip with Run for Water. |
© Copyright (c) Abbotsford Times |
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