Walking 100 Miles for RESULTS

Dear Readers, 

One month ago, I started a journey of 100 miles…just a few steady miles every day as part of the RESULTS "Road to Rio" Campaign. For our annual online fundraiser, RESULTS volunteers across the U.S. are getting into the Olympic spirit by pledging to walk/run/bike distances to add up to the 5000 mile distance between Washington D.C. and Rio. I personally pledged 100 miles.

I’m up to 60 miles now!! Each day, I’ve had time to walk and think about

...girls carrying water for miles instead of going to school

…moms carrying babies for miles to get vaccines

…families walking miles to get find doctors with meds for tuberculosis, emergency nutrition, and other simple cures

But it hasn’t depressed me. Why? Because friends have been stepping up to donate to RESULTS on my www.tinyurl.com/WalkCindy website and even offering to walk along with me. It reminds me that there are millions of people like you who want to help. Working together, we can end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty in the U.S. and around the world.

Every child deserves the chance to reach her full potential, whether that is becoming the next leader of their country or a gold medal Olympic athlete. Will you join me in making a gift to help our advocates go the distance until no child dies from malnutrition or diseases of poverty? Please journey with me and donate at this link to help me raise $1000! www.tinyurl.com/WalkCindy

Thank you for considering!

Cindy Changyit Levin

Anti-Poverty Mom

Cindy and daughters lobbying on
Capitol Hill with RESULTS St Louis

Women Find Empowerment Building Homes for Others

Lacey Moss' home built by Habitat for Humanity
Photo Credit: Lacey Moss

Have you ever tried doing something you're not good at for the sake of helping others? Have you ever found new strength learning a new skill? A reader of my blog recently reached out to tell me about National Women's Build Week, a Habitat for Humanity program bringing a sense of empowerment to both moms and daughters who participate and the families their work benefits.

National Women Build week is a partnership between Habitat for Humanity and Lowe's. From April 30 to May 8, the program brought together more than 17,000 women to build or repair homes alongside 650 families. Two of these women were Lacey Moss and her mother.

Lacey Moss on a home build site
Photo Credit: Lacey Moss

Lacey Moss is a Habitat homeowner in Evansville, IN whose house was dedicated last August of 2015. When construction began on her home in May 2015 it was kicked off during National Women Build Week. Fifty women were involved in the kickoff and worked on the crawlspace of her home. She was so moved by the efforts of others that she volunteered and traveled to Guatemala this past February to "pay it forward" to another homeowner. To her surprise, her trip fee and airfare was sponsored by an anonymous board member! Now, this year, Lacey and her mom are leading the Women Build planning committee for the builds in her neighborhood.

Why are women like Lacey and her mom jumping up to grab their tool belts to help others? I'm certain it has a lot to do with social volunteerism. When we see that a cause is important and that we can do it with others while feeling great about ourselves, it becomes a very attractive activity! I believe moms especially can relate to the need to get a family into a real, functioning, owned home. The feeling of dignity, stability, and empowerment that is associated with home ownership is a powerful asset to families in need. Of course, Habitat for Humanity knows this well as evidenced by their words, "Through shelter, we empower." I just never really thought of that as meaning empowerment of volunteers, too!

In a new survey conducted by Lightspeed GMI Research, 87% of women surveyed said they enjoy volunteer work that teaches them a new skill. However, 75% said they avoid construction-related volunteering because they feel they lack the skills. (I, myself, fall in with that last group as well) National Women's Build week helps to fill a gap and help women like me jump in to help in a way that might normally be intimidating to us. Women who participate in builds bring home skills they can use in their own houses. Even for the 25% of women show feel that they already have construction skills, there is always something new to learn on a build site and helping others to learn can be an incredibly rewarding experience.

Lacey Moss and others on a build in Guatemala
Photo Credit: Lacey Moss

"Throughout the week, Lowe's and Habitat for Humanity teach women volunteers the necessary construction skills through how-to clinics and empower them to use those new skills while working alongside Habitat families," said Erin Sellman, Lowe's senior vice president of strategy, insights and planning. "It is powerful to see women from Lowe's and communities rally together in an effort that brings us more than three-quarters of the way toward reaching our commitment to build or repair homes with 1,000 families, getting them into a safe and stable home in time for the holidays."

This year, the week was launched with 10 Girls' Night out events in regions across the U.S.: Atlanta, Austin, Cincinnati, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Indianapolis, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham, San Diego and Seattle-Tacoma.

Want to get involved next year? For more information on Habitat for Humanity's Women Build program and to learn about Women Build projects in communities across the U.S., visit Habitat.orb/wb or the National Women Build Week tab on Facebook.

#WorldWaterDay Is for Everyone

Clean water for students at Railway Primary School in
Kampala, Uganda Photo by Cindy Levin)

For past World Water Days, I admit my thoughts always turned to countries far from the U.S. where women and girls spend precious time and energy every day to carry water. Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Haiti...these are the places that immediately jump to my mind where people in extreme poverty don't have access to clean water. 

Me: rehydrating after training

Yet this year, my own country got a crash course in clean water needs as well because of recent events in the city of Flint, Michigan. (Fun fact: I ran my first 10 mile race in Flint in 1996, never thinking once about the gallons of water I drank during training and racing) Until 2014, many Flint citizens were as trusting of water coming out of their taps as I had been. However, after Flint changed its water source to water from from the Flint River without corrosion treatment, corrosive water from the river caused lead from aging pipes to leach into the public water supply. The drinking water ended up contaminated with lead, creating a serious public health danger. Over 8,000 children under 6 have been exposed to drinking water with high levels of lead according to the Detroit Free Press. Now, you can go online to hear and see stories of American moms traveling miles and carrying clean bottled water for their children to wash in and drink.

So this World Water Day, I'm thinking about how the Sustainable Development Goals  - including Goal 6: Ensure Access to Water and Sanitation for All - (remember those #GlobalGoals we adopted?) are for EVERYONE...not just Africans, not just Asians, not just rich people, not just poor people. 

Everyone deserves good, clean sources of drinking water. 

A woman carries 10 gallons of water barefoot
along the side of the road in Uganda
(Photo by Cindy Levin)

The actions I take today are for all of the 663 million people without access to clean water worldwide (source: UNICEF) and especially for the mothers and daughters who carry that heavy, precious water to their families every single day. 

To start the day out right, I decided to take inspiration from two African women I've never met: this anonymous woman pictured to the right who was one of many I saw along the Ugandan roads carrying plastic jerry cans full of water and Siabatou Sanney who walked a marathon with 5 gallons of water on her head to raise money and awareness for Water for Africa. See a video of Siabatou's story here:

Now, please enjoy a video of me clumsily trying to carry 5 gallons on my head around my neighborhood...

Not surprisingly, my awkwardness and difficulty with the task helps illustrate the skill and strength of other women who carry water for years. Slate magazine reported years ago in a piece called "The Art and Science of Carrying Things on Your Head": "For untrained controls who have not had years to strengthen the right muscles and build up spinal bone density, carrying things on your head actually requires more energy than using a backpack." In other words, don't try Siabatou's marathon trick at home, folks!

My daughter's 3rd grade class carrying water for
3/4 of a mile to learn what it's like.

Now, has my foolishness inspired you to take an action? Here are a few easy actions YOU can take today to provide water to others for years. They are listed from least to most effort:

• Practice water conservation at home by doing the simple things, like turning off the water while you brush your teeth or filling your laundry and dishwashing machines completely before doing a load.
• Sign an online petition to help the citizens of Flint, MI with the water crisis. Here are two from Change.org and MoveOn
• Donate what you can to Water for Africa or Water for South Sudan to bring clean water to those in need and free up girls to pursue education and moms to care for all the other things they must do.
• Donate to one of these organizations helping Flint residents in various ways with health effects from lead-contaminated water
• Walk a few miles with the Charity Miles App to earn money for Charity: Water and tweet about it with the #WorldWaterDay hashtag
• Take the 5 Gallon Challenge! Make a donation and receive a jug in the mail to try to carry yourself for a mile. Challenge a friend to do it, too, and raise money to provide water for Africans. You send the jug back and can even track where they go in the U.S.
• Read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park with your kids and consider either doing a simple exercise of having them take a walk carrying filled gallon jugs like we did or contact the author or the real life main character of the book to visit or Skype with your child's classroom.