As many of you may or may not know, I volunteer with an organization called Nuru International.  This non-government organization non-profit is about bringing an end to extreme poverty in the world one community at a time through the empowerment of the people where extreme poverty is defined as living on less than a dollar a day.  Now, those are lots of fancy words and phrases, so what does this actually mean and why in the world would I even think about being a part of something like this?

I am a person that believes that everything is intertwined in an extremely complex patter that we simply call life and that what may look like a simple straight path (either physically or usually in my case mentally or logically) for one person is not the same straight line for another.  Therefore, in order to understand my answers to the questions above, I have to tell you a greatly condensed story first (for full story just ask me).  Basically, all of that is saying that the rabbit trail I am on actually tangents back into why I am involved with Nuru.

Several years ago I was at a concert and during one of the intermissions they were showing a video for one of the sponsor-a-kid groups.  During the video they showed a scene of kids pumping water from a well.  What I saw was the sparkling clear water from the pump first, then that faded out to the rest of the pump, which then faded out to show the kids jumping up and down to pump the water.  Basically, in that moment it dawned on me how lucky I am to be able to go to nearly any faucet and be able to drink the water that comes out of it.  I mean think about it, while everyone is so uppity about how bottled water is better than tap water, we are EXTREMELY lucky to just have TAP WATER.  Basically, that is when I knew I had to do something, somehow, to help fix this problem, to help bring water to those who don’t have it.

So what in the world does this little insight have to do with Nuru?  Nuru has five core areas of focus: agriculture, water and sanitation, healthcare, community economic development, and education.  These are broad but interlocked areas of a community.  Think about where you live.  I am sure there are schools there (education), some type of hospital or clinic (healthcare), tap water somewhere close by – probably within a hundred feet or so – and a bathroom with a device to flush away your wastes (water and sanitation), a supermarket or grocery store (agriculture), and some type of business (community economic development).  All of these are inter-related and key aspects to the community.  Furthermore, Nuru is not about just giving anything out or going in with preconceived notions of what is right or wrong. Instead, Nuru is about listening to the community and coming up with a plan of attack with the leaders so that they can take ownership of what they are doing.  In this way a dependency is not created and the community actually does bring itself out extreme poverty.

So, if you haven’t watched the videos yet, I highly recommend you do.  I am Nuru, so why aren’t you?

Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!