Aichatou explains why your help is so important for people in the Azawak

Aichatou Bety lives in Niamey, Niger and works as an educator for Catholic Relief Services. A long-time friend of Amman Imman, Aicha was in the United States for a conference through her work at the same time A Walk for Water at Lake Frank was taking place. It was our blessing that she was able to be with us at AWFW and speak at the rally.

Highlights from Aicha's speech:
"Think about something that is really important in your life. Something that today if you miss it, you feel like you are not existing. Water in the Azawak, in the desert, is like this. Providing water to a nomad, is providing everything."

"Water is the basis for development. There is an NGO that built a school last year. They really built a nice school. But until now no one is in the school. Do you know why? Because there is no water. How can you build a school in a nomadic area without water? When the school was being built, the enterprise who got the contract brought water from far away to build the school. But after having the school, you also need to provide water for the community. Because if nomadic people are always traveling to look for water, how can you have people in your school? "

"What you are doing is really responding to the need of people from Azawak. This project really expresses the need. The people expressed their need and you accept this need and you decided to help.... Alot of projects fail because they don't respond to the need of people. I am convinced that you bring the hope. With this water, you are going to bring life, help them develop alot of skills."

"I want to thank all of you. Especially children. The involvement of children is very strong. You know why I say this? Children are the future. By starting now and helping the people of the Azawak, these children will continue to help. And even their children will continue."

Dear Friends,

In less than a week, those of us in the Washington DC area will gather together to walk the shady trails around Lake Frank in Derwood, Maryland for "A Walk for Water" - an annual tradition that has inspired students to be leaders for a better future.  We will spend time in nature – families and friends together – and be transported away from our conveniences, off our couches and out from behind our electronic devices – to come together for a greater purpose. 

If you live in the DC metro area,  we hope you will join us! 


Please take a few minutes to register online and create a fundraising page:

1.    Go to https://www.firstgiving.com/ammanimman/Event/awalkforwaterlakefrank

• Click on “Register for this Event”
• The next page will ask,  “Would you like to register for this event?” Click “Yes register online now”. 
• From there, you will have the option to register as an individual or as a family. Follow the instructions to complete your registration.

2.    After you register, you will be given the option to start a team, or to join an existing team.  Teams can fundraise together. (this is optional!)

3.    You will also be given the option to create a fundraising page.  Creating a page only takes a few minutes and makes it easy to ask your friends and family to support your Walk.  Please create a fundraising page!  If you don’t have time to create one right away, you can return to do it later.  Just go to this page and click on "Raise Money".

4.    Upon completion of your registration, you will receive a confirmation email from FirstGiving with a link from where you can download an Event Information and Fundraising Kit.  For your convenience, here’s the link. (For Windows users, when you download the materials you will see two files.  Please click on the one named "AWFW 2011 Lake Frank Event Info and Fundraising Packet".)  

Whether or not you live in DC, please feel free to share this post on your listservs, with your friends and other networks and invite them to join us on May 14^th! Share the link of your fundraising page on Facebook, Twitter and with all your social networks!  Invite everyone to contribute to your page!

We at Amman Imman are counting on YOU! Your participation not only helps make "A Walk for Water" a tradition, but it also supports the ideals of students who believe they can make a better world and, more importantly, provides people in the Azawak with hope that they can make their dreams of a better future a reality.

Yours for a future of hope,

Debbie