Women Making Waves - Global Women's Water Initiative

Hello everyone, this is Cella, one of the teen interns for Earthscope Media. On Thursday, October 25th, I had the pleasure of attending the Women Making Waves/Global Women's Water Initiative (GWWI) presentation  (by the wonderful organizations Women's Earth Alliance and Crabgrass) at the Brower Center, and interviewing the amazing and inspiring founder of  GWWI, Gemma Bulos.

GWWI was formed in order to address the need to involve women in water and sanitation efforts and decisions in their communities. Since 2008, GWWI has organized trainings in East and West Africa, and has trained 92 women; providing them with the knowledge, tools, and technologies necessary to establish sustainable water and sanitation strategies in their communities. Through the organization, women are taught to build water tanks, toilets, and water filters. GWWI's main goals (many of which have already been successfully implemented) are: reducing waterborne diseases, improving education for girls, helping communities save money, and enabling women's voices to be heard.
Gemma Bulos, the founder of GWWI, became inspired to start the organization after singing at the United Nation's Water For Life Conference: she learned that 1.2 billion people did not have access to water, and 3-5 million people were dying of waterborne diseases. Whilst developing GWWI, it was clear to Gemma that the women who would be participating in the organization (women with less luxuries than most Americans are accustomed to) are incredibly resourceful, and all she needed to do was expose them to these wonderful technologies, and allow the women to utilize them in their communities. Gemma maintains a loving and respectful attitude towards the women she works with, as opposed to the often condescending attitude of many other organizations, and believes that one of the reasons GWWI is so effective is because they approach the women they train with a mentality of serving, not saving. Due to her inspiring sense of humility and determination, Gemma was, indeed, the single drop of water (like that in the GWWI symbol pictured above) that lead to waves of change.

The interview with Gemma Bulos will be posted soon! If you'd like to learn more about GWWI & Gemma now, please visit GWWI - About Us.