Happy Day of Love!

Happy Valentine's Day

from Amman Imman

to our Wells of Love family!

With Love 

from Ariane, Denis, Debbie, Momine, Michael, Laurel and Dennie 

Water is Life animated video

Water is Life. This animated video illustrates the essential importance of water in our lives, and how the water crisis affects millions of people around the world today.  Simple and straightforward, it raises awareness and invokes appreciation for this essential resource.  Information is shared through simple animation.  A great introduction to the concept that "Water is Life".  Please share it with your students to start your  Amman Imman: Water is Life campaign!

Food Security and World Water Day 2012

The theme for this year's World Water Day on March 22 is water and food security.  This is a fitting focus for Amman Imman's mission to bring water to the Azawak.  The interrelationship between food and water is apparent everyday in this drought-afflicted, resource-scarce region. Without water, there is no food.

Currently, due to last year's drought and poor harvest, all of Niger, and in fact all of the Sahel, is suffering a food shortage. Food prices have doubled and even tripled.  In January, the Niger government reported that over 750,000 people were food insecure, and predicted that numbers would rise to over 1 million.  Other reports predict even higher numbers. Last year, 200,000 refugees fleeing turmoil in Libya flooded into Niger.  Conditions are worsening with fighting in Mali causing the exodus of 15,000 additional refugees into already food scarce Niger.  A humanitarian crisis begs attention from the world.  Read this new report on the hunger crisis across the Sahel published in Time magazine today.

At Amman Imman, we are doing our utmost to aid our borehole communities in the Azawak that now have water.  We are providing staple grain, which the community can sell to community members and visitors at less than half the price it can be found on the market.  A percentage of the profit from the grain sales will go to the women for their projects, including restocking their cereal banks. The rest of the profit will go toward their borehole fund, as an additional security measure if and when borehole repairs need to be made.  As a longer term strategy, we are conducting gardening training  among all community members - including school children - as well as providing tools and seeds.

For World Water Day,  Amman Imman is offering a presentation about water and food security in the Azawak region of Niger.  If you'd like to schedule an assembly at your school or for your group this spring, please contact Debbie at info@ammanimman.org.

A Walk for Water, 2012

Washington DC area schools and families, please "save the date", May 12, 2012, for the 6th annual A Walk for Water.  Registration to open in March in time for World Water Day!

To organize A Walk for Water in your community, please download our AWFW Planning Guide and Fundraising Kit!

Practice Adds Up to Something Powerful

A student pogo hops while his partner counts.

I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in Washington DC the winter has been unusually mild.  It's still January and people are already talking about spring! An Amman-a-thon is a great activity to do outdoors with students, whether to take advantage of the mild weather or to welcome the spring.

Here's a description of the event from our WOL Resources and Tools page:

The Amman-a-thon is a skill-building fitness fundraising event through which students improve their athletic and math skills while raising funds towards a Well of Love.
Students gain proficiency through practice hopping on one leg, twirling a hula hoop, shooting baskets, jumping rope, and other activities of their choice.  On the day of their Amman-a-thon, they partner with a friend, listen for "Go" from the teacher and perform their activity. Their partner counts the repetitions.  Prior to the event, they've rallied their family and friends to pledge support, getting promises of 5 and 10 cents per hop, jump, basket and hula spin.   

(Download an Amman-a-thon Planning Kit and Fundraising Guide)

I really love this activity because everyone benefits, both students engaging in the activity and the children of the Azawak!  Students enjoy practicing. They feel really good about using their own skills to raise funds. Classrooms of young students have raised as much as $5,000 by asking a lot of people they know to contribute a few cents towards their cause.  It ties together athleticism and philanthropy, providing students with a first-hand experience of how practice adds up to something concrete and powerful.

In this video a teacher talks about how the Amman-a-thon empowers her students.  She says the Amman-a-thon builds a sense of community.  The children work hard to build their skills in order to help others.  In return they become physically fit, and have fun.

You can download an Amman-a-thon Planning Guide and a Fundraising Kit from the WOL Resources and Tools page.  Consider planning an Amman-a-thon for World Water Day (March 22), Earth Day (April 22) or International Peace Day (Sept 21) to start the school year.

It's really not hard to organize, and it's a great activity!

Making Wishes for Water Come True at MLK Day of Service

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Amman Imman joined with hundreds of nonprofit organizations to provide an opportunity for service at MLK Day of Service sponsored by the Volunteer Center of Montgomery County, Maryland.

Laurel talks with service volunteers about
how they can help kids  in the Azawak.

Laurel Lundstrom, our communications coordinator hosted our information table where enthusiastic volunteers looking for service opportunities learned about how they could help populations in need in the Azawak.

Intern Olivia Johnson and I ran two project tables where kids made Wells of Love, Wishes for Water. This craft activity provided a context for youth to learn about how water scarcity affects the lives of children, and gave them an opportunity to express their feelings and take action.

Students quietly read a small vignette about the life of two children, Anaha and Youssouff, who live in the Azawak. These children face a daily struggle because they have no access to water, a sharp contrast to the ease with which we can turn a faucet.

As they thought about these children of the Azawak, perhaps in relation to their own life circumstances, they constructed a Well of Love.  A paper cup, that they decorated with markers and heart stickers, formed the base of the well.  They affixed a picture of the child they'd just read about to the roof of their well.  After writing their Wish for Water, they affixed it to the top of their Well of Love.

 The students took their Well of Love home with suggestions about how they could meaningfully extend their day of service:

• Set a time each day, maybe during a meal, to make a daily wish for water. As you make your wish think of Anaha or Youssouf.
• After your meal, put a penny, nickel, dime or quarter into your well.  On Valentines Day (Feb 14) or World Water Day (March 22), send a donation to Amman Imman.
• Ask your friends to contribute to your wishing well.  
• Ask your parents for a matching donation.
• Organize your own fundraiser and make a donation to Amman Imman, www.ammanimman.org/donate.
• Sign up for Amman Imman's local event, A Walk for Water, on May 12, 2012 by contacting debbie at ammanimman, or checking back on the Amman Imman website.

Make a Well of Love and a Wish for Water with your students!

Click here for instructions and materials!