Community action starts with an individual

Eleven year old Zoe, a rising 6th grader at Seneca Academy, has awakened her school community about the struggle for water in the Azawak of West Africa.  Zoe chose to focus on the  region for her school project about the scarcity of natural resources. The water-scarce conditions in the vast Azawak valley proved a seminal topic for Zoe’s research about how human populations are affected.

In addition to the sociological perspective, Zoe drew correlations between the water cycle and the climate conditions in the Azawak.

She wrote:

Azawak’s climate is very hot and dry. Due to the extreme heat, the small amount of water that they have evaporates quickly. The water cannot precipitate because there is not enough humidity. There is a huge difference between heat and humidity; humidity is the amount of moisture in the air and heat is just the sun bearing down on you. Therefore, there is not enough moisture in the air for it to rain.

Zoe also wrote about how parents and children in the Azawak are forced to spend a majority of their time searching for water for the sake of survival.  She highlighted Amman Imman’s boreholes that access water deep beneath the earth and relieve the daily struggle of the populations.

She presented her research orally to her peers, stirring up the emotions of the class. Collectively, they decided to donate some of their school store proceeds to Amman Imman.

For the next school year, Zoe is thinking about engaging her school in collaborating with Amman Imman for a large IB project she’ll be working on.  She proposed the idea to the school, and they are excited to include Amman Imman as part of their global citizenry component during the 2012-2013 school year.

At 11 years old, Zoe has already impacted her local community by shedding light on a dire situation in  the world and inspiring her peers towards action. One step by a single individual has the potential to change the world!