A personal thank you from the World Water Week co-creator

I first got interested in global issues in a Global Leadership class I took my junior year, which was taught by Noah Zeichner. With his encouragement, I created a short video regarding climate change and submitted it to an education website’s contest. To my amazement, it won, and was shown to all of the attendants of COP15, including Congressman Jay Inslee. The next thing I knew, there was a postcard waiting for me at the school from Inslee himself, congratulating me on the video and telling me that I should keep up with my activism.

This, in combination with many other fortuitous and inspiring events, led to my creation of World Water Week in partnership with Mr. Zeichner. World Water Week’s mission in 2011 was to “promote understanding of the relationship between members of our local community with water here and around the world, with the emphasis on improving that relationship through conservation and local action addressing equal access for all global citizens.” Though our focus has shifted each year (2012’s theme was water and food, while 2013’s will be water and health), the core mission of our statement has remained the same. We seek to bring attention to the current water situation around the world, and get students inspired to act.

We have found this best accomplished through a variety of approaches. In partnership with a large student team and many community and faculty members, we created a week full of engaging activities and discussions. From the Monday night community event, which brings renowned speakers into the halls of our own school, to the school-wide lesson in which all students get in on the conversation, collaborating to understand the situation and seek solutions.

As the most important day of the festival, Friday’s complete upheaval of the normative school schedule also challenges what most students perceive about water as a simple issue. The different workshops that students attend are led by a very diverse crowd — from a local Duwamish storyteller and first generation students who experienced drought in their own lifetimes, to scientists, architects, and chocolate-makers. All of these workshops kindle perhaps our most valuable human sentiment: empathy. They connect us to each other through a common experience.

This common experience is best seen in the cumulative service project in which all students participate. Whether it’s the Walk for Water, which we did in 2011 to raise money for Water 1st International, or the “day in the life” obstacle course of a hypothetical family in a refugee camp, these service-learning activities bring our school together through a collective emulation of a global problem.

World Water Week is my proudest achievement. It’s difficult to remember many moments from the 2011 festival, because of how hectic it was for me. However, one moment that I will never forget was watching Jay Inslee take the microphone at the Monday night event to which I had invited him. That feeling will stick with me forever, and I hope that other students will be able to feel that pride as they continue to shape World Water Week.