My feet first touched African soil on July 23, 2009, when I arrived in Cotonou, Benin, to start my 27-month service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I had left my job in corporate America and couldn’t wait to experience whatever was in waiting for me.
I was placed in a small village in west-central Benin called Agoua. I worked in a health center and a school and learned the language and tried to make a difference. That experience was harder than I could have ever imagined. I was desperately lonely, sick, harassed all the time, confused a lot, hot and sweaty, and wondered if I would make it. I also learned so much, found my passion in global health, made lifelong friends, and helped a few people, hopefully. I learned I was much stronger than I ever thought I was, and when I finished, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life trying to make the world just a little bit better and never stop exploring, learning, growing, and serving. The people of Agoua gave me so much of themselves, and for that, I’m forever grateful.
In the last few months, I’ve gotten in touch with other former Volunteers who have served in Agoua. I was the first, but not the last, and after some social searching four of us managed to have our first Zoom call about a year ago. We were deep in Covid, the Peace Corps Volunteers had been evacuated worldwide, and basically, we all just wanted to chat about our shared connection to that little village in the middle of the cashew orchards. Our stories have diverged dramatically; we live in three different countries working in a variety of fields, but we realized when we were chatting that Agoua was really central to all of our stories and wondered out loud how we could give back or continue to help this little place dear to our hearts.
We were able to connect pretty easily with our primary counterpart in Agoua, the chief of the arrondisement (small group of villages) and a trusted friend to all of us, and asked if there was anything we could do to help, what would he choose? He came back pretty quickly with what seems like an obvious ask: what they really need is a source of clean water in the health center. And this was definitely a project we could get behind! To ensure things in the health center are as sanitary as possible, especially in the age of COVID, we were all really happy to come around this community and provide something so very basic and critical to quality health care. It’s such a gift to have the opportunity to give back to this community!
We are asking for our families and friends to donate in the place of gifts this holiday season. We are donating ourselves. We are asking you, friends, families, communities, connections, to consider giving to this project. Agoua is an incredibly special place, and clean water is a basic necessity, can you help us to bring that to the health center?
Here is the link that provides more of the story, info about the former Volunteers who are a part of this project, and how you can help the people of Agoua have access to clean water when they are most in need!
LINK :https://www.gofundme.com/f/w42q4-bring-water-to-agoua-health-center
(updated – new link on 11/30)
Thank you!
Let us begin 