Charity:Water News: 'When Calls the Heart' Star Lori Loughlin Joins Call for Clean and Potable Water for Impoverished Communities
The heart of "When Calls the Heart" star Lori Loughlin must have whispered to her to get involved in humanitarian activities. Recently, the actress announced that she was joining Emergen-C and Charity: Water, two organizations that have inked a partnership deal and aim at bringing clean and potable water to various communities in developing countries.
Loughlin joined the call of Scott Harrison, founder of Charity: Water, appealed to the Americans for support of the #40Pounds challenge, which involves nothing more than posting a picture of one's self holding anything that weighs approximately 40 pounds. The weight represents the amount of water that young girls and women carry in impoverished communities every day just to bring home clean water for various household use.
A $5 donation will be given to Charity: Water for every uploaded photo either on Twitter or Instagram and will be used to fund clean water projects in Ethiopia.
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According to Loughlin, she was clueless for the longest time that more than 600 million people are deprived of the opportunity to access clean and potable water. Upon learning the statistics, she was hit with a realization that the burden caused by this lack of a basic need is primarily on the shoulders of women, literally and figuratively speaking.
"... The women and girls carry the cans on their heads and on their back. The girls are unable to go to school because they're spending the entire day collecting water, and the women are unable to hold jobs," she said in an interview with Parade.
Loughlin also revealed that, specifically, the money will be used for building of wells in Ethiopia, where most of its water is found underground. However, the project will not only be limited to the said country, disclosed Loughlin, although it is the priority of the organization because of the severity of the condition there. Once the organization is done with Ethiopia, it will move to other countries with communities beset with the same problem, she said.
"… Water is something I take for granted. In California, we're in a drought and people are whining because they can't water their grass, but in Ethiopia, people are really suffering," shared Loughlin.
