Malvern Native Raises Money for a Poor Community in Niger.

Jennifer Miller
The Daily Local News, December 5, 2006

While running through Philadelphia streets, Laurel Lundstrom visualizes a little girl in Niger on her daily 17-mile walk just to get the cup of water that will help her survive until tomorrow.

“Little girls travel a marathon every time they need a cup of water to drink,” said Lundstrom, who was born and raised in Malvern.

That image not only helped Lundstrom complete the Philadelphia marathon on Nov. 19, but it also helped her and a friend raise $2,000 to go toward building a well in the Azawak Valley located on the edge of the Sahara in Western Niger.

“You have a lot of kids dying, not only of dehydration but also due to lack of clean water,” Lundstrom said.

The Azawak Valley, population 500,000, has no running water system, so each day children and adults travel 17 miles to get a drink of water. The valley is the same size as Florida and is the poorest community in the world's poorest nation.

Lundstrom, who learned of Azawak Valley people’s plight through the Amman Imman program, decided to start running marathons to not only raise awareness of the waterless community, but also to raise money so that water can be brought to the people.

Amman Imman, which means “water is life,” is a program under the nonprofit organization The Friendship Caravan. Amman Imman’s goal is to raise enough money to construct two wells in the Azawak Valley. The wells cost roughly $130,000 each. To date Amman Imman has raised $145,000.

The wells are expensive because the water table is 600 to 1200 feet underground, Lundstrom said.

“We have to use equipment that would be used to dig for oil. That’s why it’s so expensive,” she said.

Bringing water to the valley will help give economic stability to the community, Lundstrom said. Currently, there are no roads, schools or health centers in the area. Water will change all of that though, she said.

“If the water is there, then other organizations will come, and road and schools will be built,” she said.

Ariane Kirtley founded Amman Imman in February after conducting health research in Niger in 2005.

“I saw more poverty than I had ever seen,” Ariane Kirtley said. “Nobody was doing anything to help these people. … Here I saw people die because they didn’t have water.”

Amman Imman is part of The Friendship Caravan, an American organization dedicated to promoting multi-cultural understanding through educational programs, humanitarian outreach and discussions.

Ariane Kirtley is grateful for Lundstrom’s unique fundraising tactic.

“It was sort of symbolic on her effort,” she said. “She wanted to — in spirit along with them — do the same thing.”

Lundstrom is one of the program’s original volunteers and, in addition to her fundraising efforts, she writes proposals for Amman Imman.

Ariane Kirtley’s father, Michael Kirtley, is president of The Friendship Caravan. He referred to Azawak Valley as “one of the most abandoned places on earth.”

Michael Kirtley commended his daughter and Lundstrom’s efforts to make known the struggles Nigerians undergo each day.

“There is no infrastructure — roads, schools, health centers — and no water. Many have lost most of their livestock,” he said. “She (Ariane Kirtley) was quite fortunate that a lot of Americans responded to her call.”

For Lundstrom, who now resides in the Washington, D.C. area, she plans to continue her “running for water” theme.

“I want to continue the ties of running for water. I want to get others to join in,” Lundstrom said.

For more information on Amman Imman, go to www.waterforniger.org.

To contact staff writer Jennifer Miller, send an e-mail to jmiller@dailylocal.com.