Students walk miles for water at Amizade Water Walk

For many people in the world, getting a glass of water is not as easy as walking to the… For many people in the world, getting a glass of water is not as easy as walking to the sink.

On Saturday afternoon, about 200 people accustomed to just turning on the tap experienced a long trek for water at the fifth annual Amizade Water Walk.

Amizade Global Service-Learning, a nonprofit organization that raises money for clean water technologies in underdeveloped countries, held the Water Walk on the Cathedral of Learning lawn. Participants walked the three-mile route — most carrying an orange bucket filled with water — to the pond in Schenley Park and Phipps Conservatory, where they watered the plants.

Brandon Blache-Cohen, the executive director for Amizade Global Service-Learning, estimated that Amizade raised between $1,000 and $2,000 at Pitt’s Water Walk through registration fees. The money from the event will go toward a project in Santarem, Brazil, that focuses on cleaning river water.

Sara Noel, Amizade’s outreach director, said that participants of the event gained more than just awareness of water inaccessibility.

“They realized how hard it is to carry the water,” Noel said. “It makes it a more personal connection when you feel the bucket in your hand.”

Blache-Cohen said that the Water Walk has grown nationally, evolving from an event with 30 participants at the first walk in 2007 to more than 1,000 people participating in the current walks that Amizade holds across the country.

Over the past five years, the organization raised more than $10,000 for clean water projects in 11 countries through participants’ registration fees. The fees for Saturday’s event ranged from $8 for members of a group of 15 or more people to $16 for non-student community members.

Blache-Cohen said that Amizade used this money to build five 300,000-liter tanks and 16 smaller water tanks that have given more than 1,000 people access to clean water in places such as Tanzania.

Although the organization has increased the number of people with clean water, Blache-Cohen said that Amizade hasn’t completed its mission of providing underdeveloped countries with clean water just yet.

“There is a global water crisis,” Blache-Cohen said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

Natalie Capozzolo, a third-year student in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy and coordinator for the International Pharmaceutical Students’ Federation, said that the event was primarily student-run — a collaboration between undergraduate and graduate students.

Capozzolo said she heard about the Water Walk a few years ago, and after seeing that West Virginia University was hosting one this year, she went to Amizade and proposed to do a walk on Pitt’s campus. She said the Water Walk is directly related to an issue that interests her: medicine.

“Clean water is a huge public health issue,” Capozzolo said, adding that people “can’t make medicine without clean water.”

Colleen Moroney, president of Student Leaders in International Medicine, said she hoped the event spread awareness about the water issues that many people face around the world.

“Water is a resource we take for granted,” Moroney said. “As the population of the world grows, water access will be a major political issue.”