Creating Opportunity for Families in the Eastern Region of Ghana

Not only did we love the bright colored pants he rocked at the Inbound 2013 conference, but we couldn’t get enough of his Australian accent. Paull Young is the Director of Digital at charity: water, where he inspires action through online engagement and creativity. charity:  water has funded 8,944 water projects in 20 countries by engaging more than 34,000 people. This week, they launched their September campaign with the goal of providing clean, safe water to 100 villages in Orissa, India.

 Lauren Grimanis got to chat with him this week at Inbound 2013 in Boston.

 

What is the most exciting thing about Inbound 2013?

For me it’s about watching people get excited about our September campaign for Orissa, India. Orissa is a very remote area of India. No one in this room has probably ever thought about the people of Orissa. So the fact that this room, here, is connecting to make a change over there – that gets me pretty inspired.

 

What is your favorite social media channel?

 “I got a lot of love for twitter.”

I like twitter a lot. I moved to America 6 years ago – I didn’t know a soul and twitter had just started. My first weekend in America, my life was very different, I was totally alone. I called my family after a week because I’d been busy and hadn’t been able to check in. They already knew all these little things like my reaction to my first American coffee and how I was getting lost on the subway. I had this lightbulb moment and since then it’s been about friendships and I stay connected with Australia through twitter. My family knows a lot about my life because of twitter, even though I only get to talk to them once a week because of different time zones. So, I got a lot of love for twitter. 

 

What is your favorite country you’ve been to with charity: water?

Central African Republic (CAR). The first September campaign I ever worked on was for CAR. We raised a million dollars for the Bayaka people there. The founder of the organization, ICDI International, we support is a really close friend of mine and I think best human I’ve ever met, Jim Hocking. He’s kinda like older, Christian Indian Jones. He’s got the bigger heart I’ve ever seen. I went to CAR with him after we fundraised. We went back to the Moale village where in 2010 we did a live drill on our birthdays, September 7. Jim had been trying to get water there for 15 years and he failed 3 times. They tried to dig and they didn’t get deep enough, the driller ran out of drill stem before the aquifer. It was basically forty stories of sand so the drill rig was going in and then they would pull out the drill bit and go to pack it and it would just collapse, like when you dig in sand at the beach.  So this was supposed to be this big inspirational high point of the campaign and instead it was a very sad story of failure. We went back there with a special mud truck with a geologist from Canada to work on it. For a week we camped in the Moale village, which I connected with in story but never in person. We’re deep in the jungle, we’ll living with the Bayaka, sleeping in tents, working on the drill bit, making a story and we hit water the last day. And it was hard, we thought we might go for nothing. After the first day I was talking with the geologist and I’m asked, “ how hard is this?” The first day the geologist said it was a 7 or 8 difficulty (out of 10). The second day he came back, we were around a camp fire, and he said it was the hardest side he’d ever drilled in. And he had dug hundreds of wells all around the world.

That experience was very special to me. CAR is at the bottom of human development indexes, they’re forests are basically getting raped by loggers. Right now it’s in rebellion. They have no roads no government no electricity but they are the most beautiful people I’ve ever met.

Watch this story:

“…they are the most beautiful people I’ve ever met.”

 

What is the best online interaction you’ve had that makes you love what you do?

I have a lot. The best – it’s always the kids. The most personally impactful and powerful is about a girl named Rachel Beckwith who gave up her 9^th birthday. The pastor of her church was in Central African Republic with us in Moale and when we came back, we leanred Rachel had been in a car accident and she lost her life. It was very sad time for the community and Rachel’s parents. They asked to reopened the Rachel’s campaign: she was trying to raise $300 for her 9^th birthday. People started to give and eventually raised 1.2 million dollars in ,2 months, in her memory.  And since then I’ve become very close with her mother, her little sister and her family. I never met Rachel in person but Rachel is the pinnocle for me. Rachel’s story has been extremely impactful to my entire life.

 

What has been your favorite charity: water campaign that you’ve launched?

Central African Republic, for the reasons above. I’m also very excited about this year in India. Every September campaign is special to me. I found charity: water through the September campaign: I have a September birthday and in 2008 I heard about this idea of giving up your September birthday for clean drinking water on twitter. Because finding the September campaign literally changed my life and every year we get to launch a new one, it’s my favorite day of the year. My team always jokes with me because I get pretty pumped.

Paull Young is giving up his birthday this year too! If he raises $30,000 for his 30th birthday, he’ll run the Philadelphia half marathon in a speedo. 

 

What is your favorite type of person to work with?

It’s the kids. I’m a very positive person, I fundamentally believe people are good and my job reinforces that all the time.  Because the people that do things for charity: water are amazing. Everyday I see people doing amazing things, coming up and saying I want to help or I open my email and someone else is starting a campaign. Just this morning, a friend of mine gave me $1,000 bucks for my birthday campaign. The fact that people care like that blows me away but when it’s a little person, you can see these little 7 year old kids, they just get that everyone should drink clean water. It’s very simple to them.

“Kids just get it.”

One of my favorite stories is when Hugh Jackman joined twitter, his first tweet was about making a donation to charities based on twitter replies.  And we’d been just doing Twestival so we were all over twitter. He ended up giving $50,000 to us. We built a few wells, named them after his kids and sent him photos and reports. His wife sent us a letter about how she went into the kitchen and their little kid was getting bottled water from the fridge and putting it in a little radio-fire car.  And she asked, “what are you doing?” Her child responded, “it’s for the kids in Africa.”  Kids just get it.

 

How many times have you done the Waterwalk? 

The Waterwalk let’s people experience what millions must do everyday to provide water for their families (with a much shorter distance, sometimes in heels).

I actually haven’t done it at the Inbound conference. We normally do this at our Charity Ball in New York so I’ve jumped up there a few times. Typically I try to get as many donors up there. But I’ve lugged jerry cans all around the country: South by Southwest in Austin and Made in America music festival in Philadelphia. I’ll probably even take one to Sydney at the end of the year.

 

What do most people not know about charity water or digging wells?

Digging wells is so complex and people don’t realize that. We’re very good communicators – at charity:water we simplify things so people can know there’s a water crisis. We as westerners don’t know the water crisis and we don’t understand it. So there’s a need to make it simple and in many ways it is. We can access water in ways we know how but at the same time it’s incredibly complex under the surface. Keeping a well pumping and working in developing countries where there’s no roads, no electricity, no access to goods or marketplaces – all those things are so hard to do. We work very hard to make it beautiful, simple and easy for people. Our partners are working hard for the same goal, but there’s an added world of complexity. Which, when you get into it is very interesting and intriguing but people don’t really see that.

“Digging wells is so complex, and people don’t realize that.”