While drawing one day, five-year-old Zora Malah’s attention was caught by a TV advert for a water charity. He asked his mummy Kiran why the people looked so sad.
When she explained to him that not everyone in the world was lucky enough to have clean water running from taps in their homes or even in their village, he asked her: “How can we help them?”
He learnt that he could ask people to donate money to his chosen cause if he set himself a challenge, and that much more money could be raised if he asked his friends to help.
And so the Super Waterboys was formed – a group of 11 five- and six-year-old Bishop’s Stortford school friends who want to help end the water crisis in their lifetime – and they came up with the idea of a Water Walk.
With their parents’ help, they formed an online fundraising team, created individual fundraising pages, telling their stories and why they want to help, and appealed to their family and friends for sponsorship.
Then on Sunday March 24, the Super Waterboys, accompanied by mums, dads and four younger siblings, set off on a 3-mile (5km) walk – the typical distance covered by families overseas who have to collect water from places like muddy or dried-up streams and then carry it home.
Starting at Bishop’s Stortford Cricket Club on Cricketfield Lane, the route took the young fundraisers into Hoggate’s Wood, off Dane O’Coys Road, and back to the cricket fields playground.
Kiran told the Indie: “Walking together the average distance that mostly children and women travel to their nearest water source for their daily water supply, some carrying water bottles, felt like a small glimpse into the lives of the people they were trying to help.
“They really enjoyed the day with their parents and younger siblings, and felt so proud that they walked such a distance, but also raised so much money together.”
The Super Waterboys have raised £2,503 for a non-profit organisation called charity: water, which was founded in 2006 with the ambitious goal of ending the global water crisis by bringing clean and safe water to people around the world. So far it has funded more than 150,000 projects in 29 countries, serving almost 18.5 million people.
Kiran said: “charity: water has promised to send them a report of where the funds will be sent, the exact project, with GPS co-ordinates, a photo and description so they can see exactly what impact they have made in the world and be inspired to continue to help others in the future.”
The boys hope the money they raised will be used to build freshwater taps or wells in villages so that other five- and six-year-olds around the world don’t have to skip school to collect water and can concentrate on being kids.
The Super Waterboys are: Zora Malah, Oliver Sweeney and Harvey Carter, all 5, and Eddie Evenden, James Duru, Arthur Sedgewick, Thomas Scadding, Freddie Ford-Jones, George Brady and Max Lowe, all 6. They were accompanied on their walk by siblings Amelia Sweeney, Rory Carter and Ted Lowe, all 3, and two-year-old Emily Brady.
If you wish to bolster the boys’ fundraising total, visit https://www.charitywater.org/teams/superwaterboys.