In January of 2015 we introduced you to the superstar ONE member Eva Tolage when she was just 14 years old and already calling out world leaders to adopt the Global Goals. Now, she’s 16, and has made it her mission to make sure world leaders are being held accountable by demanding that clean water should be provided to her village.
Eva’s story mobilised over 150,000 people to sign a letter asking Tanzanian leaders to supply the Malinzanga village with clean water – even President Obama heard and responded to her plea! Check out the video below!
INSPIRING: Thank you @POTUS for sharing Eva’s story! Read more here: http://t.co/IdjrmMWP86 #UNGA #GlobalGoals pic.twitter.com/pIdH6UIUBM
— ONE (@ONECampaign) September 27, 2015
This was a huge moment for Eva and for her campaign with Restless Development & ONE, but, despite all of this action, Eva is still waiting for her well.
Around the world girls like Eva make an impossible choice every day: risk their personal safety to get water or go without. This won’t change until world leaders take action and deliver a plan to provide all households with easy access to safe drinking water. That’s why Eva is asking President Obama to lend his voice once again to help amplify and remind other world leaders of why achieving the Global Goals is so important.
You can read Eva’s letter to Obama below:
HONOURABLE PRESIDENT OBAMA
I am grateful that you were able to read my letter. It made my heart so happy and joyous to hear your reply at the UN General Assembly in which the presidents agreed to end poverty, climate change and gender inequality. My village leaders and neighbours were very shocked to hear that the President of United States of America was telling a 15 year old girl from Tanzania these words, “Eva and millions of other girls like you, we have heard your plea and we see you.”
I wrote my letter to you because my friends and I usually walk 7 km every day to search for clean water in dangerous environments. We face the possibility of being raped by men that we don’t know who have bad habits or even getting eaten by wild animals on our way. We need a well so that my village can get access to clean and safe water, and so that we get enough time to study at school, because we often come late to school. We found out that the Global Goals commit to providing clean and safe water and quality education to everyone, so we asked for those promises to be fulfilled in my village called Malinzanga.
After you replied to my letter, my friends and I started campaigning in my village for access to clean and safe water. At the same time, we shared a global petition through social media. I hope that one day my village will be able to access clean and safe water because many people in my country and globally support this campaign from Tanzania. We managed to get 150,000 signatures from different people in just 4 months.
Before this petition, I never had the opportunity to go to our national parliament, but through my campaign, I travelled to Dodoma, our country’s capital city. I felt very happy and privileged to be there and to present my petition. The environment there is good, so I enjoyed myself a lot. I wish to become a member of parliament someday. I presented my petition in front of the Prime Minister of Tanzania and other young people from Tanzania joined hands with me.
I am still campaigning for my village to get a well, which will give us clean and safe water and quality education. I realised that every young person I met during my campaign needed the same thing; that the promises made by our leaders and presidents need to be fulfilled, especially those which sit within the Global Goals.
Thank you very much for answering my letter and I have a few more questions to ask you and presidents from other nations – Can you help young people like me to remind world leaders, like our President in Tanzania and the next President of the USA, of the promises they have made to achieve the Global Goals? Can you support us to amplify our voices when asking world leaders to deliver on these promises?
Thank you for reading my letter,
It’s me, Eva Tolage
