Professor Michael Meyer rose early to begin his 30-mile trek while many of his Accounting students remained in bed, deep in slumber filled with visions of finals to come.
Professor Meyer never met anyone from Burkina Faso. The first time he heard about the country, he did not even know where it was, but on Sunday May 1st, Meyer completed his second Walk for Water in order to raise money to build drinking wells in the landlocked African country.
Rather than simply write a check, Meyer felt called to do something, in the spirit of Pope’s Francis’ challenge to Catholics to be an instrument of God.
His inspiration to start walking to around Notre Dame’s campus to raise awareness and funds for people half way across the globe: his three young daughters.
“Rather than getting presents for her birthday, she wanted to have people come give money, to donate for a well. I said, ‘You’re six! No six year old does that,” Meyer said about how his youngest daughter got the ball rolling.
After his twin eight-year-old daughters asked for the same thing on their birthday, Meyer thought, “Okay, now I have to do something. But what to do?”
The Meyer family first learned about the plight of the people of Burkina Faso and the efforts of Engage Burkina to alleviate the problem last year at their church.
Now Meyer is somewhat of an expert, explaining that a one out of approximately every 3 children die before the age of ten and the average life expectancy for males is 51 years old and for females it is 54 years. Every year, 20,000 children under the age of five die every year from water related diseases.
Many of the health problems result from a lack of access to clean water, as a quarter of the country’s population does not have. The women of Burkina Faso often walk several miles a day to a dirty stream in order to obtain water.
This is where Meyer realized he found how he could help.
“It seems like walking is central to this whole thing,” Meyer said. He decided on 30 because it was big number and would peak the interest of people.
Not only did Meyer want to physically do something in his effort to do something for Burkina Faso, he wanted his students involved.
As an accounting teacher, Meyer knows a little something about how small amounts can grow into huge lump sums. “I wanted them to realize that nickels and dimes and pennies all add up and they can all add up to changing a village’s whole trajectory,” he said.
(Hear what Meyer had to say to his students before their final exam.)
Last year approximately 65 of his students helped him to go through the dorms and collect mostly spare change and extra dollars from students. In the end, Meyer’s walk for water collected over $5,200.
In Burkina Faso, just $2000 can build a clean water well for an entire village. With one well, the lives of an entire village can change, as noted by research conducted by Notre Dame’s Initiative for Global Development.
Though the weather was not as nice, Meyer embarked on his trek again. For 15 of the miles, he carried to heavy jugs of water to represent the women’s struggle to return the water to their homes.
This year, Meyer was confident the cause would reach its $5000 dollar goal again.
“I don’t have any predisposition that they will ever know who I am or know what Notre Dame is, and it doesn’t really matter,” says Meyer. He just hopes the people of Burkina Faso see the world’s love.
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