There is a popular song in my home country that goes like this: ‘Who is boooorn in Septeeeeember/ Stand up stand up stand up/ And drink the full glass/ …. Who is boooorn in Octobeeer/ Stand up stand up stand up/ And drink the full glass/ ‘etc. It goes on for every month of the year to celebrate everybody’s birthday with a drink.

We are talking about an alcoholic drink, of course. But what if we would celebrate our birthdays drinking dirty water? Maybe we wouldn’t even live to celebrate our next birthday.

If your birthday is coming up next, for example in September, how about you forget about being greedy and ask all the people that want to buy you a present to donate money for water projects? Would that make you feel better than receiving gifts, which you will anyway use two or three of?

I discovered charity: water‘s September campaign accidentally on Youtube.

It sounded like such a simple and smart idea. Just like any great idea actually! The money that one can raise at his birthday party will go to building wells in the Central African Republic and providing the Bayaka population with clean water. As one that has seen the construction of a well in a village in southern Romania, I do remember, during the first seven years of my life, the joy of reaching the water level after days of constant and tiring digging.

Besides the smart idea of this campaign of charity: water, what I also found very interesting was the story of its founder. These kind of wake up calls in people you would never expect something like it from, have the potential of changing the world.

So, what do you want for your birthday?

Picture credits: charity: water