Gemma Bulos: A Woman Making Waves with Water

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Break barriers, reinvent your path, and redefine what's possible.

Those are just some of the mantras Gemma Boulos lives by.

She catalyzes leaders to master change and reinvent for future readiness and thrive in an unpredictable world.

As an international speaker and entrepreneur who's gotten the attention of world leaders, academics, and the United Nations, Emma has made an impact worldwide in spearheading change.

She founded three organizations on three continents.

She's spoken alongside Nobel peace laureates and world leaders, and worked for global peace as well as brought clean water and sanitation to people in Asia and Africa.

She's the founding director of the Global Women's Water Initiative, which has improved access to water and sanitation for over 500,000 people.

So far, that initiative puts women at the center of water solutions, empowering them and their families in areas where water projects have failed.

Gemma has been the vanguard of change and a coach in many places.

At colleges, nonprofits, and corporations.

Gemma inspires all who hear her.

I especially liked one of her TED talks on how to accidentally change the world.

We wanted to feature this incredible dynamo for change on our show who's empowering women and everyone, welcome.

Gemma, thank you for being with us.

I'm thrilled to be here.

I love, love, love everything you guys are about.

Oh, thank you.

This is.

And vice versa.

Yes, absolutely.

Gemma, oh, my goodness.

Your insight and what you're doing is incredible.

Your story is one that's really amazing too.

Your road to success has taken so many wonderful detours, and it all began with a song that had the metaphor of water in it.

Water plays a powerful role in your story.

Could you tell our listeners how all this evolved?

I think it's really kismet.

Did you envision the path you've taken and the impact you've made?

You're a true woman.

Road warrior for change.

Amazing.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

The story, you know, it definitely to me still feels like an accidental path.

I was a preschool teacher and a professional jazz singer in New York City.

And on Tuesday, September 11, I was supposed to be in The World Trade center, going to teach my preschool class.

When the first planes hit, the first plane hit and I called in sick, it was a very selfish, selfish thing because I just didn't want to go to work.

I.

I wasn't sick.

And so of course that day changed my life.

Everybody in New York, everybody around the world.

And what I usually do after something tragic happens, I usually try and find something that is going to help me with my healing.

And as a singer, songwriter, it was obvious for me to write a song.

And when I wrote this song, it just sort of poured out of me.

It wasn't my normal.

It wasn't my normal songwriting process.

It just felt like it.

I heard the song, I heard the chorus, I heard the choir, I heard the bass and the drums and all that stuff, and it just poured out, it wrote itself and it was in a meditation that I was able to get that song.

And also when I got, when the song came through, I also was inspired to build a million voice choir around the world to sing it because it was this really rousing anthem.

It's called We Rise.

And it's all about people coming together and rising from tragedy.

And so what I ended up doing, I left my life, gave away all my belongings, left my left rent control apartment in New York City.

I took my.

Yes, you knew I was serious, right?

Yeah.

And so I took my backpack and my guitar and I started traveling around the world with what little money I had to invite people to be part of this global peace movement.

And the invitation was to.

For them to see themselves as this powerful drop of water.

The metaphor was it takes a single drop of water to start a wave.

And so what I asked them to do was see themselves as this powerful drop of water that every thought, that every word, their every action ripples out and it does impact everyone and everything around them.

And so to use their power for good.

And so that message, because of the water metaphor, all of a sudden people started to think of me as this woman singing for water.

And I became known as the water lady.

And one of the places I know, right, and one of the places I got invited to sing was the United Nations Water for Life conference.

And from there, you know, I was here with this sort of.

I mean, I don't mean to be offensive at all to hippie dippies, but I had this hippie dippy message of, oh, we're all powerful drops of water and we can all change the world.

And meanwhile, all these experts are talking about the global water crisis and how, you know, Over a billion people didn't have access to water.

3 to 5 million people dying of water related disease every year.

And then the worst part and the hardest part for me to sort of absorb, aside from those other really tragic numbers, was that the lack of water and sanitation disproportionately affected women.

And because women are the caretakers of their families, they're the ones doing all the water related chores.

So their relationship to water is deep, deep yet.

And the kinds of challenges they have is they have to walk far distances to get water, sometimes up to eight hours a day.

When they are fetching water and bringing them back home, they've got these 42 pound jerry cans that they're carrying along with the dishes they just washed and the clothes they just washed and their kids.

So it's just, it's crazy how, how badly it affects women, especially because they are the water bearers, because they carry the burden of water on their heads and their shoulders and their backs.

Because girls get pulled into that as well.

Girls will drop out by eighth grade oftentimes because there are no water and sanitation facilities when they get their periods.

So drop out of school.

You mean drop out of school?

Yeah.

And so one out of ten at the time it was one out of eight.

Sorry, one out of ten girls dropped out of school because there were no water and sanitation facilities.

They couldn't, you know, they couldn't take care of themselves when they had their periods.

So they'd either lose a week or they'd completely drop out.

And so many of the women that we worked with didn't have an education over eighth grade.

So I want to sort of pull us back to all these things that I learned about the water crisis.

And I realized that my metaphor turned into my cause all of a sudden.

This metaphor of it takes a single drop of water to start a wave.

Water became my.

That's what I wanted to do.

I just realized, gosh, there's so much that can happen in a community, to a family, to a girl, when water and sanitation, so many more opportunities.

It can improve the economy, it can improve health, it can improve education for girls.

I mean, it can reduce the risk of violent attacks.

I mean, there's so many things that just if you just had water, all of these things can be not completely resolved, but they definitely be mitigated and reduced.

And so after I learned that, I continued to travel around the world.

There was a day that we invited people to sing We Rise from all over the planet.

That's what that was.

The name of the song.

And it was September 21, 2004.

We just celebrated the 20th anniversary of it.

It was unprecedented, this movement.

Unprecedented.

No one had ever done it before.

I had.

There was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no TikTok, nothing.

There was no social media to bring people together.

It was just email.

And it still wasn't sort of widespread.

But what I did was I invited people who used to come to my shows.

I used to perform across the nation.

And I just asked my fans, look, if I'm doing this, I'm inviting people to sing this song.

If this feels any resonant to you, just send it out and ask people to do it.

By that time, by the time September 21st came around, we had people singing from all over the globe on every hour of the day.

Yeah.

Wow.

Over 100 cities in 60 countries sang.

Jane Goodall introduced it, joined us.

Pete Seeger.

Amazing.

Yeah, it was.

We had, you know, I sang it with Pete Seeger, invited me to his house, and he made me homemade soup and.

And bread.

And he told me that he sang We Rise every morning when he walked up the side of his mountain.

And I was like, that's a huge honor.

I mean, he's a folk singer legend.

Legend, yeah.

Legend.

Peace.

Troubadour, like, so well known as that.

And he's was speaking to me like we were peers.

And I.

Oh, my God.

And then.

I know it was crazy.

And then Jane Goodall, I.

I was speaking.

I was going to be speaking and performing at the Parliament of World Religions, where all these religions come together and they try and collectively figure out how to solve some of the, you know, environmental and the world problems, because a lot of people don't trust their government leaders anymore, and so they look to their faith.

And so I was going to sing there, and I saw Jane Goodall.

I hadn't met her yet.

I saw Jane Goodall's name on the roster, and I was like, I need to meet her.

So I.

I mustered up all of my.

All of my courage and I went up to her and I said, jane, my name is Gemma.

I'm such a big fan of yours.

And she's like, gemma, I've heard all about you.

I'm like, you're Jane Goodall.

So what's funny is that we ended up seeing each other on the, you know, at many different conferences.

And so.

And that's, you know, one of the reasons why she was part of this great event.

On September 21st, we were in New York City when we sang it other Cities sang it and self organized themselves.

So anyway, after we built that September 21, 2004, that's when I completely shifted gears, started to learn what water solutions were happening in the world, what was working, what wasn't.

And then I found myself sort of stumbling upon some organizations that were training people how to build really simple technologies that could be replicated around the world using local materials so it's affordable and accessible.

And after I learned that, I got an award award from Queen Latifah and CoverGirl for women changing the world through music.

And that was the seed grant that helped me start my first organization in the Philippines.

In the Philippines, excuse me.

And she, to this day, she doesn't know how that rip.

That single drop of her money giving us.

Her giving us money rippled out and affected.

I mean you, you, you stated that we affected over 500,000 people.

It's actually over a million now.

Oh, it's over a million?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well over a million.

So, so what I did was I took that money, I brought some simple technology to the Philippines that was.

Which is my country of heritage that could clean water using local materials.

And so we, it was the first time it was ever brought to that to the country.

I started an organization really not knowing much about anything.

And then we started to get all these awards because one of the reasons why we were successful was because we didn't just focus on the technology, we focused on uplifting and upskilling the local community so that they could solve their own water crises.

And that's the most sustainable model.

And so we started to get really great success there and recognition.

In fact, I won Best Social Entrepreneur in the Philippines from Ernst Young, Best Social Entrepreneur in Asia at the World Economic Forum, which is crazy because, you know, that's where all these world leaders come together.

And it was, you know, it was just this whirlwind again, totally accidental life.

I've had these, you know, I went from being a preschool teacher to building a global peace movement and now bringing clean water and sanitation to.

Oh my goodness, I know it's bananas.

And so finally after, after we started the organization in the Philippines, we were invited by the Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari, Professor Wangari Maathai.

She was the first African woman to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize.

And she was the first.

This is the most significant.

She was the first person who was recognized for, for linking peace with environment.

She was the one who planted a million trees in Kenya.

And so she, yeah, she, we spoke with her.

She invited us to have Our training at her facility.

She spoke to our women and we started the women, the Global Women's Water Initiative program there.

We've actually renamed it.

We're now Global Women's Water and Food Academy.

We're doing that because we're teaching women water and food solutions.

And they, we, they help build their own hubs of water, sanitation and food facilities in their local community.

So there's somewhere that people can learn how to grow and increase yield in their, their farms also to bring clean water to their communities.

And so that's kind of where it is.

I know that was sort of this, you know, epic story.

I tried to.

It is an epic story, really.

Wow.

It's true Destiny.

I mean, obviously you have the most wonderful purpose on this earth and you're changing so many lives.

I really want to commend you for everything you're doing.

I'll give you a hug.

Oh yeah, I would too.

I hope we get to meet each other person day.

That would be terrific.

I'm in awe of you, Gemma.

If more people did this sort of thing, can you imagine what the world would be like?

The ripple effect?

Yes, it would.

I, you know, because this, you know, none of this stuff was done alone.

Right.

I was just the spark, just the drop, you know, the ripple stuff.

It requires, you know, all the other drops of water to, to join you.

Right.

And so this is, this is a movement.

It's not, I mean the, the part of, the part that I think is really what we're doing, aside from bringing clean water and sanitation.

The movement is about ensuring that women who are the most affected by water and sanitation are part of the solution.

Oftentimes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United nations found in one of their studies that the failure of water and sanitation projects is.

The high rate of failure of these failed water projects and water and sanitation projects is because they don't include women.

And that because they're the ones who are most affected by it.

So they, they know what they need, they know how it should be built, they know how it's going to make it easier.

And meanwhile all of these, other than women are, are coming up with the solutions that are not appropriate for them.

So I wanted to make sure that they were influential in these solutions and not only influential, but leading them.

So you're overcoming the patriarchy.

Uh huh.

Oh my gosh.

Some of the stories that we have about how men have started to.

Not even started to.

They're continuing to support women, learn from them, help them, mobilize with them.

Uplift them.

Oh, my gosh.

It's amazing.

The, the movement that we're seeing is that these women, through their water expertise, are becoming leaders in their community.

We've seen women being invited to their water boards.

We've seen women be elected to, you know, be part of the government that makes these decisions.

We've seen women, you know, some of the women that we, because I have some staff who are from Kenya and Uganda, they've been invited to the most important gatherings in the world.

Last year, one of our teammates was invited to speak at the United UN Women Commission for the Status of Women.

It's an annual event that happens at the UN in New York.

Then all four of them and myself were all invited to go to COP28, which is the largest, you know, the largest climate change conference where all world leaders come together and try and figure out how to solve a problem, the climate crisis.

So, I mean, and they, some of them had never been on, you know, before they were part of us.

They'd never been out of their countries.

They never would have imagined themselves being on these global stages.

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Welcome.

Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

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We want to help as many women as possible the song We Rise by Gemma Boulos, which has a metaphor of water that said it takes a single drop of water to start a wave, changed everything for Gemma.

That metaphor became her purpose.

Without her even realizing it, she became known as the Water lady and was invited to the United Nations Water for Life Conference.

That one song changed the course of her history as well as that of many people around the world.

She built a million voice choir singing that song 24 hours a day and a global peace movement that was intoxicating.

The song and its message even inspired folk legend and peace troubadour Pete Seeger, who sang the song every day.

A grant from Queen Latifah and Cover girl for Women Changing the world through Music was the seed money that Gemma needed to help stop the global water crisis and motivate people for change.

She's spoken alongside Nobel Peace Laureates and world leaders and worked for global peace as well as bringing clean water and sanitation projects to people in Asia and Africa.

She's the founding director of the Global Women's Water Initiative, now known as Global Women's Water and Food Academy, which has improved access to water and sanitation and food for over 1 million people.

It makes women the center of the solution.

It's empowered women who are the primary caretakers and carriers of water, which is a laborious process that takes hours.

By uplifting and upskilling the community to solve their own water crisis, this has liberated women.

Gemma's work ensures that women who are the most affected by water and sanitation are part of the solution and become masters of their own destiny.

With Gemma's work, women are empowered and so are their families.

The women, through their water expertise, are also becoming leaders in their communities and speaking on the global stage.

Gemma's ripple effect has truly been miraculous.

Gemma, you've created a tidal wave of empowerment for women.

You know, you really have.

It's more than a ripple.

It's amazing what these women have done.

Like I was homeless for a week and during that week is back in 2011.

That's when I realized realized the the importance of water or the Lack of it, because these homeless people, just businesses don't want to give them water because then, you know, you get a whole collection.

It's like, it's a thing, right?

It's very hard to get water.

So once I got my job, I started Operation Hydration and is shocking to see in every city that I go to on the hottest days of the year, I load up whatever vehicle or whatever rental vehicle I have with, with ice cold water and, and you know, just tons.

And I, and I go around the alleys and I put a big sticker, you know, like free water.

The lineups of people that are racing for water.

It is unbelievable to me.

And here's the interesting thing, is that when I look at the difference between the women and the men coming for the water, you can see that the women are almost creating, they're thinking ahead, okay, well, I need this for that and this for that.

And so they're filling up their containers, their cups, going to find dishes.

They are asking me if they could keep my cooler when I'm done.

It's really interesting to see.

And I mean, what I'm doing is just very small in grand scheme of things.

But I make sure that I do it in every single city that I go to and I try and hope that other people will continue with what I do.

So, yeah, I see the need and thank you for everything that you do.

Oh my gosh, that's absolutely wonderful.

Because you don't.

I mean, we don't.

We can turn on the tap and turn it off when we want.

Right.

We don't think about it.

You don't think about it at all.

The amount of water that is used to flush a toilet is sometimes more water than people have around the world.

Just a flushy toilet.

Imagine how many times you're flushing the toilet.

And you know, when some people who've never really known about toilets that flush, they're like, you use water, clean water to flush your, your waist, you know, and, and they're barely getting enough water just to drink.

So, yeah, it's, it's kind of, it's astounding.

And it's so, and I don't think people see really the depth and how many tentacles the water touches.

You know, I mean, just, I mean, one of the statistics that really, really disturbs me was that when women and girls have to walk distances to fetch water, you know, off, it's, you know, it's not a road.

They're going to have easy, easy, you know, ways to walk it.

It's this rugged road, sometimes it's uphill, sometimes it's downhill.

But in doing that, they're at risk for violent attacks and even rape.

That's right, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, some girls in schools, there are high rates of pregnancy pregnancies.

Because when they are the ones who have to fet the schools, they, there are, there are incidences of them getting pregnant.

Predators.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Being attacked.

Oh, it's terrible.

Terrible.

It's awful.

I mean, and you wouldn't, you would not connect those two.

You wouldn't think, oh, they don't have water and oops, there's, you know, there's some sexual predators out there attacking our young girls and women.

Right.

You know, and water has become a political issue and a power issue.

I've heard the term water is the new oil.

And you have organizations trying to take control of it, too.

Yeah.

Potable water is scarce across the world.

People don't think about that.

And it's a power struggle.

And if you deny people water, they can't be empowered.

It's terrible.

It's very terrible.

Yeah.

And so this has been happening for decades.

You know, there are water corporations.

There are actually.

No, they're organizations.

So what ended up happening is that many water facilities, many, if there are any, and then places where there's no access to it.

When developing countries get loans, international loans for, you know, to develop.

Right.

They will.

Oftentimes there's a clause in there that says, you know, we'll give you the loan if you give us ownership of your water.

And so they put contractors out there and they sell it to like, the Pepsis and the, you know, these, these multinational corporations.

And so then they own it.

They are the ones who are supposed to be maintaining it and refreshing it and revitalizing it.

And then they are the ones who make the money from it so it becomes privatized.

And that's one of the biggest challenges is because these developing countries have no choice but to do that.

And oftentimes they see it as an opportunity rather than in the long run, it's going to completely get them, you know, put the organizations, the financial institutions, the companies, the international companies in control of their most valuable resource.

Yeah, it's really, it's.

And it's even happening here in the United States.

Oh, yeah, I was going to mention that.

Yeah.

Water rights are a big deal in areas of the U.S.

yeah.

So I'm going to give you an example of two different times.

Communities actually protested and tried to stop these multinationals for coming in.

So There were two scenarios.

There is one in there.

It was a town somewhere in the, on the east coast in the United States.

They were trying to get Coca Cola because Coca Cola was going to come in and privatize their water.

They were trying to, they were trying to get them out so that the, the, the, the water could still be a public trust.

Then there was another community in Kerala, India, in the southern part of India that was doing the same thing with Coca Cola, trying to make sure that they didn't take their water rights.

Who do you think?

The.

One of them failed and one of them did not fail.

Who do you think failed?

I don't know.

The United States.

Oh, really?

Yes.

Okay.

I know they failed.

I wonder what pockets were lined with that, you know.

You know, you got to imagine.

I mean, look at even what happened with Flint.

Oh my God, the Flint water.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Astoundingly like it was, it was the.

I mean, it just tells you that's, that's the road we can be going down if we still, we continue to allow, you know, no government regulation for corporations contaminating our water.

I mean, that's, that really is the, is the crux of it.

And it's so hard for, you know, for, for communities to protest it.

Look at the, the, you know, that this happened like over a decade ago when this, this town lost its rights.

The one in Kerala, they found some sort of ancient, you know, law loophole that actually said no Internet, you know, nobody can come in and take their water rights.

And so they, they actually won against Coca Cola, the biggest, you know, one of the biggest multinational corporations in the world.

Well, you know, and it makes sense you'd want to maintain your water rights.

That's national security.

That's what you mean.

Absolutely.

Without water, we cannot survive.

Oh yeah.

Without, you know, if, and, and if it needs to be safe, we, I mean, you know, that's the whole thing around the work that we do in sub Saharan Africa and Asia.

It's like, sure, you can have access to water, but does that doesn't mean it's safe.

So.

And if you have, if your water's not safe, then sanitation is not there either.

Because sanitation is environmental cleanliness.

And then if you don't have clean water, then you can't really take care of yourself.

Then hygiene is all connected.

So the term wash water, sanitation and hygiene, that's what we refer to in our development world or at least in our sector, because you cannot just put a well into a community and think it's gonna Solve everything because that, you know, you need to have access to water, that water needs to be safe.

And if, if you don't have access to water and it's not safe, then you're at risk of water related disease.

If you have safe water but you don't have good sanitation, your water can get contaminated, you know, there's definitely risk of disease again.

And then if you have sanitation but you don't have good hygiene and you're not taking care of yourself, there's a risk of, of getting a water related disease.

So, you know, they're all connected.

You cannot address a problem with a well.

Then that's what we train the women to do.

We train them to be able to solve all three of those four of those issues.

Water access, water safe water, sanitation and hygiene.

They learn how to build water tanks and they're learning how to build spring development boxes.

They are.

They know how to build water filters, they know how to build latrines, and they know how to, they train even like the US Peace Corps how to train their communities that they're in how to practice good hygiene practices.

So they have to do it all.

Which is why I call, that's why we talk about it as hubs of expertise.

Because you can't just solve this problem with the.

Well.

Yes.

So yeah, it's, it's.

And so the, our women know how to do all of it.

And they can make these material, they can make all of these technologies with local materials.

And they are simple enough and we train them simply enough so they can do it in, you know, so they can do it.

And they've never, and meanwhile they've never picked up a shovel before, never picked up a trowel before, never laid a brick, never mixed foot cement.

Now they're like climbing ladders which used to be forbidden for women to even get on one of those.

Oh really?

Climbing ladders?

Oh, yeah.

Climbing water?

Yeah, climbing it was, you know, it was taboo in these communities.

And then what I love about water is that it's, it's a mobilizing force.

You know, you can, the thing is, when you bring clean water, there's, there's total agreement amongst the entire community.

Yeah, we need it.

So it doesn't matter who's bringing it, but we need it.

And so when these women are leading these, these projects, it's so amazing, like I said, to see some of these, you know, men support them in the entire community.

Can I tell you a story about one of the things, and this is not about water, but this is about hygiene, but it's okay.

So there was a community that we were working in in Kenya, a very small village.

And our women were building a rainwater harvesting system and a tank on this preschool.

And that's usually a good time when something big is happening in the community to be able to invite them to gather.

And so the invitation from our facilitators, from one of my staff members, was, if you want to improve your community, come to this meeting.

And so what they did was, you know, that went out to the preschool students, that went out to the families.

And then people who showed up, the first thing they saw were women climbing ladders and building a tank.

And so already their minds going, what's going on?

What are we doing here?

They get into this room, there's probably about 50 of them.

And you know, my colleague, she process.

She moves them through, facilitates them through this process where she asked them, if you were.

If God were to give you the choice, you could only have one child, what would it be?

A man, a girl or a boy?

And so it was an anonymous thing everybody wrote down.

And then when we looked at the.

At the little sheets, it was, you know, of course, not unanimous, but the majority was met a little boy.

Right.

And so she then led them through a process of, okay, let's look at what men do, and then let's look at what women do.

And say they listed the men's first.

It was, you know, it was a good list.

But when they listed all the things that women do, it was like three times as long.

Right?

And so the revelation that they had, that this community had was like, oh, my goodness, what we need.

And look at all the.

What women are doing.

What we need to do to improve our communities is to empower our women.

That's what they came out with.

We didn't say, hey, you guys need to do this, right?

This is what they came out with after going through this process.

So what did they do after that?

What is preventing them from doing this work, you know, doing being uplifted and productive?

And then they realized part of it was women and girls having their periods because they were, you know, there were a lot of temp.

There were a lot of superstitions around it.

There were, you know, there was no access to the right materials for women to deal with it.

They'd have to stay home, and the girls would have to stay.

Stay home.

And so what they realize is that's the thing they have to solve in order for them to start supporting women.

And so what did they do after that?

In that same session, they started making reusable menstrual pads.

And because we have the all, we were definitely leading them that way, but that we wanted them to come to it on their own.

And I think what was the most stunning act of love that I've ever seen were these men sewing these.

These reusable menstrual pads for their wives and daughters.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We.

We called the project, you know, we put the men in menstruation.

I love it.

You know what I love more is.

The fact that you called it an act of love, because that's exactly what it is.

Yeah.

It really is such a radical act of love.

They really challenged themselves.

You know, it shifted their mindset.

It did.

Oh, it's huge.

And it's taking the stigma off of things.

Yes.

I want to come with you on your next project.

My God.

Yeah.

I would love to talk about that work.

Probably going to be there in September.

And, you know, expect to get dirty because we're building.

You know what I do for a living.

Right.

I get dirty.

So we're good.

Excellent, Excellent.

Kathy has a big sandbox.

I play in the mud all the.

Time, so I'm good.

I love that.

Stay tuned for more of Women Road warriors coming up.

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Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

Every single action you have has a ripple effect.

Every word and every action ripples out.

And it does have an impact on everyone around you.

So you need to use your power for good.

That message has resonated with millions of women who've encountered Gemma Boulos in her speaking engagements or with her nonprofit, the Global Women's Water Initiative, now known as Global Women's Water and Food Academy.

It's improved access to water and sanitation and food to over 1 million people in Asia and Africa.

That's empowered women who have to walk miles to fetch water every day.

Gemma is a true champion who's making history and changing the trajectory for women and their future survival and success.

Her efforts with water are a mobilizing force, leveling the playing field and empowering entire communities and especially women.

Gemma, you really are amazing with everything you've accomplished.

Can I tell you one more story that is just.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

Like I said, I didn't want to ramble in the beginning.

Oh, you've got great stories.

So they're one of the women that we trained, she was a.

She was a nurse and she used to work at a dispensary.

So just to be clear, there are three levels of health facilities and villages.

There's the dispensary, there's the clinic, and then there's the teaching clinic.

So the dispensary is just where you can get some treatment and they distribute some medicines and other things, but they are only open a certain amount of time.

In order for them to be promoted to a clinic, they have to have water on site 24 7.

And some health facilitator needs to be living on, you know, around it.

And then to become, to be promoted to the top one, they have to be a functioning, a functioning, you know, facility.

And they also need to have.

Oh, I'll, I'll tell this part later because it's the, it's the surprise part of this, this story.

So she was working at a, at a dispensary, this nurse, and she brought clean water.

They built two water and sanitation water tanks.

They built toilets, and they made water filters so that this facility had everything it needed to be able to function.

Because before they built those tanks and all those other projects, if, if somebody came in that required water for the treatment, if a patient came in and they required water to treat them, they would have to walk four hours back and forth.

So one way.

So it was eight hours going to get water so that they could treat them.

Bringing the water right on the campus was game changing.

And so once some of the community members started to hear that there was water there, the very first couple, a man who had heard there was water, brought his pregnant wife to give birth there.

Meanwhile, you know, there was a lot of issues of, of women not, you know, there, there, there was mortality around women birthing outside of a medical facility facility.

And so because they had water, there's first woman came, she had her baby there.

And then more and more women started to come.

And because of that, the Kenyan government gives money for, for every live birth.

And so they started to get money in.

AMREF came in and started to give them money.

They were able not only to, to start giving, you know, giving birthing services, but they there were then able to build a maternal health center.

Oh wow.

And yeah.

And then because they, they won the regional, most the best, I think it was called the best organized or best run facility.

And then they became a teaching, a teaching clinic.

And then the woman who, the nurse who brought it in the first place, they pulled her and put, and actually brought her to a nurse, another dispensary.

And she did the same thing.

And she did the same thing again after that.

And so one of our goals as Global Women's Water and Food Academy is to be able to replicate that across Africa.

The minute you have health facilities local that can provide the best services without having to go to a big city for, you know, to go to a big hospital, that's when we start seeing major change in communities.

How do people get involved with the Global Women's Water and Food Academy?

Because I'm sure you need more and more help to keep this ripple, this tidal wave going.

Yeah.

The best way to get involved with Global Women's Water and Food Academy is to go to our website.

Our website is Global Women's Water Food and we.

You'll.

You can sign up for the mailing list.

You can.

There's going to be ways for you to volunteer.

There are opportunities to join us in the field.

Absolutely.

Donations are always welcome.

We train women across East Africa right now, but we are going to be expanding into different regions.

So West Africa, Southern Africa and then hopefully hopefully Asia next.

So we want to be able, now that we've proven this concept, we want to be able to replicate these everywhere.

Because the more women we have as solutionaries who are out there leading the charge, the more our communities will thrive and the better the economic opportunities as well as the economy in their local community and then just culture change.

I think one of the most exciting pieces of where when women are building things on like, you know, that preschool, for example, or an elementary school or a local facility, right.

When they're building these and they're seeing Boys and girls seeing women constructing these things at their schools, they're growing up understanding that this is going to be normal, that this is normal.

To see women building tanks, to see women constructing things, it's.

It's going to change the culture because they're.

We're normalizing it, and the next generation is going to be like, oh, yeah, women.

Women do that.

Oh, I can do that too.

Right.

We see girls saying, you know, saying to our.

To the women that we train, I want to be like you when I grow up.

And they're understanding that they can be.

They can do.

That's an option for them.

This is phenomenal.

Can people also go to globalwomenswater.org because I see that that's a website as well.

Yes, yes.

All those links will go.

Will be pointed there.

So global women's water.

And then, yeah, Global women's water is the best way.

Oh, my goodness.

Gemma.

There's so many things we want to talk to you about, Emmy, but you've had us captivated about water.

Do you have some nuggets for women on how they can have some of your wonderful inspiration?

I mean, you're phenomenal.

Oh, you're sweet.

You know, one of the things that we did when we created this, this space for women to learn, we told them the very beginning is, you're going to fail.

We expect you to fail.

We want you to fail, especially.

I mean, how can you not?

You've never picked up a shovel.

You've never picked up a trowel.

You don't know anything about construction.

We need you to fail here so you don't fail out there.

And so that's so metaphorically that to me is we need to build women communities who are allowing them that space to stumble and learn and fail and be supported by it.

Because failure is data.

Failure is where we can learn the most.

If you get something right the first time, you're not going to know how it worked.

When you stumble and you fail, you are dissecting it and trying to figure out what happened.

And so there's way more learning there.

So creating spaces for women to fail because they can't.

Look at all these men who are like crashing big companies, and they get opportunities to do it again, and women can't do it.

They have one chance and they're done.

We probably gain more strength from our mistakes than we do our victories, when you think about it.

Indeed.

Yeah.

It improves us.

And that's the whole process of life.

A mistake is not a failure.

Yeah.

And you know, and if you don't accomplish something, do it again.

Try, try, try again.

Right, Exactly.

And like I said, you know, mistakes and failure are data.

That's right.

Giving you information.

I love that.

Gemma, before we wrap this up, you have some sort of conference coming up for World Water Day.

I believe it's called Woman Water warriors, which I think is too cool.

It's a lot like the title of our show.

Exactly when is that?

What's that all about?

Yeah, I'm going to be at the UN Women Commission on the Status of Women.

It's an annual event on March 21, which is the day before World Water Day, will be hosting an online event to share information and things that we learn there and our vision of and plans and future for global women's Water and food Academy.

And the event is called Women Water Warriors.

I love it.

So we'd love for you to join us.

You can just go to the website, sign up for the newsletter, and we'll let you know how to get involved.

Terrific.

Another reason people need to get involved.

That's great, Gemma.

We would love to have you back just to pick your brain.

I love your inspiration and your whole perspective.

It's terrific.

You're a game changer for the world.

Oh, this is terrific.

I'm coming with you.

That's it.

Official.

Amazing.

Amazing.

Like I said, prepare to get dirty.

Oh, yeah.

We're gonna talk after this.

Thank you, Gemma.

You've shared some wisdom and some information that I don't think a lot of people are thinking about and hopefully gotten a lot of people motivated who listened to this interview.

Thank you so much.

It was a pleasure being here.

Thank you, Gemma.

We hope you've enjoyed this latest episode.

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You've been listening to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

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