We are excited to announce that We Walk For Water 2022 is officially happening! Led by Mrs. Juska and seniors Alicia Eder, Grace Galgano, and Rory Charbonneau, Brewster High School will continue to fight the Water Crisis in South Sudan. Many citizens of South Sudan do not have access to clean water and have to travel long distances in the hot sun just to get enough water to last their families the day. This water is often unclean and unfiltered, causing disease among those who drink it.

In 2018, the seniors listed above were just freshmen students in Mrs. Juska’s class that read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They were inspired by Nya’s daily journeys to walk to get water for her family. Nya walked from 8-9:30 in the morning to the pond, from 9:30-11 back home, from 11:30-1 in the afternoon to the pond again, and then from 1-2:20 back home. She spent the majority of her day walking to get unfiltered water for her and her family while we have access to clean, filtered, disease-free water right from the faucets in our homes.

Eight of Mrs. Juska’s students decided to do something about it. They created the Girls Walk For Water service project where they took the day off from school to walk the Brewster track for six hours to symbolize the journey that girls in South Sudan take daily. They publicized their walk and fundraised over $9,000 for the drilling of wells in South Sudan.

In 2019, Mrs. Juska’s students read They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky by three Sudanese refugees: Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, Benjamin Ajak, and their mentor, Judy A. Bernstein. Led by the previous year’s Girls Walk for Water participants, they created the We Walk for Water 2020 service project, including any Mrs. Juska’s freshmen students who wanted to participate. While plans had to be modified due to COVID, students walked the six hours on their own and tracked their individual walks using watches and apps. They also used a fundraising website where they raised over $3,000. In 2020, students were able to raise almost another $3,000 for the cause. Students were able to raise enough money for three wells to be drilled in South Sudan. These wells provide fresh, clean, accessible water for the people of South Sudan.

This year, we are in the process of preparing for our fourth annual walk, We Walk for Water 2022. We will be walking the BHS track on May 26th and will be working to meet our goal of $5,000 in hopes of sponsoring a fourth well in South Sudan.