The students gathered around the table, giggling as they selected multicolored plastic beads and threaded them onto pipe-cleaner bracelets.

It’s a scene that’s familiar to Denver Water’s Youth Education team, which has worked with nearly 86,000 students and adults in public and private schools across Denver Water’s service and collection areas since the program started in 2007. 

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But this lesson about the water cycle — and how water molecules move between clouds, rain and snow, rivers and lakes, plants and soil and back into the clouds — took place thousands of miles from Denver, in a classroom outside of the African city of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. 

The students, ages 8 to 18 years old, were enrolled in Soweto Academy, a school founded in 1983 in Kibera, a 20-minute drive from Nairobi and considered the largest slum in Africa and home to about 200,000 people. 

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“They loved the lesson; they had so much fun and are so eager to learn,” said Eddie McCarthy, a customer relations field senior technician at Denver Water since 2012. McCarthy travels the utility’s service area checking metering equipment and responding to customer concerns. 

McCarthy spent about two weeks in Africa in September with his son and wife, Susan, who has helped support the school since 2011, when she engaged with The Hudgings Foundation, a nonprofit that does its work under the name “Wells of Wisdom” and is dedicated to helping Soweto Academy and its students. 

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“We talked about how water moves through the air and soil, and then we told them to ‘be the water molecules’ and move through the different stations we had set up,” McCarthy said. 

“The boys and girls were picking up beads, with the different colors symbolizing the different parts of the water cycle — brown beads for dirt or soil, green for plants, blue for the air, white for glaciers. They loved moving around the classroom and asking lots of questions.” 

The school revolves around water, with a natural spring of mineral-rich, healthy water on its grounds. 

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In the picture above are, from left: Moses Muchwanju, the school principal; Pastor Chris Okumu, who founded the academy; Teresa Campos (in front holding the poster), a project scientist at the The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder; Eddie McCarthy and Jake Alderman of DBC Irrigation Supply in Denver. 

Over the years, Wells of Wisdom has raised $25,000 to drill a well into the spring, and later raised an additional $15,000 to purchase and install a bottling machine for the water, which the school sells under the name “Exquisite.” 

The foundation also raised $600,000 through its Kibera Girls Education Fund to build a dormitory for the school’s female students, a school hall and a kitchen. The school celebrated the opening of the new facilities in July 2017. Currently, more than 200 girls are safely housed in the dormitory.

“I support the school because I’m passionate about education and see it as a way to reduce poverty and improve the lives of generations to come,” said Susan McCarthy. 

“And when you bring a group from the U.S. to Kenya, they experience firsthand the passion of the teachers and the children despite the poverty around them. The group always returns inspired to make a difference,” she said. 

Meet Denver Water’s Youth Education team. 

As Eddie McCarthy prepared for the September trip, he reached out to Denver Water’s Youth Education team, which was happy to share some of the lesson plans and the teacher training the team has developed over the years. 

“Understanding how water behaves, interacts and travels in the natural world is the foundation of so many other areas of study — from science to civics to art. And it’s universal in any community anywhere in the world,” said Matt Bond, who manages Denver Water’s Youth Education team. 

“It’s humbling to know Denver Water can help students next door — or a world away from us — learn about the water we all need,” Bond said. 

McCarthy said he and his fellow teachers planned on sharing the lessons with about 150 students, and ended up teaching more than 200 boys and girls.

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“We ran out of beads. I had stickers that read ‘I’m a water hero’ and we ran out of those. We had Denver Water pencils, and we ran out of those,” McCarthy said. 

“They loved learning about Denver and water, and how the water we get here comes down from the mountains. Thank you to Denver Water for allowing us to share these materials with the students. 

“Just like the water cycle, it was an incredible journey.” 

If you are interested in learning more or contributing to Wells of Wisdom please contact Susan McCarthy at WellsOWisdom@gmail.com.