Everyday Encounters: A youth ambassador walks to support clean-water initiatives

Tiburon resident Leila Al-Moosa, 15, walks her dog May 27 at Blackie’s Pasture. A freshman at The Branson School in Ross, Al-Moosa is a youth ambassador for WaterAid. (Tyler Callister / The Ark)

Tiburon teen Leila Al‑Moosa was in fifth grade when she organized her first fundraiser for WaterAid, an international nongovernmental organization that provides clean drinking water and hygiene education to countries such as Ethiopia, India and Zambia.

She and 19 of her peers at Marin Country Day School completed the organization’s “Walk for Water Challenge,” carrying 2.5-gallon containers of water for four miles, representing the average distance that women and girls in developing countries walk daily to collect water. Their goal was to raise $10,000.

“Women will have to leave school in about third grade and completely stop their education in impoverished places and families in order to go walk and collect water,” she says.

Now 15 and a freshman at The Branson School in Ross, Leila is a youth ambassador for WaterAid. She continues to participate annually in the “Walk for Water Challenge,” completing this year’s challenge May 31.

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