The World Vision Foundation, Walk For Water, & More.

September 23, 2023

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/world-vision-podcast/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:47] What is a World Vision Foundation?

[00:05:40] The story behind The Walk for Water

[00:15:20] How much money gets raised and how are the funds used?

[00:21:19] What is the THRIVE program?

[00:27:22] Biblical-empowered worldview training

[00:31:22] What are girls and women doing in the renewed communities?

[00:34:15] External academic monitoring and evaluating partners

[00:36:28] Building and maintaining the water supply

[00:45:02] The ability of going on trips with World Vision

[00:51:31] Supplying clean water to schools and health clinics

[00:54:27] How to connect with World Vision?

[00:59:36] End of Podcast

[01:01:58] Legal Disclaimer

Ben:  My name is Ben Greenfield. And, on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

Randy:  Women are the most amazing entrepreneurs, and they take more risks on behalf of the family because they’re the ones that are tasked with raising up the children. And, the biblical empowered worldview brings husbands and wives together as they see themselves as how God sees them to be to each other, not having been forced together through broken societal norms. And, by the way, World Vision never imposes Western norms on other cultures. World Vision’s focus is to help bring out the best norms of that culture for itself.

Ben:  Right.

Randy:  And so, when you empower women, it’s statistically proven that as women advance in a culture so the country goes. So, the country advances. So, women become the greatest entrepreneurs and income generators. And then, their husbands see them as, “Wow, you were an equal little partner in this.” It’s not all on me, you’re not a possession that’s an extra mouth to feed, you’re actually a partner. And, they see themselves as God sees themselves to be to each other.

Ben:  Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

Man, let me tell you a little bit about this episode. It was fantastic. I don’t talk about this a lot on the podcast, but a proceeds of the money that we bring in through Ben Greenfield Life goes to support this foundation called World Vision. World Vision has been around since the ’50s, it’s a relief and development organization, one of the largest in the U.S. actually and they were founded back in the ’50s by this young American evangelist minister, a Christian minister who the Youth for Christ missionary movement had sent to China and Korea in the late ’40s. And, he came back and he started World Vision because while he was overseas, he was moved by this one little girl and wanted to somehow guarantee that she would be provided with some kind of a monthly stipend to be able to provide for her and care for her.

I read the story of their president, Rich Stearns who was their president back in 2017, I think, was so moved by his book called “Hole in the Gospel” that we adopted, like a distance adoption, this little Ethiopian girl named [00:02:58] _____. And, we sent her cards and letters and gifts each month as the Greenfield family, but then also with Ben Greenfield Life, what I wanted to do was really support World Vision, which initially began focusing on just orphans and children back there in the ’50s. But now, they do food, clothing, medical care, and as you’re about to hear in this episode, a huge amount of clean water worldwide for shockingly low cost. And, that is what we talk about in this podcast. 

We had just finished literally right before we started recording going on a 6k Walk for Water. My traps were sore for two days afterwards because I was probably too egotistical and put way too much water in my buckets, but we huffed these buckets from a creek in Lynden, Washington all the way back to a home where me and all the other Ben Greenfield life employees were staying at. Randy and Mike, my guest on today’s show, of course, joined us for that bucket carry called the Walk for Water.

So, first of all, everything that you’re going to hear today is at BenGreenfieldLife.com/WorldVisionpodcast. Thank you for supporting the podcast because through our donations to World Vision, we are helping a lot of people and we’re right now really focusing on good clean water to a lot of third-world countries that could really use clean water. It’s shocking what you’re going to hear in this podcast about their lack of access to it.

My guests are Mike Gillespie, Michael Gillespie if I can spit that out, Mike Gillespie. He’s the senior director of corporate engagement at World Vision. Basically, he is the guy who oversees the partnership between Ben Greenfield Life and World Vision. My other guest on today’s show is Randy Hack who I actually met out at my house when he was passing through the area after he had found out that we were supporting this little girl in Ethiopia. He came by and visited with me about other things that we could do that led to Ben Greenfield Life and also to Kion supporting the philanthropic goals of World Vision. Randy has spent 10 years in global humanitarian resource generation. Before that, he worked in the U.S. and Canadian agriculture sectors and now he lives in Seattle. So, Randy’s the guy I’ve talked to the most about World Vision. He swings by Spokane, hangs out every once in a while when he’s through. Mike Gillespie and him were over for dinner at my house a couple of months ago. They’re fantastic guys. They really have a heart for orphans and for children and for families and for farmers and for all the people who World Vision is supporting.

So, head to BenGreenfieldLife.com/WorldVisionpodcast for the shownotes. BenGreenfieldLife.com/WorldVisionpodcast. 

You guys’ traps as tired as mine right now?

Randy:  Yeah.

Michael:  Right here.

Ben:  I’m feeling a little grip, a little neck. Tell me about why it is that I just basically suffered for, what is it, 3.4 miles, 3.2 miles? I lost track with two giant buckets of water. What’s the story behind this thing?

Randy:  Well, Ben, you did that because that is what over 700 million people have to do every day. And, not just once a day like we did on a nice sidewalk, they have to do multiple times a day.

Ben:  Walking with big containers to a body of water, collecting water, and transporting that back by foot.

Randy:  Exactly. Because they have no access to water, but what they’re doing is collecting water that unlike us, we didn’t drink it, we didn’t have to drink it or bathe in it or cook with it.

Ben:  Thank goodness.

Randy:  Thank goodness.

Ben:  Yeah. I mean, that water wasn’t that nasty, it was downtown Lynden, Washington. I probably could have made it through and had half a chance of the old giardia or something else. But, regardless of whether or not we drank it, I was thinking as I was carrying this bucket for this Walk for Water Fundraiser that we did, and I want to hear a little bit more about how this whole walk came to be. But, the whole time I was walking, I was thinking, “Gosh, couldn’t somebody have figured out how to lay down pipes or something like that?” I was thinking if I had to walk this far every day for water, I would have just started to take a PVC pipe with me each day and start to lay down a track back to my village or my house with water. So, why is it that so many people are still having to walk so far to get water?

Randy:  Go ahead.

Michael:  So, it’s all about as far as the poverty scale. They are striving every day to just survive.

Ben:  And, when you say they, who are we talking about?

Michael:  So, people in communities and in the developing world, name a country, it could be Najir, it could be Honduras, it could be Zambia, but they basically are having a hard time surviving. So, they don’t have the luxury to be able to be able to buy PVC pipe. The containers that we were carrying, a lot of times it’s what they can find. So, it may be a used 2-gallon or 2-liter bottle that may be all they have.

Ben:  Anything, anything that holds water.

Michael:  Anything that holds water that they can get to their hands on.

Ben:  Maybe, you should take as many trips as you can take. And so, if one person, let’s say in one of these countries that you named, is waking up in the morning and having to go get water, is that for their family? Is that for a whole village? How does it actually work?

Randy:  Yeah, that’s per family and usually it’s the girls and the women that are tasked with this, not the men and boys. So, the girls and the mothers and the women, they’re spending all day doing this. So, if you’re a girl who’s 7 years, old 8 years old, 10 years old and you’re doing this all day, what are you not doing? You’re not in school, you’re not learning.

Ben:  And, I’m assuming the men aren’t just back at home watching the soccer game, they’re out working in the fields, they’re doing something that dictates the women have to go collect the water.

Randy:  Exactly.

Ben:  And so, there’s not a lot of actual progressive empowerment occurring from an educational or any type of developmental standpoint.

Randy:  Correct. Their basic goal that day is one thing, to survive. And, your early question about why don’t they purchase some PVC piping and all these things that we would be thinking in our mindset? These families are making on average less than $2 a day. So, these are the most, the poorest, it’s called extreme poverty families that the World Bank defines as those living under $2.15 per day. So, the meager amount that they make is going into food, basics for survival.

Ben:  What kind of stuff do they eat in a place that has that much poverty that they have to walk that far for water? What’s the food like?

Randy:  It’s not what you and I would want to eat. And, most of the world is poor. Contrary to what most of us would think, the majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas, remote areas. They’re not in the cities where there’s some degree of services and opportunities. These are people that are far removed, remote and they’ve been forced out there on the fringes over decades of millennia by being the weakest in the outcast. And, that’s where they’ve grown from generations of generations of family. So, they’re living off the land, they’re trying to find, eke out whatever meager existence they can. Usually, a smallholder plot of land, maybe growing something like what we call corn here in the U.S. And, they might be able to have one meal a day during the good season. During the dry season, they might, they probably don’t eat every day.

Ben:  Have you ever gone back to one of these places and lived with them or seen this firsthand?

Randy:  Yes, definitely.

Ben:  Tell me about that.

Randy:  You want to take that first?

Michael:  Yeah. So, my perspective has been in Honduras. And so, these families, like Randy said, they are living off the land. So, the very small plot of land, they don’t own a big area. So, it could be as big as this gazebo. So, they maybe have eight or ten corn plants, maybe a potato plant, maybe a couple of tomato plants, depending on the area that they’re at, but it’s all for their own consumption. And, they are eating that type of thing. At $2 a day, they have some money, so they’re also buying and procuring like beans and rice. But, they are using those commodities and stretching them immensely. So, they can last because they’re only getting usually one meal a day.

Ben:  Who came up with the idea of doing this walk to raise money and awareness to somehow get these people water?

Michael:  Yeah. So, we’ve kind of branded it as the 6k, so 6 kilometers is 3.75 miles.

Ben:  Okay.

Michael:  And, that’s in Africa. That’s the average distance that typically a woman and children go to make one trip to be able to get the water from their dirty water source.

Ben:  That’s once a day?

Michael:  That’s multiple times a day. So, it’s again, the human consumption for that family. So, usually once is not enough, two, three sometimes four times, they are going on that trek. And, that trek is we went on sidewalks today.

Ben:  Yeah.

Michael:  It wasn’t too tough.

Ben:  Yeah, it was pretty comfortable. We were walking past ice cream shops and windmill coffee. And yeah, it’s pretty posh.

Michael:  It’s pretty nice.

Ben:  Yeah.

Michael:  They are on dirt paths. They are climbing over a fence. They’re going across somebody else’s property. There may be a fence to keep the cattle in. They are going up and down hills. There’s predators. There are livestock. There’s all kinds of different dynamics that we didn’t experience any of that.

Ben:  What about crime? How big of an issue is that on these walks?

Randy:  It’s a big issue. Mike alluded to predators. There’s the four-legged ones and the two-legged ones. And, the two-legged predators are often the worst. And, as I mentioned, the–

Ben:  I’m assuming you’re not talking about kangaroos.

Randy:  Exactly. I’m not talking about kangaroos or monkeys. So, this is really the problem that the majority tasked with doing this are young girls and single women. And so, there’s a lot of violence that occurs on these trips and they are preyed upon.

Ben:  Have you guys heard about that new movie, “The Sound of Freedom,” about sex slavery?

Randy:  Yes.

Ben:  Do you think that’s helped at all bring awareness? What are your thoughts on that film?

Randy:  I haven’t seen the movie yet, but that is something that World Vision is a big part of what we address. It’s protection for children and families, especially for women and girls.

Ben:  I want to hear more about that. That’s part of the THRIVE program or one of these other initiatives that you guys have so that this Walk for Water, it was invented by World Vision?

Michael:  Yes.

Ben:  As a 6k that that occurs at different places around the U.S. primarily?

Michael:  Mm-hmm. We kind of branded it on World Water Day, which is May 20th. So, every May 20th, it’s the combination of being able to bring awareness to the over 700 million people that don’t have clean water that we want to be able to deliver clean water to. But, like we’re doing as a corporation with Ben Greenfield Life, you can do it at any time. You can do it as a retreat. You can do it as a workplace event. Many companies we’re talking to now that they’re getting back into the office or at least hybrid, there’s been that disconnect that they haven’t seen everybody since COVID.

Ben:  Yeah.

Michael:  So, they’re looking at what can we do that’s meaningful that makes a difference but that’s also kind of build the team back, be able to have that, what we spend probably an hour walking 45 minutes or so.

Ben:  Yeah, it was about a two-hour event start to finish.

Michael:  Yeah. So, you have that time to be able to reconnect.

Ben:  Yeah.

Michael:  So, that can be done at any point during the year.

Ben:  Yeah, and give each other back rubs afterwards [00:15:17] _____.

So, the actual funds being raised for this, what’s that look like? How much money gets raised and how is it that those funds are used? I’m just curious how much money it actually takes to help someone in a poor area like you’ve described not have to walk that far for water. So, how much money is needed for that? And, I assume you’re not building a bunch of PVC piping to the water and there’s more a well-digging component or something like that going on?

Randy:  Yeah. So, to answer your first question, maybe to simplify it to make it personal, maybe if I hear you right, how much does it cost to bring clean water to one individual and not just to give someone a bottle of water today but ongoing free-flowing clean water indefinitely for life? And, the answer it’s a ridiculously low $50.

Ben:  That’s not for a year, that’s for someone’s entire life you would just need to raise $50.

Randy:  Exactly. So, when we got ice creams after our walk before we came back to refresh ourselves, we spent more than $50 on that ice cream cone for our team.

Ben:  You just made a lot of people feel really guilty just now.

Randy:  Well, really it’s good to personalize like what do I consume with $50, right? And, living in Seattle, that won’t even buy dinner for my wife and I for one night. That is bringing clean water and it’s not just clean water, that’s unleashing life for one person for the entirety of their lives. So, that’s on the personal level, on the personal front. Globally, World Vision in the next eight years is looking at raising $1 billion just for the clean water work to bring clean water to 50 million people.

Ben:  Now, when you say “clean water,” when people are actually walking this distance to get water, I don’t know if you were able to take a look at it whenever you guys were back there, but I’m curious, what kind of water people are getting right now before they get this clean water?

Michael: Yeah. So, the water sources, they would make your stomach turn and they literally make their stomachs turn. So, there’s a lot of stomach issues. So, the water, it can have whatever that stream or water hole is. So, there is mildew in that. There is contaminants in that water. A lot of times, we’re talking open ranges. So, the animals are drinking from that also defecating in that water. So, it’s nasty. It looks nasty but it’s probably even worse than it actually is.

Ben:  Do they have any makeshift filtration systems back on the home front that they’re using on this stuff?

Randy:  Mike and I visited a community in Honduras that was collecting the water. We went down to the river where they were collecting water of free-flowing robust river that was if you look at it as brown in color and we were downstream from sugarcane plantations. So, the pesticides are coming off of it. The waste from the animals, from the workers were coming off down the river. And, what this community does in an attempt to filter, they will go right next to the water, not in the water but right next where there’s sand, they’ll dig into the sand and collect the water out of the brown water out of the sand thinking the sand might have some level of filtration. That’s their answer knowing that it’s not the answer. But, that’s the best they can do.

Ben:  I think even on the walk you mentioned to me there’s some kind of a tablet you can drop in this water. Are you guys able to do anything like that as well to provide people with a way to clean the water they’re already getting?

Randy:  For temporary emergency scenarios when we’re going into a community, let’s just say some natural disaster has just occurred, and it’s not a long-term partnership solution, these people need clean water today because of some catastrophe. Then, through our partnership with Procter and Gamble, they have developed a miracle treatment that will actually clarify and purify clean water rather almost instantaneously. But, it’s only a temporary solution because this does have a cost.

Ben:  No, the guy that wrote this book that I have right here, we have a bunch of these around here, this “He Walks Among Us: Encounters with Christ in a Broken World,” it’s these little stories but the author is Rich Stearns. And, I know this name because I think I got it from the library. This would have been probably 11 or 12 years ago. I think it was called “Hole in the Gospel.” And, the idea behind this book was in America, for example, Christians go to church and have nice potlucks and sing pretty songs and go to Sunday school yet there’s not as much being done as could be being done to help the kind of people that we’re talking about right now. 

And then, later on, I enjoyed that book so much. I read the book that he wrote after that called “Unfinished Business,” which is kind of the same idea. If you really truly are living and breathing the gospel, the core message of that or at least a big part of the core message of that is to love your neighbor as yourself and to actually help people. And, that really got me thinking and so I looked into Rich and found out that he was involved with this company that you guys have in your church right now that you’re obviously part of, World Vision. And, that’s when originally, I reached out to some of the people with my company, Kion, to start to take some of the money off of supplement sales and funnel that towards World Vision to start to give. And now, we’re doing things at Ben Greenfield Life taking proceeds from, for example, the Spiritual Disciplines Journal and trying to provide more funds to help these people.

But, when I first met, I think it was with you Randy, we went on a hike. You kind of blew my mind about some stuff that you were doing that went beyond just water.

Randy:  And, I was barefoot. We were hiking our bare feet.

Ben:  That’s right. You were barefoot. Yeah, yeah. I was impressed.

And so, I think you called it the THRIVE program that you guys do, and it goes way beyond water. Can you tell me about that and why you saw a need for that?

Randy:  Yeah. So, World Vision is involved in addressing all of the root causes of poverty and partnering with the communities we work with for them to provide their own solutions to lift themselves out of poverty along with our partnership to empower them. And so, what we were just talking about clean water is the foundation. That’s the very basics. Without clean water, nothing else that’s good can exist. Water is life, period. But, once you have clean water, then other things have to come into play. You can have lots of well-hydrated poor people. We don’t want that, we want people to be empowered to be able to provide for themselves for their own families to flourish and to thrive.

Ben:  The idea of don’t just give someone a fish, teach them how to fish.

Randy:  Exactly.

Ben:  Yeah.

Randy:  So, THRIVE is an acronym, Transforming Household Resilience In Vulnerable Environments. And, what that is is an economic empowerment part of the work that actually partners with the families we’re working with to help them generate life-sustaining, life-flourishing incomes to provide for themselves and for their children so their children can go to school, get an education, and grow up and flourish and become the people that God created them to be.

Ben:  What’s it look like? Like boots on the ground, what’s the THRIVE program actually doing?

Michael:  So, I saw this firsthand in April in Honduras. So, we were in a community, this was in the Copan district, some of the listeners that maybe smoke a cigar probably will know that name. Tobacco is one of the main crops.

Ben:  Okay.

Michael:  A lot of corn, a lot of maize. So, this particular community, we had been in about 10 years. So, they’ve got clean water, they’re working on health and now thrive. So, what really happens is the story that I heard was these farmers talked about, well, we had a lot of resistance to do what World Vision wanted us to do. And, what is that? Well, our fathers and our grandfathers, it was, we grow corn, maize, we grow potatoes, that’s all. And, you’re talking about growing tomatoes and onions and peppers? There’s a lot of pressure within the family for somebody to divert to this new idea. And, the concept is, well, if you had a better-producing crops that you could then sell at market–and, our THRIVE program not only helps the farmers with better seeds, better fertilizers, but also helps with buying groups. So, they’re protected and not taken advantage of. And, most of the farms are pretty small, an acre and a half or so. And, this farm, they were growing tomatoes. But, what was so interesting, Ben, is that I think of tomatoes growing in my garden. Yeah, I have a bunch of plants. Well, insects are a big deal. So, World Vision taught them to screen it in. so, it was really impressive. You actually walk into the door, you’re in this little 10 by 10 room, you close the door, then you go into the area where the tomatoes are. And, these tomatoes were, they were taller than you and full of aroma, nice beautiful big tomatoes.

Randy:  All organic.

Michael:  Yeah. And, the farmer, one of the things he said is he said, “Well, we tried this new idea,” it was tough because family pressure. “We tried this idea with tomatoes on our own and we were doing better.” But then with the World Vision THRIVE program with better seeds, better fertilizing, being able to encase it so insects, 10 times the amount. He says that he was getting a hundred boxes a month, was the top in the old style of farming and he is then now getting a thousand boxes. So, 10 times. And, keep in mind his income already went up going from corn and maize and beans and potatoes to tomatoes. Now, it went tenfold up.

Ben:  And, I’m assuming this isn’t just so you could make more pizza for his family that night. You guys are actually creating some kind of a way for them to then disperse this to the local community and profit from their tomato grow.

Randy:  So, you already built the next piece out. You put that two and two together that generally these families that live in these rural areas in the small communities, there’s a problem if you start exponentially multiplying your production because you’re going to flood the market. So, what World Vision does is help, first of all, like Mike said, galvanize these farmers from individual entities into what are called producer groups that come together that they subdivide one group specializes in quality control, one group specializes in market pricing, one specializes in marketing and then connecting them with larger markets not only beyond their own communities but within their country and then beyond their own countries like World Vision working with the coffee farmers in Honduras. We visited not just to sell coffee in Honduras, but to sell in the U.S., in Europe, in other places. And so, helping to connect them to larger global markets.

Ben:  What about an economic system locally? Is there any type of education on banking, on financial management, anything like that?

Randy:  That comes with it. So, from the very beginning, the farmer that Mike visited was already a few steps down the road. When we first start working with people that are in extreme poverty, they don’t have the mindset that the three of us have. Let me ideate what can I create, what need can I feel, it’s they’re thinking that “I’m a failure life, is such nothing but struggle, I don’t matter.” And so, it’s they don’t strive to succeed because they’re just focusing on living today. What World Vision does the first thing, is help them, is called biblical empowered worldview training, which helps them reorient their worldview into not who does their situation say that they are but who does God say they are and help them recognize that they are loved, they have a loving Creator who has endowed them with potential, capability, talent.

Ben:  Yeah, that’s interesting that you bring that up, that whole idea of self-worth and also contribution based on what I think you called like a biblical worldview or a scriptural review because I just read this fascinating book. I might butcher the title here but it’s something like “The Greatest Book in the World.” And, this whole book is about how one of the foundations of science of technology and of cultural and societal development was the spread of Christianity and the widespread translation and availability of the Bible because of some of these core principles that it teaches along with the idea that we were created in the image of a Creator and so we are driven to create and there’s almost like a permissive nature in terms of creation, taking care of the planet, helping out your neighbor, et cetera. So, you guys are actually kind of taking that concept of a Biblical worldview teaching self-worth and then empowerment and using that as a foundation to build these societies.

Michael:  Yeah. So, it’s both from a Christian focus, but it’s also that going from a very closed mindset to an open mindset. So, in extreme poverty, wherever, it could be here in the United States, the people are most generally, it’s generational poverty. They’re living the same life lives that their parents lived and their grandparents live. And, that’s their only perspective. They’ve got the blinders on. They’re not seeing–Randy said earlier, they just don’t think that way because they don’t have a perspective. So, they’re very close-minded. So, this not only gives them the biblical views of being able to be Christ-like, but also gives them the, what’s possible? What if you open your mind to these possibilities? And, these are not dreams, they’re all baked in facts and statistics and stories that can be told to be able to get them to trust us. And, that’s a big part of our area, community development is we’re in our average community in the developing world about 15 years. So, we’re developing trust with that local community. That village maybe 200 people, maybe 2,000 people, but we’re developing trust with the local leaders, the government that controls that. It might be a mayor, but it might be a larger government that funds into the country’s government. So, all of that giving them statistics, giving them facts that they know that this is real that other people are living this way, you also can. You can benefit from this and do it in a Christ-like manner.

Ben:  What are the girls and the women doing that no longer have to carry water, if you guys observe, what they wind up doing in the community once they’re not having the huff 6k multiple times a day?

Randy:  Women are the most amazing entrepreneurs. And, they take more risks on behalf of the family because they’re the ones that are tasked with raising up the children. And, the biblical empowered worldview brings husbands and wives together as they see themselves as how God sees them to be to each other, not having been forced together through broken societal norms. And, by the way, World Vision never imposes Western norms on other cultures. World Vision’s focus is to help bring out the best norms of that culture for itself.

Ben:  Right.

Randy:  And so, when you empower women, it’s statistically proven that as women advance in a culture so the country goes. So, the country advances. So, women become the greatest entrepreneurs and income generators, and their husbands see them as, wow, you are an equal partner in this. It’s not all on me, you’re not a possession that’s an extra mouth to feed, you’re actually a partner. And, they see themselves as God sees themselves to be to each other.

Ben:  Yeah. I think a lot of people don’t really grasp the concept that a core part of Christianity is love and sacrifice, particularly directed from the man towards the woman because that’s reflective from a biblical standpoint of the way that Christ sacrificed himself for the church and all the people on the planet that God loves. And, it also reminds me of something else that I read in that book, “The Greatest Book in the World,” and realized it’s a controversial topic, but I’m thinking about it and that is the fact that when we see humans who are driven to create and to love their fellow human being that technology progresses at a more rapid pace because slavery is taken off of a pedestal and abuse misuse or objectification of a fellow human being is no longer something that’s acceptable. So, you have to figure out a better way to get water than to send someone or order someone or abuse someone to have to go to get that water for you; hence, the digging of wells or development of technology or a printing press or what do you call the cotton gin. Those type of things progressed because partially of a desire to see slavery no longer exists. And so, this kind of reminds me of that same type of mindset.

Randy:  Very much so. This biblical empowered worldview, the beautiful thing is that so World Vision works with external academic monitoring and evaluating partners. So, everything World Vision does with whether it’s clean water, we’re working with the University of North Carolina Water Institute to monitor and evaluate how the efficacy of the work in our THRIVE work working with other academic outside partners to monitor and evaluate. 

One is a very prominent in the global development realm called Tango. And, they actually did a five-year longitudinal study of World Visions THRIVE work in Tanzania. That’s a country where it originated about 10 years ago or a little bit more than 10 years ago. Tango came in. They’re an outside global development organization monitoring partner and they did a five-year longitudinal study. And, they were astounded that the incomes of these farmers over a five-year span on average increased tenfold. That was just the five years they measured, tenfold income. So, taking them from struggle and desperation into flourishing and thriving. 

But, Tango being a secular organization, not Christian, they said the special sauce of World Vision’s approach is this biblical empowered worldview curriculum training. It’s a multi-day very intensive approach, it’s not just kind of giving a message, it’s a very intensive workshop approach. That was a special sauce and that is what they are sharing with their other secular organizational partners.

Ben:  Is there a way for people like see that training? Is it a curriculum that someone could access if they’re a co-op world vision and get the workbook or whatever that you guys use for that?

Randy:  Yeah. I have a book I can send you. It’s kind of the, what we would call maybe the cliff notes of that. We could start there. I can send that to you.

Ben:  That’s cool. And then, by the way, I’ll take shownotes and put them all at BenGreenfieldLife.com/WorldVisionpodcast. So, people go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/WorldVisionpodcast. I’ll put some downloadable assets, some information about you or your corporation getting involved in the Walk for Water, et cetera.

But, these wells, when you raise the money for the wells, are the villages actually digging those and building them themselves? Because it seems they’d have to have some kind of pre-existing knowledge about how to do that.

Michael:  Right. So, we have what we call a WASH team. So, we love acronyms at World Vision, right?

Ben:  Yeah, I get that.

Michael:  WASH stands for water, WA, S for sanitation and H for Hygiene.

Ben:  Okay.

Michael:  So, when we deem the community that we’re going to go into and provide clean water, then basically a lot happens within engineering. So, you have to find a place. If it’s going to be a deep borehole well, you’ve got to engineer, you’ve got to study, you’ve got to find a place that’s going to be sustainable to be able to serve a number of gallons of water forever to be able to serve that community. Average community is about 300 or a little less. So, they’re looking for the capacity of that well. Once that is actually determined which takes months and actually was backlogged because of COVID in the times when we were in COVID, the engineers couldn’t get out in the field to do that. So, we’re kind of trying to catch up with that even though we’ve maintained doing wells, we’re trying to catch up right now. So, you go out, you find that spot that’s going to be sustainable. Then, the engineers and the drilling apparatus comes in and starts drilling that well. 

Many times, that well is a source of the water and is transferred either through PVC pipes or through solar. We have a partnership with Solar Company to be able to have solar energy to be able to pump that water into a holding tank, that then is branched off into the community ideally piped into the schools and homes of that community but at least there’s that that water source. So, a lot of that work that community is helping us with. They’re out there digging those trenches that are a couple feet deep so that if it’s in a colder climate, there’s the permafrost, if it’s in a climate that it’s got cattle, you don’t want cattle crushing it. So, the community is actually helping day one starting to dig trenches, they’re helping along with that.

Ben:  Who keeps the wells in working order? Because somebody’s obviously got to maintain these things. I have no clue how long a well last. I have a well but I just drink from it. I don’t actually go out there with a wrench and do my own well upkeep.

Michael:  That’s where sets World Vision apart. What we have, we call it a Water Committee. So, it’s community-based members and think of any community that could be the local rotary club or your local church. So, you basically have a president, you have a vice president, you have a treasurer. You usually have a technical expert, otherwise known as a plumber. And, this group of people are voted in by the community and they basically are the water community, the water committee that ensures that the water is going to continue to work. And, how that happens is that the community does pay a very nominal fee for the use of the water. And, that is really important because–

Randy:  Let me just jump. Not to World Vision, World Vision is not a part of that. It’s their own fund.

Michael:  It’s their own fund that that treasure for that community in that specific area holds on to. And, the reason why that’s so important, Ben, is because if it’s a deep borehole well, you got a shaft, if it’s a mechanical well, you’re pumping it. If it’s a solar one, it’s staying in a better level. So, there’s not as much wear, but there’s still going to be wear. That shaft is going to wear out, it’s just a matter of when. So, as the plumber is basically adding a chlorine tablet to that tank, he or she is inspecting that tank to make sure it doesn’t have any leaks, they actually dump out the water periodically clean it inside, make sure that it’s sanitized and refill it. So, he’s monitoring all that. He or she will know. That plumber will know when that wear is starting to get to let’s say 80% of its livelihood. At that point, they’re ordering a new shaft because they have the resources. They already have the money to do that. And then, that comes in and it’s replaced.

Conversely, other organizations, they don’t have those community groups. So, the same thing happens, the well breaks. There’s no more water. And, they’re like, “Okay, well, we got a fundraise, let’s do that.”

Ben:  Yeah.

Randy:  And, this actually was born out by–there’s Conrad & Hilton Foundation. They’re a massive thunder of waterwork across the world with World Vision and other organizations. They wanted to see, they wanted to check on the efficacy of how long these wells are in water points are lasting. Are they ongoing or do they stop at some point? So, they funded a study by University of North Carolina. It was about seven years ago and they did just hundreds of thousands of water points across Africa, World Vision and other organizations. The bad news was that within 20 years, half of those water points were no longer working. The good news is is that with World Vision’s water point, 80% were still functioning at a very high level after 20 years. So, they were scratching their head, why is there such a big difference between World Vision and others? And, that’s what Mike was referring to because the communities have ownership, they maintain them, they know how to repair when that’s needed. But, what’s even more fun is we visited a community that had a pipe network. So, there were this large 50,000-gallon holding tank with pipes going out to different areas. When we’ve returned, the community had taken it upon themselves to add another pipe from that to another part of the community. So, they’re already thinking expansion, right?

Ben:  Oh, wow. Yeah.

Randy:  They’re not in poverty “survive for today” mindset, they’re in the “How are we expanding?”

Ben:  Biblically empower mindset, baby.

Randy:  Yeah.

Ben:  So, how much do you have to worry about guarding these wells or even the tomato house or whatever? I would imagine some neighboring village, here’s somebody else got a bunch of water and some really big luscious tomatoes. Is there an issue with crime and a need for security when you’re incorporating initiatives like this into a community?

Michael:  Yeah. And again, the community owns this. so, they’re going to be very protective because water is life, and that’s changed the trajectory of their lives. So, they’re very protective about that. But, if you back up another a couple of steps, it’s not always a well, sometimes it’s rain catchment or it’s a spring. So, the same thing will happen is you don’t want cattle, you don’t want animals coming in and contaminating that water source. So, one of the first thing that happens is fencing goes up.

Ben:  Okay.

Michael:  So, fencing goes up to keep the predators out, the cattle, the wildlife out of that for contaminating that water source.

Ben:  Yeah. Okay, cool.

Randy:  And, on top of that, think of a community, so World Vision works, we call it an area program. Mike mentioned about 15-year program. Think of an area about the size of a county in an American state, in the U.S. state here, and there can be dozens of villages in that. So, it’s not like we’re just going into one village and working with them and there’s all these other villages around them, it’s working within a whole county with dozens of village clusters. So, there could be anywhere from 10,000 to a 100,000 people within that county that are all working with World Vision in addition to local law enforcement, regional, national government. And so, everybody in partnership not just on the lowest level but across the board.

Ben:  Okay. Alright, got it.

Randy:  And, that’s how you address these questions.

Ben:  Yeah. How often do you guys go back there?

Michael:  I’ve only went to Honduras. I can’t wait to go to Africa. Maybe that’s on the horizon. But, I’ve been to Honduras five times. It’s all been a focus of water and corporate donors that are passionate like you are about making a significant difference.

Ben:  You mean you bring people there?

Michael:  Yes.

Ben:  Really? So, if somebody’s listening to the podcast, could they connect with one of you guys and actually be able to go on one of these trips if they wanted to?

Randy:  Yeah, that would be a process, right?

Ben:  Yeah.

Randy:  The short answer is absolutely. So, where Mike works with our corporate partners, I work with the people behind the corporate; the families that own the businesses, the companies. And so, I work on the more personal.

Ben:  You go on the barefoot hikes with people.

Randy:  Exactly. I go on the barefoot hike. So, I’ve been to different places around the world with around clean water, THRIVE that we talked about, child protection you asked about, it could be in Honduras like we’ve been together. It could be in Southeast Asia. It could be in East Africa. It could be in the Middle East. It could be in Lebanon and Jordan around crises around refugees and displaced people. So, it’s wherever the donor partners I’m serving want to see the opportunity to invest and to see the impact that they’re making. 

Michael:  Yeah. The company that I have had the privilege to go with. It’s the same company for five years. Like you, they want to derive the culture of giving back and they have programs that in their store certain like the Spiritual Disciplines Journal. Certain percentage of that goes to an initiative. And, we tied that with Christian discipleship because that made the most sense. In their stores, they’re selling a product and they’re providing clean water, but they wanted that to be a part of the story of the employees and also a differentiator that, “Why would you work for that company versus their competitor?” Well, this is one example is we believe in giving back. They do a really cool idea. It’s a incentive trip. They started with the presidents of the company and now the leadership. We’re down to the regional managers and the couple get to go on the trip. And, the rest of them have to earn their way. So, they do different incentives during a course of a period of time and the individuals that raised to the highest level get the opportunity to go out and experience this. And, many of them have never seen poverty. They’ve seen homeless.

Ben:  Yeah.

Michael:  But, they haven’t experienced poverty, they certainly haven’t experienced extreme poverty and they don’t understand that there’s so much complexity to creating a situation where people can then be able to live their best lives and be able to be in a position where they can live their God-given potential.

Ben:  I’ve talked a lot on my podcast recently in the past few months about the importance of rites of passages for children to go on and part of that is awareness, social awareness and awareness of what other people in the world are experiencing. Do people ever bring their families or to or send their kids off to volunteer or to join you guys in one of your trips or anything like that? It’s kind of a selfish question because I’m thinking of putting one of my sons on an airplane with you.

Randy:  Yes to the first question. They do bring their families. We encourage the multi-generational family experience, but it’s different from a volunteerism type of a trip. These trips are what we call Vision trips. So, instead of being concerned about doing something like Rich Stearns, the author of the book, he says, “The last thing the developing world needs is cheap labor.” They already have that, it’s more about instead of doing something, it’s meeting the people, getting to know their stories, getting to experience just a taste of what their life must be like and taking it to heart and bringing the ministry of presence to them of your presence.

Ben:  Yeah. So, you’re not just swinging a hammer, you’re back there having conversations and connecting with people and showing them love and getting to know them.

Randy:  Finding out what are your hopes, your dreams, what are your challenges, your struggles, and connecting with them relationally.

Ben:  Yeah.

Randy:  And, these are these are trips three, four, five days. So, I’m not a massive time investment, but there’s a lot to take in.

Ben:  Yeah.

Michael:  I remember in April, we were at a community that had a pipe. It was a spring water catchment system in Honduras into a 10,000-gallon tank and then it was then diverted into the homes. So, the homes actually had water sources. They still had latrines. They all didn’t have toilets in there. That was kind of the next step. But, we asked one of the ladies, we asked, “Well, you’ve got clean water now, you’re thriving, you’re really doing well compared to what you were in previous, just a couple years ago,” and they had only got clean water in December of that previous year. So, they experienced it for four months when we were there. And, we asked the ladies, “Well, what’s next?” She goes, “My vision is I want to be able to have a store where we have health care supplies because we don’t have that.” And, I’m like, “What do you mean by that?” She says, “Well, be able to have aspirin and bandages and basic things that if somebody gets hurt or somebody gets sick, they can go to the store” and have somebody also making money because it’s a business from that. So, they’re making an income but being able to serve that community and [00:51:07] _____. I don’t know if I said that right in Copan and they wanted to serve that community about 260 people and be able to provide that because the place they had to go to get that, if you go by vehicle, was about two hours away. If you go by foot, full day.

Ben:  Wow.

Randy:  And, that’s a really good point on the water point we neglected to mention earlier. It’s not just residential, the three areas of water that World Vision focuses is, of course, residential for your family, your home, your dwelling, it’s also schools and health clinics. Schools having just not only clean water but latrines that are dignified that are gender specific that are a track–so, the girls that are on their cycles can go throughout the month year-round. They’re not going to miss a week of school every year. I mean, every month because of their cycle out of shame. And so, it’s providing clean water sanitation hygiene at the school levels and at the health clinics. Imagine health clinics that don’t even have access to clean water where you’re going to give birth, where you’re going to try to heal from an illness? It’s a death clinic, not a health.

And so, in the last four years alone, World Vision outfitted health clinics with water sanitation, hygiene, hazardous waste disposals, all these things, medical supplies over 2,000 health centers in the last four years. And, over the next three years, the goal is 3,000 more.

Ben:  Wow.

Michael:  Can I add? In the schools, so we have this great partnership, I think it’s been about five years with Sesame Street. And, what we have is we call it the WASH UP! program. Imagina a mat, it’s a twister mat, it’s about the same size and it’s got those little bullets on there. Remember the little yellow and red and green? Well, these have Sesame Street characters on them. And, each character is a good hygiene technique training. So, one is brushing your teeth, one is combing your hair, one is washing your face, one is taking your trash and putting it into a garbage can not on the ground. And, the concept is really cool because, in the school, they’re teaching kids good hygiene practices.

Ben:  Yeah.

Michael:  And, what’s happening is those kids then are then going out and sharing that knowledge that they have with their parents.

Ben:  Wow.

Michael:  So, the parents are then getting a benefit from this WASH UP!  program. And, it’s done really fun. They have–

Randy:  Raya.

Michael:  Raya. 

Randy:  She’s a Muppet that Sesame Street created for World Vision and teaches the kids.

Ben:  Yeah, I saw one of your, she’s like a little purple Muppet, I think. Yeah. I think I saw her. Yeah, yeah. I was looking out in our audience because we’re doing this live podcast right after we finish this Walk for Water to make sure my wife’s not listening in because she’s going to order one of those mats for my bathroom if she’s here, probably. Oh crap, she is. Alright, yeah, teach me how to put my trash away and wash my face properly.

So, if people are listening in and again, they want to donate, they want to organize a walk for water, they want to get involved, if I were to put a link at BenGreenfieldLife.com/WorldVisionpodcast, is it like a place that they can go to to connect with one of you guys or to fill out a form or something like that?

Michael:  Yeah, great question. So, BenGreenfieldLife/Water, I believe, is the link that’ll be in there.

Ben:  Okay.

Michael:  And for $50. So, think about that’s less than the amount that you’re going to spend to fill up your gas tank the next time you go, probably multiples of that but less than that. You are then able to join in with Ben Greenfield Life in this vision of being able to provide clean water for one person for life. And, think about, how does that change? What is that changes everything? It changes the trajectory of that person forever and you’re able to do that–

Ben:  [00:55:24] _____ more people in that once you take into account like if you’re saving a woman or a girl who would be able to provide better for their family or be there for their family, it’s exponential change really.

Michael:  Right, exponential. And hopefully, not just monetarily but we encourage through the website, there’s all kinds of information about how to plan out a 3.75 mile walk around your neighborhood or around your place of business, during a lunch hour, let’s say, with your colleagues or with your family and your neighbors and your friends, but it also talks about how do you expand that. Maybe you pick a weekend a month away from now and you’re going to all get together and you create your own subset of the Ben Greenfield Life site and you have 40 people and you walk on a Saturday morning this 3.75 miles together with this common goal now we’ve provided clean water to 40 people for life.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. So, BenGreenfieldLife.com/Water. That’s where about the Walk for Water information is, then I’ll put everything else at BenGreenfieldLife.com/WorldVisionpodcast.

You guys also need to partner with a massage gun company for all the sore, it’s got like 500 yards into that walk, and realized I probably filled up my buckets too big, a little bit of ego there at the creek side, but I was definitely feeling it by the time we got back. So, figure out a way to get some therapy tools work into that too.

Michael:  Mine was my grip and right through here [00:56:52] _____.

Ben:  So, it definitely got me thinking about why the heck people would have to walk that far for water multiple times a day, and also pretty grateful for what you guys are doing. So, thank you so much for what you do. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you for making this a reality for our team this weekend to go on the Walk for Water and for making this a reality for a lot of other people to get involved with too.

Michael:  Well, it’s a privilege to be able to do this and to be able to do this work. We, as World Vision serve all people, we talked a little earlier about the biblical world view, well, we are motivated by Christ to do this work and to do it with passion and to do with energy, but we’re just so thankful you have been with the company have been, we’ve funded projects in Ukraine. We’ve done the gift catalog multipliers of so many different projects, and clean water has been kind of the highlight, right?

Ben:  I know. It is kind of crazy. I think it was last year I was looking at our year report. I forget what our giving total was for World Vision, the amount of money that we raised, but I just thought it was super cool for me to be whatever at home doing pull-ups with my shirt off for an Instagram post or doing some podcast about PEMF biohacking or whatever, and even though really it’s mostly focused on helping people get healthier and more fit that some of the revenue that that’s generating is going directly towards helping people in a lot bigger way than just getting a six-pack abs or biohacking a few years on their life or something like that. So, this is really big and it makes me super grateful to be able to have an outlet to help a lot of people in a much bigger way. So, thank you guys.

Michael:  Can I add just one point on that? So, with the $50, it goes to our Global WASH fund. And, that also has leverage with it so that every dollar that goes into Global WASH has a multiplier effect of five times. So, it becomes $5 of impact.

Ben:  $1 becomes $5.

Michael:  Right. How that happens is there’s mainly three buckets of not to pun water but three buckets of funding. So, it’s incorporating in government grants and it’s also some of the child sponsorship dollars because we know bringing life to its fullness and community all starts with the clean water. So, it’s corporate government and child sponsorship that allows that leverage. So, that $50 becomes $250 worth of impact.

Ben:  Amazing. Wow. It’s pretty incredible, you guys. Thank you so much.

Randy:  Thank you, Ben. Grateful for your partnership.

Michael:  Thanks for having us.

Ben:  Thanks for coming on.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh entertaining, well-informed, and often outside-the-box approach to discovering the health, and happiness, and hope that we all crave. So, I hope I’ve been able to do that for you on this episode today. And, if you liked it or if you love what I’m up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. It means a lot.

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