Earth Protect Blog

Amy Russell isn't expecting her walk across Connecticut to pose much of challenge.

She's just going 140 miles, starting Saturday in Granby and finishing next Friday in Greenwich.

That is child's play compared to the 7,000-mile, two-year trek across Africa she starts in January in an effort to raise money to help provide clean drinking water for people in underdeveloped countries.

"It's a good little warm up for me," she said. "We're going on a 500-mile walk in August in California. So, hopefully this can help me get into shape and maybe raise a little awareness along the way."

Russell, who grew up in Manchester, is the founder of Walk4Water, an organization that began as a nagging idea three years ago while she was in college in Chicago and working on poverty issues.

She says she began thinking about walking across Africa after she learned that a billion people around the world, mostly women and children, walk miles each day just to fill containers with brackish water.

"It was this crazy idea that just wouldn't go away," she said. "There was a cultivation process of the idea and how to implement it to help people."

Russell hopes to average about 20 miles per day, six days a week while in Africa. That's about the pace she's hoping to keep up in Connecticut this week, though she expects the accommodations to be a bit better here.

"I already know where I'm staying for three nights, and I have a whole group of friends who are willing to come pick me up from wherever," she said. "So we'll just see what happens."

In Africa, her group will carry what it needs in backpacks, camping along the way or staying with people who have already agreed to help them during their trek. Russell said each walker expects to go through 14 pairs of shoes.

They will start in January in Cape Town, South Africa, and travel through Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Egypt, webcasting their journey at www.walking4water.org. They hope to raise $8 million for wells, filtration systems and for other water-related projects in underdeveloped countries.

By PAT EATON-ROBB

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