For women in the Sahel, the first step out of poverty begins with clean water. We can help!

There is a charity: water tradition of starting a campaign and donating your birthday, but I didn't want to wait until then. I was trying to figure out what to call my September campaign, and my mom suggested I donate my half birthday. My mom (like most moms) is a genius.

During the hotter part of the year, the average temperature in the Sahel region of West Africa is more than 110 degrees.

For women here, not having access to clean water means hours of painful and exhausting work. Many of them walk miles each day just to reach the 100-year-old hole in the ground where they collect water. And they make that trip four or five times. Not only is that water contaminated and dirt-colored, but it has to be pulled up by hand, one bucket at a time.

The homemade rope burns their hands; it causes bleeding and leaves callouses — even scars. And sometimes the rope breaks, causing women to fall into the wells.

But we can change all of that! Clean water access for these women is not just freedom from thirst and disease. It also means more time and energy for earning income and caring for themselves and their families. And it means gathering water doesn't equal risk to life and limb.

We can bring solar powered pumps into communities and pipe water to tap stands right next to these women’s homes. We can bring clean water to 100,000 people in Mali and Niger.

Help me play a small part in changing the lives of women in the Sahel -- donate to my campaign. This September the money raised will be matched by a wealthy donor, so your donation will go twice as far!

100% of everything we raise will directly fund water projects. And when those projects are finished, charity: water will send us proof in pictures and GPS coordinates, so we can see the actual people and communities we impacted.