When I was 17 I went to the concert of an artist I liked at the time. Part way through the set, the artist stopped between songs and told the story of how he’d just been to Africa and visited his sponsored child, and of being blown away at the difference his small donations each month had made in the life of this child, their family and community. It was the first time I realised I could actually make a difference. So I began sponsoring my first child, Avitius, and got a job waitressing after school to pay for the sponsorship.
And that was where it all began, really. I’ve since had the honour of visiting many nations throughout Asia and Africa seeing first hand the amazing work of great organisations who are partnering with communities to alleviate poverty and bring sustainable development, who are helping vulnerable children, rescuing trafficking victims and assisting local government in prosecuting their oppressors, bringing micro-finance programmes to communities, providing HIV/AIDS education, building schools and water projects.
These stories came to the forefront of my music in my last album, “Albertine”, named for a young woman I met in Rwanda in 2005 who had survived the horrific genocide of 1994. Hers was a hard but important story to tell, and as I told it through our three years of touring “Albertine” in NZ, Australia & the USA/Canada, you responded by sponsoring hundreds of children through World Vision, representing over US$80,000 in sponsorships per year.
Though with “Flags” I am telling different stories, my personal story continues to be intertwined with these communities and those individuals and groups working them, dedicated to a level playing field when it comes to all of us having access to the most basic of rights – clean water, education, a future.
It’s my birthday this year, for the 27th time!
And for my birthday, I want $50,000.
Yup, you heard.
US$50,000 can bring wells/latrines to two schools (meaning clean water for the communities and future female leaders staying in school once puberty hits and completing their education) and two community wells or 10 community wells. That’s a lot of people getting clean water who had no access to this basic necessity otherwise.
But we can be more specific than that.
Once we’ve reached our target, the team at charity:water will identify the areas most in need, and I will physically fly (in a plane, not superman style) to one of our chosen drill sites to see and film the drill happening and a community gaining access to clean water through your generosity!
What’s more, charity:water proves every project built using GPS coordinates in Google Maps, so you can actually zoom in and see the wells yourselves.
100% of what you give will go directly to the projects, whether you give $2, $27 or $2000.
I’ll be taking this birthday campaign on the road with me over the next couple of months inviting everyone everywhere to be a part of this crazy dream.
There are two ways to get involved:
1) Click on the “Donate Now” button on the right to check out my birthday campaign, donate and leave me birthday messages!
2) Start your own birthday campaign. 
Happy Birthday to me. :)