Eleanor Allen is fiercely compassionate about improving global water and sanitation services. She believes societal change can be accelerated through social entrepreneurship and organizations like Water For People, a global nonprofit working with four million people in nine countries in Africa, Latin America, and India.
As the CEO of Water For People, she keeps her organization transparent and cooperative, providing leadership in development work in water, sanitation, and hygiene A speaker at our previous Make + Believe event, Eleanor is a civil engineer who has lived and worked all over the world and speaks four languages.
Here, we talk about solving one of mankind’s greatest challenges and the joy of getting a fire hydrant for Mother’s Day.
All of us interact with water throughout our lives. What made you take the next step and become an advocate for this precious resource?
I’ve always been fascinated by water and solving societal problems. This led me to civil engineering. I felt I could help improve the world by designing and building water infrastructure, which proved to be true. Last year I really found my “why” when I did a career pivot from for-profit consulting to non-profit international development. This took me from large-scale engineering of major infrastructure (water and wastewater treatment plants) in cities around the world in developed countries to working with rural communities, government, and businesses in developing countries. Water For People facilitates the development of high quality drinking water and sanitation to those that don’t yet have these services. Having access to water and a toilet changes everything and our vision is to make that happen for everyone, and to have it last forever.Coloradans are well aware of water issues. We live in a water-sensitive state that will continue to proactively manage water use, supply, and demand as our population grows. This is true in other places around the world too. In fact, water crises are ranked as one of the top global risks. There is a water crisis going on right now that many people in the U.S. are not very aware of. About one quarter of the world still doesn’t have safe access to water and one third doesn’t have access to a toilet. Some people find this hard to believe, but it is true! The more people know about this crisis the more we can help raise awareness and put pressure on the developed world and the developing world to invest in these basic services. The benefit/cost of this investment is 5:1—people can go to school and work if they are not sick, don’t have to haul water, and don’t have to find a place to go to the bathroom. Quality of life and productivity improve tremendously as do entire economies—and consequently so does the global economy.