Lauren Adele Stevens was born into a family of plumbers, so it was fitting when she founded a charity to provide clean water, sanitation, hygiene and education in rural Cambodia.
“When I travel, I observe and study the plumbing of a country – rainwater catchments, harvesting, gutters, drainage, water sources, elbows, tees and pops – you name it!” the Maldon local said.
“My Dad, Ian ‘Stevo’, would say this story begins with fate and that there’s water in my bloodline.”
While travelling in southern Cambodia with her eight-year-old son in 2014, the pair became lost and found themselves in a remote village where they stopped to ask a woman for directions.
“I was hit with a level of poverty and vulnerability I wasn’t expecting. Life in this village was challenging and the water crisis in Cambodia wasn’t making it any easier,” Lauren said.
“A mother generously scooped water from a large pot next to her small wooden home with an earthen floor to offer to my thirsty son.
“When we politely declined, she gave the water to her young daughter who was straddled to her hip and the little girl drank it.
“I don’t think the girl would have been able to walk if her mother had put her down – she was too limp and looked too weak, too ill.
I didn’t want to stare, or impose, so we thanked them and left.
“I will never in my lifetime forget the colour of that water. It was a brownish green and it appeared thick like soup with insects floating in it. I have seen plenty of water like this since, but that day was a first.”
The following day Lauren and her son ventured into a village not far from the one they had been to the previous day. Lauren found well-maintained homes built on stilts with vibrant gardens, a school, and a bustling market abundant with fresh produce.
“I couldn’t believe the contrast between the two villages I was witnessing in such close proximity to one another, not just in the same province, but the same district, only hundreds of metres apart.
“As I was riding out of the village I saw and heard a gaggle of children laughing in a front garden and in the middle were two kids pumping water from a well. It was then that it hit me; the difference was this village had clean water. It was everything.
“That day changed me. From that day, I couldn’t just do nothing. I spent two years voraciously and meticulously researching the water crisis in the world, but in particular Cambodia, a country I had fallen madly in love with for many reasons, but mostly for its people – the most resilient, kind, persevering and humble you will meet.”
Since its inception eight years ago, Community Generation has successfully provided safe, clean water and education to eight schools and 763 homes in a country where 65 per cent of the population is under 30 years of age.
The charity is helping more than 25,000 people every day to gain access to clean drinking water, sanitation, hygiene education, food security, resources, new economy, female entrepreneurship, and essential trade and maintenance skills.
The projects are community-owned and Community Generation has partners locally in Cambodia that support local jobs and the economy.
As part of her work, Lauren recently attended the World Economic Forum in order to develop and increase the organisations impact on exposure to careers in trades for women in Cambodia to help close the skills gap and create a sustainable future for Cambodia.
Community Generation regularly takes qualified Australian tradies over to volunteer their skills on project job sites. This assists with upskilling and reskilling locals and imparting new trade skills through youth programs. Tradies who have volunteered for past projects have said it was a life-changing and incredibly rewarding opportunity and they couldn’t recommend it enough.
To find out more, donate or fill out an expression of interest form to become a volunteer visit www.communitygeneration.org.au and follow their work on Instagram @communitygeneration
