We met Mariam on her way to the wadi, the river that runs on one side of the camp.  She and her niece, Hawa, were carrying buckets and a digging tool to go collect mud for the building of a latrine at their home.  We later found out that Hawa was also carrying her little baby girl, just four months old.

Mariam told me that this was not the first time doing this run; they had come and gone many times.  It had taken them two days to dig the latrine and now one more full day working on the top of it.  When talking with Mariam, she laughed most of the time.  She laughed when I asked her age.  Who knows, she said.  Fifty or sixty or something!

Katie-Jay Scott

Katie-Jay keeps i-ACT running on several levels. Much of her work entails coordinating partnerships with other grassroots organizations and implementing the campaigns developed by Gabriel and seeing through the details. She graduated from Portland State University with a BA in Sociology and a focus on Community Development. She has previously worked as a community organizer in Thailand, Guatemala, and with grassroots organizations across the United States.