Q&A with water advocate and ultramarathon runner, Mina Guli, CEO of Thirst Foundation

A Q&A with water advocate and ultramarathon runner, Mina Guli

Empowering people to protect our water sources is a vital quest that unites Xylem Watermark and Mina Guli, Founder and CEO of Thirst Foundation.  In the lead-up to the first global United Nations (UN) water conference in almost 50 years on World Water Day, 22 March 2023, Mina did something extraordinary. She arrived in New York after completing 200 marathons around the world.  During her journey, Mina met the people and communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis. She shared her first-hand perspective on how watersheds suffer from climate change and human activity while advocating for systemic change to solve water. 

Austin Alexander, Xylem's Vice President, Sustainability and Social Impact, recently spoke to Mina about the importance of pushing water to the top of the global agenda and how creative collaboration is needed to address the global water crisis.

Drought, flooding, and water pollution are the main symptoms of our warming world, but water is rarely at the top of the agenda. Your project, Run Blue, was such an inspiring way to create urgency. What prompted you to take on such an incredible project?

I wanted to go to the front lines of the water crisis and take the world out to see it too. Not only to see it but to understand the nature, extent, and urgency of this problem. Water is everything, but we treat it as if it is nothing. 

Honestly, I was fed up with being told that water is such a big, complicated issue that we can't do anything about it. I wanted to show that hard things are not impossible things.

“If we remain committed and approach problems with purpose, passion, and perseverance, we can achieve amazing things.”

During your journey, you saw first-hand some of the impact of this crisis on communities, both from scarcity and flooding. What stands out to you as being symptomatic of what we face?

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Taxonomy

• Water Supply
• Human Rights
• Water Supply
• Community Supply