Finding innovative ways to raise awareness about water

It began with Tatianna, Philippe IV, Louis Alexandre and Aidan, grand-children of Nan-b and Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, the family’s 14th generation of children. With a strong desire to prepare them for their future role as philanthropists, the founders asked them a simple question: “If you had to choose one cause that you are passionate about, what would it be?”

Although this role was new to them, the teenagers aged 13 to 18 quickly chose water. Like all of us, they know that water is essential to all life and that, with the Earth’s growing population and climate change, the world needs more water today than ever. To affect change, they knew they had to encourage young people to change their ways, and do it in a way that would be interesting to them.

To get their message across, the teens were sure of one thing: to get young people interested in the cause, they had to reach them outside of the school system. They wanted to raise awareness about water-related issues through an online interactive process. Hence, WATER HERO was born.

True to their principles of listening to understand and mobilizing to act, the senior members of the Foundation supported their grand-children’s idea. The de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation joined forces with ONE DROP—an initiative of Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil®. As equal partners in the project, they are committed to a project demonstrating how a single person can join others and contribute to changes on a daily basis, through a commitment that is strong, entertaining, emotional and rewarding.

By bringing together the young people of the world, WATER HERO will help to form the leaders of tomorrow, making them aware that, although the future is infinite, life-sustaining water is in limited supply. Through this project, Nan-b and Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien hope to teach their grand-children that if you believe in something, you must do what you can to get involved