Recent William and Mary graduate Winston Brady isn’t getting
ready to start a new 9-to-5 office career. He’s not on the way to grad school.
He’s not even planning on staying in the country.

Brady is headed to Malawi, Africa, to figure out what he can
do to help thousands of people who live there get a little extra fresh water.
Somehow or other.

Brady becomes animated when he shares the information he’s
learned about the country’s geography and infrastructure. Malawi is a country
of nearly 14 million people, and is one of the world’s least developed and most
densely populated countries. WM Grad Heads to Malawi to Help Find Water

His knowledge of the country is vast – enough that, should
his project fall through, he ought to consider teaching. The English major doesn’t
have plans in that direction, though.

He points out that much of Malawi’s population is made up of
rural farmers who get relatively little for their crops because the country is
landlocked and is near no ports that would facilitate trade. Many villages
don’t have access to clean water, and many wells rely on shallow aquifers that
are easily polluted or drained. Two-thirds of the population doesn’t have clean
water within a half-mile of their homes.

Brady wanted to do something service-related after
graduation, he says, because “I want to get my head and my heart in the right
place.” The problem he had to figure out was how to do it.

When he began his school career, like many students, Brady
focused much of his time on having fun. When he realized this might not be the
highest aspiration in his life, he began looking for ways to become a part of
his community and help others, he says.
 

He traveled to Honduras on a service trip to help build
housing. “We wanted to help poor people, but we had no idea what we were
doing,” Brady says. “We mixed cement by hand and shovel – it was real
‘day-labor tourism’ – and when it was over, we knew we’d done a good thing.”

He also volunteered time with a local food pantry called A
Gift From Ben, started by Thumper Newman in honor of his deceased son.

Newman has a strong interest in providing aid to Malawi. He
organized a concert at Presidents Park in 2006 to raise money to give to an
organization drilling wells for people without drinking water in Malawi.
Thousands of people attended, Newman said.

Newman’s interest caught Brady’s attention, because his
father is a close friend of George Chaponda, Malawi’s Minister of Education,
Science and Technology. With that coincidental connection, Brady’s post-college
plan kicked into gear.

Brady and Newman teamed up to do a series of free summer
concerts at President’s Park to raise money for Brady to go to Malawi and drill
some wells. Beer sales at the concerts, with attendance around 250 each
Saturday night, are the source of their well-drilling profit.

Brady has a one-way plane ticket to the country courtesy of
his father, and a friendly government connection in Chaponda, and he aims to be
there sometime this fall.

“So far, we’ve made maybe enough to buy one wrench,” Brady
jokes. Some local businesses have promised a few thousand dollars to add to
that wrench, Newman says.

Sounds like the beginnings of a plan, but what does Brady
know about well drilling? A lot, thanks to his summer internship – unpaid –
with the C. Ray Kellogg Company in Smithfield, where he’s been learning all the
ins and outs of well-drilling. He told WY Daily all he knew, and suffice it to
say, he may as well be a professional driller.

Newman is giving Brady a place to live this summer, since
his time has been taken up by well-drilling and beer-selling – oh, and
tutoring, which he does for a little bit of money.

Although they’ve raised enough for a wrench or two at the
summer concerts, the big blowout, the Concert for Malawi, will be coming up at
4 p.m. this Saturday. Nine bands will perform, and food and drinks will be
available for purchase. The event is free, and beer-sale proceeds will go to
buy tools, equipment, pipes and the like, says Brady.

What are his expectations when he gets to Malawi? It depends
on what he has to bring along. If all he has is his wrench, he may have to
connect with other drillers and aid workers. If he drills two wells, which
could get water to over a thousand people, he’d be thrilled, he says.

“To help influence the development of the country makes it
worthwhile,” Brady says. “I’m just excited to get over there as soon as I can.”