Ariane Kirtley

Ariane, joined by her husband, Denis and son, Fassely, as well as other fabulously committed family and friends, has devoted her life to improving the living conditions of the Azawak Valley of Niger. She founded Amman Imman: Water is Life in February 2006 to bring life giving water to her brothers and sisters in the Azawak. Ariane's name mirrors her roots, planted firmly on three continents: Kirtley the American born, Ariane the daughter of a French mother and Alzhara, "desert flower" in Arabic, signaling that she blossomed in Africa, the continent she loves above all others. Ariane crossed the Sahara Desert for the first time when she was six months old -- in a basket tied to the back seat of her family's Land-Cruiser. From those earliest months until she turned ten, her home was in North and West Africa, including the country of Niger. A 2001 graduate of Yale University, in 2004 she also earned her Masters in Public Health from Yale. In summer of 2003, she returned to Niger to intern for CARE International on a public health initiative which culminated in her Master's thesis on the subject for Yale. In May of 2004 Ariane was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to return to Niger in order to research the special health needs of women and minority ethnic populations in the Sahel. As a Fulbright Scholar, Ariane traveled to the pastoral region of the Azawak, Niger's most remote and unknown region. In the Azawak, Ariane discovered the human face of climate change: people literally dying of thirst because of their inability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. These were the most generous and dignified, as well as the most vulnerable populations of her travels throughout West Africa. She had never before witnessed an area with so few resources and infrastructure, where individuals live on the brink of disaster on a daily basis due to circumstances beyond their control. Most importantly, she had never seen half a million people in such distress receiving so little assistance from the rest of the world. She rapidly grew to love and consider her newfound friends of the Azawak as family. Thanks to the tremendous encouragement of her relatives, particularly her husband and her father, as well as the initial financial contribution of Reverend Janet Cornelius, Ariane founded Amman Imman: Water is Life for the children of the Azawak.

Watch Earth Day Network's interview with Ariane