Nathan Rogers ’12 may be construction manager on the Google Fiber project in Raleigh, North Carolina, but his real mission is to help others. In late 2015 Rogers co-founded Well Constructed, a 501(c)3 NGO dedicated to providing clean drinking water to Ghana’s poorest rural regions. He took a week off from Google to launch the project in Bolgatanga, in the country’s remote northeast. "The water situation is pretty bleak up there," he reported then; "I witnessed a physical altercation between three women, fighting for the last dirty water at the bottom of a dry stream… Our contractor completed construction and commissioned our first well, which will provide clean drinking water to about a thousand people."
By spring’s end, Well Constructed had built seven wells serving about 7,000 people in Ghana’s Upper East Region, all within 20 miles of the library built by SCU students. Rogers is currently taking a six-month leave of absence from Google to advance this and other projects, such as raising interest and awareness in STEM education and careers, working with Junior Achievement Africa to create a 12-week STEM Campaign for junior high and high school students in Sub-Saharan Africa, and teaching weekly coding classes to students in a small school outside the capital of Accra. To contribute—a mere $100 provides clean water to 30 children who can remain in class longer instead of walking miles to fetch water—visit wellconstructed.org.