Growing up as an Army brat, Eric Stowe got a taste of life outside the United States when his family moved to Germany.

As an undergraduate at the University of Washington Tacoma, then as a graduate student at the UW’s main campus in Seattle, Stowe continued to feed his interest in world affairs. He majored in international studies at the UWT and in China studies in graduate school. He graduated from the UWT in 2001 and completed graduate school in 2003.

“I always assumed I’d be working overseas, or working here and traveling overseas,” said the 37-year-old Tacoma father of two.

After working for an international adoption agency, Stowe came to understand one of the biggest problems facing children in developing countries: lack of access to clean water. “Water is the first rung in a very long social ladder,” he said.

In 2006, he founded A Child’s Right (www.achilds right.org), an international relief organization dedicated to bringing clean water to children in impoverished urban and semi-urban areas in underdeveloped countries.

Other organizations already specialized in serving rural areas. Stowe believed children in cities and communities on the edges of cities were in greatest need.

The Tacoma-based nonprofit targets children in schools and orphanages, along with kids who visit street shelters and patients in children’s hospitals. Teams go to a site, test the water, and determine if it needs filtration or other treatment.

A Child’s Right has launched projects in China, Ethiopia, Nepal, Thailand and Cambodia. Stowe estimated they have touched the lives of 250,000 children.

Looking back at his college days, Stowe said he thinks the UWT helped spark his activism.

“They weren’t the fuel, but they were part of the ignition,” he said. “Anybody who goes to UW Tacoma is challenged to be part of something outside a basic 9-to-5 job. There is a sense of responsibility that’s nurtured.”

Debbie Cafazzo, staff writer