By Her Hands
A global podcast that elevates the voices, leadership, and lived wisdom of young women ages 13 to 25 and creates space for shared experiences and learning — brought to you by WaterStep. Here, young women talk honestly about the things that shape their lives: purpose, identity, belonging, confidence, leadership, faith, fear, friendship, the future - and the small, everyday moments that teach them who they are and who they’re becoming. What It Is and What It’s Not: Inspiring and impact-driven stories form the heart of each episode. Real anecdotal stories, not interviews. Laughter, vulnerability, and reflection are expected and welcome. No adult lectures. For more information visit www.WaterStep.org
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The Origin Story of the By Her Hands Podcast
02/24/2026
The Origin Story of the By Her Hands Podcast
WaterStep, an organization with 31 years of experience in safe water and sanitation, is launching a new initiative called "By Her Hands." Inspired by CEO Mark Hogg’s vision, this program focuses on the pivotal role women and girls play in global water solutions and community health. The "By Her Hands" podcast serves as a core component of this initiative, providing a platform for young women to share their own stories. Featuring local hosts and remote guests from Africa and Latin America, the show operates on the principle of not telling anyone's story without them. While the discussions will cover a broad range of topics including family and society, they will ultimately tie back to the essential role of water. The goal is to transform water from a daily burden into a source of empowerment and power for girls everywhere. This journey of discovery and change officially launches on March 19th across major platforms like Spotify, Amazon, and iHeart Radio. Through this podcast, listeners are encouraged to find the power they carry inside and spread it to those around them. Transcript of Discussion Jim Ray: And we are in the studios here in Louisville, Kentucky with a couple of good friends of mine from an organization called WaterStep, Kristina Gates and Justine Tou. Glad to see you all. Thanks very much for coming in. Let's talk about something that's going on at WaterStep. First of all, Kristina, if you would tell me a little bit about WaterStep. Kristina Goetz: Well, WaterStep has been around for 30 years, this is our 31st year. And we are all about safe water sanitation and hygiene. That's what we do in the world. We have one goal, Jim, and that is to bring safe water to anybody who needs it on the planet. Jim Ray: And you all are actively providing water solutions all over the African content, as well as, all over the United States. I mean, you guys are doing some really amazing stuff. I had the chance to go downtown and tour you all's facility a while back, and that's when you all let me know, Hey, there's a new initiative coming on. So Justine, tell me about this new initiative. How did it get started and what do you hope it will accomplish for us? Justine Tossou: Absolutely. So this initiative is called By Her Hands and By Her Hands is coming to life from a vision that our CO and founder Mark Hogg had. The inspiration is really around the place that women and girls have in the work that we do and the impact overall globally. And we realized that we wanted to focus on them, the place that they have, their inspiration, the hard work, the opportunities that they always bring in the work that we do around water. Jim Ray: It's amazing. As we've developed this, what you all have taught me is that a lot of times the girls are really responsible in these households for gathering the water and doing things. So that affects hygiene, that affects water, transportation back from the source back to the home. And they actually have a lot to do with that. You've also got hygiene and things like that where they're taking care of their families. And I think this “empowerment podcast” is going to be pretty exciting. With that being said, I may have let the cat out of the bag. You're launching a podcast. Tell me all about that. Justine Tossou: We are. So from the inspiration launching By Her Hands program, we realized that we also needed to hear more voices, more women voices, girls' voices that will be inspiring to others around the world, especially here in Louisville, Kentucky. Because what we do, we want it to be impacting. We want it to bring perspectives and opportunities to make change around their lives. And especially when it comes to women and girls. Jim Ray: I love this because we're going to have a couple of local hosts, some younger girls who are going to actually drive the podcast for us, but we're going to remote in some other younger girls from different countries, really anywhere from across Africa to South America, Latin America. This is going to be a pretty big vision. Wow. Justine Tossou: Absolutely. Absolutely, Jim, and I'm glad you're mentioning all the friends and the key actors that we have around the world, right? And when the team at WaterStep has been thinking and putting together this podcast we always wanted to go by, one thing is that we are not telling anybody's stories without them. And this is part of what we believe in. We live, we work, and we talk about things that matters to us with everybody around us, right, Kristina? Kristina Goetz: Yeah, absolutely. And what's exciting about this is that it's not just hearing the girls' voices, but it's giving them an opportunity to change the world. It's giving them an opportunity to help other women and girls just like them all around the world to have safe water. And you can log on to WaterStep.org to figure out how to do that. But this is one way to reach more and more people about the problems that women and girls have in the world, but also give them an opportunity to make change and solve those problems. Jim Ray: Well, what I love about this is it's going to deviate. It's going to focus not just on water issues, it's going to talk about society, it's going to talk about families, it's going to talk about a whole bunch of other things that these young women are dealing with, coping with, navigating in their day-to-day lives. But again, we're going to tie it back in various ways to, it comes back to water and how can water play a role in some of this? And then how can, on top of that, how can WaterStep provide essential element water? Justine Tossou: And when you think about it, Jim, water is so central to everybody's lives, right? But what is important here is to understand that in different places it means different things. It can be a burden, it can be a power. At the end of the day, what we want with the podcast with By Her Hands podcast is that we want water to empower girls and women so that they can be the change in their community, in their lives. And rather than carrying water as a burden, while water becomes their power. Jim Ray: That's outstanding. So Kristina, as we look at launching this, and just so everybody's aware, we're going to launch this on March 19th. Where are people going to be able to find this podcast? Kristina Goetz: So on Spotify, on Amazon, iHeartRadio, basically anywhere you listen to your podcast, you can find us there. We hope you'll check us out. Jim Ray: And you all have a pretty big social media presence already. We're going to post these up to Facebook and LinkedIn and also to the WaterStep YouTube channel. So we've got a lot of different ways you're going to be able to find this. I guess the first thing we would do is, hey, get ready, share the news here about what's coming by all means, Like and Follow this podcast. I think it's going to be an interesting journey. I think it's going to be a great experience and it's going to come back to, again, empowerment and just, wow, this is going to be a lot. You guys have so much passion that you've brought into the creation of this initiative, and I really want to give some kudos to Mark for having said, Hey, you know what? There's another way we can do this. It's not just about providing machines, it's not just about providing technology, it's also about helping society. And we're going to tie it all back to water. So once again, the Buy Her Hands initiative, which is kind of the macro, and this is one of the things that is an outgrowth and a support tool for that is the podcast. And they aptly named it By Her Hands podcast. So Justine, any closing thoughts? You're kind of heading up this initiative, so if you had one thing to say to everybody, how would you leave it? Justine Tossou: I would say that we all have, especially womens and girls, we all have a power inside us, and we hope that by following this podcast, you will find it, you would carry it, and you would just spread it around you. Jim Ray: Outstanding. Well, my friends, congratulations on getting this initiative together on getting ready to launch. We've been in the studio for days now, recording different elements and aspects of it and just planning this out. So looking forward to this going live once again on March 19th, and we'll be talking to you soon. All the best. Justine Tossou: Thanks you, Jim. Interested in Contacting WaterStep to Learn More? Website: That’s where we’ll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We’d love to hear from you. We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!
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