MEN WITH A CAUSE
“When you see the difference that water can make in a community, that feeling of pure joy, there's nothing really that can compete with that in my day job.”
– Matt Damon, Water.org Co-Founder
Matt Damon works within an industry in which success and failure are defined by numerical statistics – but these days Matt Damon has other, far more pressing statistics on his mind. He’s thinking about the 3.4 million people who die every year from a water-related illness. He’s thinking about the fact that every 51 seconds, a child dies as a consequence of their inability to access clean water and sanitation. He’s thinking about nearly a billion people, one in nine people on Earth, who lack access to an improved water source – one protected from contamination, in particular from contamination with fecal matter. “People talk about the global water crisis and what’s coming down the road,” Damon says. “We just want to keep reminding them that for 748 million people, the crisis is already here.”
Damon’s reality shock came on a trip to Africa in 2006, when he joined a tour arranged by DATA (Debt, Aids, Trade and Africa), where delegates witness the difficulties developing countries are facing and their challenges in trying to manage their daily survival.
Instead of focusing on other issues, Damon focused on how lack of water can lead to utter misery. Damon says he really couldn’t comprehend the full gravity of the situation. Americans are used to taking basic toileting and clean water for granted. American children might miss a day or two of school due to a stomach bug, but they will not die of dehydration from one.
Damon learned how the lack of water can create a vast array of problems, and began to understand that a lack of access to water can underpin a whole host of issues that contribute to extreme poverty: the ability to earn an income, attend school, or even survive childbirth, among them. Consequently, he chose water as his cause.
Photoby Praveen Sundaram for Water.org
Kanchipuram, India 2013
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