On this week's episode of On Purpose, podcast host Jay Shetty sits down with Water.Org's co-founders, actor Matt Damon and CEO Gary White, to talk about the ongoing water crisis around the world, sharing stories of extreme poverty in places that are less developed and have little to no access to basic services.
LISTEN NOW: On Purpose with Jay Shetty: Matt Damon & Gary White ON: Seeing Problems and Taking Action & How to Help Others in Crisis
While these struggles are pervasive, we don’t normally get to hear the rawness of the situation and the reality that many people live in.
Everyone knows Matt Damon from his on screen roles, as well as producer, and screenwriter credits, but some may be unaware that in 2006 he founded the H20 Africa Foundation to help raise awareness about water initiatives on the continent. His active participation in the work of Water.Org and Water Equity has positioned him as one of the world's experts on water and sanitation issues. In 1991, Gary White launched Water Partners, now known as the international NGO Water.Org, and today leads two organizations in creating and executing market-driven solutions to the global water crisis driving innovations in the way water and sanitation projects are delivered and financed.
The duo recently released their book, The Worth of Water: Our Story of Chasing Solutions to the World's Greatest Challenge, back in March, inviting readers to become part of this effort with all author proceeds donated to Water.Org.
"For us, we tend to think that the water crisis is something thats looming," White explains. "We know that with climate change water resources are getting more scarce and that is a looming crisis, it is important, and we should be focused on that. But for 771 million people around the world today, the crisis is already upon them. They're the ones that when they woke up this morning they didn't necessarily know where they were going to get water for the day. They didn't know how much time they were going to spend walking to collect that water, or sometimes they have to buy it from these urban slum vendors who sell it for prices that are 10 to 15 times more than if they had a water connection... When you're struggling day to day like that, that water crisis becomes like a family health crisis. It becomes an education crisis, it becomes a lack of employment crisis because you're focused so much on getting water... it is something that right now is robbing hundreds of millions of people of their futures."
"Leaving aside the needless death that occurs when you don't have access to clean water and sanitation," Matt adds, "when you look at the other effects of not having access, namely because this disproportionately affects women and girls, so many girls aren't in school because they have to, for the sake of the survival of their families, be out looking for water every day. You can imagine what that does to the outcomes of their lives and to their potential. It's not only this needless disease and suffering, it's also robbing people of their potential in ways that are really incalculable."
"The very first water collection I went on," Damon shares, "15-16 years ago, I was in Zambia in this really rural village. It had been arranged for me to meet this girl when she got home from school and we walked together to this well... In the course of our conversation I said, 'Are you going to live here for the rest of your life?' She got really shy and said, 'no I don't want to live here, I want to go to the big city... I want to be a nurse.' And I totally connected to her because I remembered being 14 and I was going to go to the big city with Ben Affleck and we were gonna be actors, we were going to New York! And that's what a 14-year-old should be thinking about. They should be dreaming about their futures and the possibility that await them. It wasn't until I got in the car and was driving away that I realized had it not been for the foresight of someone to sink a bore well a mile from this kid's house, she wouldn't have been in school. She wouldn't dream of someday being a nurse, and contributing to the economic engine of her country, and helping people."
Podcast host Jay Shetty's stated purpose is to "make wisdom go viral" through fascinating conversations with the most insightful people in the world. Listen to the full episode above and follow along with On Purpose -- now streaming on Audacy -- with new episodes Mondays and Fridays.
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