Water.org
Matt Damon, H2O Africa co-founder, and Gary White, WaterPartners executive director and co-founder, have joined forces to co-found a new organization – Water.org – a non-profit focused on bringing access to safe water and sanitation to the developing world. Water.org will leverage grassroots awareness-building expertise and nearly two decades of demonstrated innovation and success in the sector to help the nearly 890 million people without safe water and the more than 2.5 billion people without safe sanitation.
Matt Damon, a long-time advocate for safe water issues, explains the importance of launching Water.org. “Every 15 seconds, a child in the developing world dies from water-related disease. After visiting project sites in Africa and Asia with Gary, I’ve seen the problem and the impact of safe water.” Damon said, “As a clear leader in the sector at delivering innovative and sustainable solutions for those in need, WaterPartners was the natural choice with whom to work to truly affect lasting change.”
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Comments
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
That second picture of Matt Damon holding the water they drink is shocking.
The average person simply does not realise how lucky they are to turn on a tap and have clean, safe water coming from it with such ease and at no cost. It is a disgrace and a true crime that so many people in this world do not have access to the most basic necessities for survival. Maybe we should all remember how lucky we are when we next tip water away or buy a bottle of water from the store. We are the lucky ones.
Kinda makes our problem seem insignificant doesn't it?
Thanks so much for telling us about it, I'll certainly be making a contribution.
It makes me sick to my stomach to see how us, the ever so clever western society, managed so successfully to infect the rest of the world with our disgusting habits, beliefs, fashion but have failed so miserably in teaching them how to look after themselves, help themselves, grow.
I'm so proud of people like Matt whose voice is actually strong enough to lead masses into helping out. And I shall follow.
I think it is great that they bring attention and help to these developing countries, however, the water in the United States isn’t as clean as you think. The New York Times has recently compiled and analyzed millions of records from water systems and regulators around the nation, as part of a series of articles about worsening pollution in American waters, and regulators response. I thought the results were shocking. Since 2004, the studies had found the water provided to more than 49 million Americans has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage. These studies also indicate that drinking water contaminants are linked to millions of instances of illness within the United States each year.
Luckily the Obama administration is pushing to enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act and make changes to the way pharmaceutical companies dispose of their waste.