The Reason Why Matt Damon Is Fighting for Clean Water

Damon talks to esquire.com in an exclusive interview at the Sundance Film Festival

On a trip to India, Water.org founder Gary White told Matt Damon something that's become something of a motto for the actor: "Turns out it's expensive to be poor."

"We were sitting in a slum and we were doing the math on how much these people were paying for water," Damon told Esquire during an interview at Sundance Film Festival on Saturday. "It's disproportionally higher than what the middle class pays, or the water going into the five star hotels. It's just insane what these people pay. It's that first gallon of water. It's life or death."

Damon and White are co-founders of Water.org, a nonprofit that's working to provide developing countries with access to clean drinking water. The two appeared at Sundance alongside Stella Artois' Todd Allen on Saturday to discuss their "Buy a Lady a Drink" campaign, which is entering its second year bringing attention to women who spend hours each day looking for water for their families. The beer maker is introducing glasses that represent countries like Ethiopia, Haiti, India, and Honduras with each $13 sale providing a woman in these countries with five years of clean water.

Water.org has created "Water Credit," which provides a $200 loan over two years to install a pipe that connects to the town's water system. Otherwise, most women are forced to travel to a well, where they spend a disproportionate amount of the family's income on water. More than 300 million people have been affected by water credit. And 94 percent of the people who take the loans are women, and over 99 percent of the loans are paid off (often before 2 years).

"I think ultimately the water credit has been huge for us," Damon said. "We have this new fund now to find new ways to expand water credit because it's so successful. Gary had this belief and he was right. He was really, really right."

It's a problem, that impacts as many as 663 million people world wide. And one that Damon started feeling personal about after becoming a father.

"Now you're connected to the grid the same way a middle class person is," Damon said. "The innovation is that it's an income enhancing loan, because it frees up the time, rather than an income generating loan."

Source: Esquire

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Taxonomy

• Educational Non Profit
• Water-Energy-Food Security
• International Water Non Profit