One day, Matt Damon went for a long walk with a girl in rural Zambia.
It was almost at the end of his 10-day African visit. During his
journey, he came to realize what it really means to be poor. Every day
he saw Africans suffering from different things: AIDS, microfinance,
education, and finally, water.
Most African girls and women have to walk at least an hour to collect the water from a well
While walking with the young Zambian girl, he came up with one
question. He asked her, “What do you want to be when you grew up, do you
want to stay here?” She didn’t answer right away, but after she
finished drawing water from a well, she finally answered his question.
She said she wants to be a nurse in a big city called Lusaka. He
recalled his own dream at the same age, but his situation was totally
different from hers. She had to walk an hour every day to collect water
for her family.
He realized she couldn’t receive a proper education within this way
of life. And the water was not even clean and safe. Something began
clicking in his mind. He wanted to help her.
Matt Damon with African kids, He hopes these kids' dream to come true by providing easy accesses to water
“Now she can hope to be a nurse and contribute to the economic engine
of Zambia,” he says. “Of all the different things that keep people in
this kind of death spiral of extreme poverty, water just seemed so
huge.” He pauses. “And it doesn’t have to be.”
After his return from Africa, he established Water.org, a charity he
co-founded in 2009 with water expert Gary White, to provide Africans
with easy access to water. They work together to get funding from
investors and businesses.
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