The Worth of Water
Our Story of Chasing Solutions to the World's Greatest Challenge
(Sprache: Englisch)
From the founders of nonprofits Water.org & WaterEquity Gary White and Matt Damon, the incredible true story of two unlikely allies on a mission to end the global water crisis for good
When Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon visited rural Zambia in 2006,...
When Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon visited rural Zambia in 2006,...
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From the founders of nonprofits Water.org & WaterEquity Gary White and Matt Damon, the incredible true story of two unlikely allies on a mission to end the global water crisis for goodWhen Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon visited rural Zambia in 2006, the last thing he expected was to become a life-long champion for the battle to end the global water and sanitation crisis. He quickly realized that to make a real impact, he'd need additional expertise.
Enter civil and environmental engineer Gary White. After quitting his consulting job to launch a nonprofit in 1990, he'd become an internationally recognized water and sanitation expert. A chance encounter would set these two unlikely allies on a decades-long mission to bring safe water and sanitation to the world.
Through first-hand accounts of setbacks and triumphs in projects spanning across the world, The Worth of Water illuminates the challenges of building and scaling market-based financial solutions to the global water crisis-and ultimately, empower communities and individuals to make long-lasting investments in their own wellbeing.
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Chapter 1: What the Hell Is the "Water Issue"?POV: Matt Damon
I've spent most of my life telling stories on-screen, not on the page-so as I was thinking about how to begin this book, I thought about how I'd start the movie. We'd fade in on a hut I visited in rural Zambia in 2006. I can still see it clearly in my mind: earthen brick walls, dirt floor, thatched roof. The landscape around it was usually dry, but because this was April, the end of the rainy season, the ground was covered, in parts, with a thin blanket of green. I was sitting outside the hut, waiting for a teenager to get home from school.
I was in Zambia because Bono-the rock star who spends his spare time fighting to end extreme poverty-had been pestering me to go. "Pest" is Bono's word. He wears it like a badge of honor. He takes pride in getting people-politicians especially, but others, too-to do things they wouldn't otherwise do, if he wasn't pestering them. The guy is really good at it. Bono believes that seeing poverty up close can change a person's priorities, can compel them to go out and do something about it. So he and his colleagues at the organization he started, DATA-which would eventually become the ONE Campaign-had been pressuring me to join them on a trip to Africa. He'd been pressuring me with the zeal of a telemarketer. He was not going to take no for an answer.
My answer wasn't no, exactly. I just had a lot going on in my life. My wife would be seven months pregnant at the time of the trip, and I had only a small window of time before my next movie. So I told Bono it just wasn't a good time. He looked at me and said, "It's never going to be a good time." Which, of course, was totally right.
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I had no grand illusions about the point of going on this trip. It's not like I'd be changing anybody's life. Bono likes to say that there's nothing worse than a rock star with a cause, but an actor with a cause is a close second. I winced at the mental image of me walking through the bush or an urban slum somewhere, looking concerned, and then flying home to my comfortable life. But then I thought: that's an even dumber excuse for not going than "I'm busy." The more I thought about the trip, the more I realized that I wanted to go and meet some of the people who live in these extremely poor places, to see firsthand the challenges they face, and to figure out whether there was something I could be doing to help. So I told Bono I'd go, and my older brother, Kyle, agreed to come along, too.
The trip was about two weeks long. It took us to slums and rural villages across South Africa and Zambia. DATA had set it up like a college mini course. Each day, we learned about a different challenge that kept people from breaking the cycle of poverty: underfunded health systems, the challenges of life in a slum, the HIV/AIDS crisis. We read briefing books about each issue, visited organizations that were trying to tackle them, and, most important, talked with the people.
On one of our last days in Zambia, we were going to learn about water. It wasn't clear to me why. I understood why we had been focusing on HIV/AIDS and education-these were issues that you read about in the news, issues that people talked about or signed petitions about or donated in support of. But when I heard we'd be spending the day on the "water issue," I wasn't sure what issue that was, exactly. I guessed the water was contaminated.
Then I read my issue brief. It said, yes, the water was contaminated-so much so that waterborne diseases were killing a child about every twenty seconds. But the water was also hard to access. There were no water pipes in these villages, no water taps in people's homes. Somebody had to go get the water and bring it back, and that somebody was almost always a woman or a girl. This was their responsibility: to walk as
I had no grand illusions about the point of going on this trip. It's not like I'd be changing anybody's life. Bono likes to say that there's nothing worse than a rock star with a cause, but an actor with a cause is a close second. I winced at the mental image of me walking through the bush or an urban slum somewhere, looking concerned, and then flying home to my comfortable life. But then I thought: that's an even dumber excuse for not going than "I'm busy." The more I thought about the trip, the more I realized that I wanted to go and meet some of the people who live in these extremely poor places, to see firsthand the challenges they face, and to figure out whether there was something I could be doing to help. So I told Bono I'd go, and my older brother, Kyle, agreed to come along, too.
The trip was about two weeks long. It took us to slums and rural villages across South Africa and Zambia. DATA had set it up like a college mini course. Each day, we learned about a different challenge that kept people from breaking the cycle of poverty: underfunded health systems, the challenges of life in a slum, the HIV/AIDS crisis. We read briefing books about each issue, visited organizations that were trying to tackle them, and, most important, talked with the people.
On one of our last days in Zambia, we were going to learn about water. It wasn't clear to me why. I understood why we had been focusing on HIV/AIDS and education-these were issues that you read about in the news, issues that people talked about or signed petitions about or donated in support of. But when I heard we'd be spending the day on the "water issue," I wasn't sure what issue that was, exactly. I guessed the water was contaminated.
Then I read my issue brief. It said, yes, the water was contaminated-so much so that waterborne diseases were killing a child about every twenty seconds. But the water was also hard to access. There were no water pipes in these villages, no water taps in people's homes. Somebody had to go get the water and bring it back, and that somebody was almost always a woman or a girl. This was their responsibility: to walk as
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Autoren-Porträt von Gary White, Matt Damon
Gary White and Matt Damon
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autoren: Gary White , Matt Damon
- 2022, 240 Seiten, Masse: 15,3 x 23,2 cm, Gebunden, Englisch
- Verlag: Portfolio
- ISBN-10: 0593189973
- ISBN-13: 9780593189979
- Erscheinungsdatum: 06.04.2022
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
"A heartfelt invitation to get involved in the pursuit of clean water for everyone."-Kirkus Reviews
"I feel lucky to have been there for that first, fateful meeting at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2008 between a movie star with a passion for global development and a water and sanitation engineer with years of on-the-ground expertise. More than a decade later, that unlikely pair has helped transform the lives of millions of people around the world through safe water and sanitation. Matt and Gary s vision is clear, their strategy is smart and effective, and their faith in their fellow human beings is at the heart of everything they do. This book isn't only an exciting read, it's a rewarding and important one."
-President Bill Clinton
"The Worth of Water is a powerful testament to every person s ability to overcome their own challenges. As Gary White, Matt Damon, and the organization they lead Water.org have shown, a small loan can have a transformative effect for families and communities living in poverty. This book tells that story a story of empowerment, change, and, above all, hope."
-Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace laureate 2006
Healthy people, healthy businesses, healthy societies all begin with ready access to clean water. This requires all of us, from CEOs to government officials to citizens, to do our part and work together. As the founders of Water.org, Matt Damon and Gary White have been showing the way and now, thankfully, they re sharing their story. This book, just like its authors, is brilliantly insightful, full of warmth and humor, and radiates optimism about our ability to create change on a global scale.
-Indra Nooyi, former chair and CEO, PepsiCo
White and Damon share a compelling story that hits on the most important factor missing in empowering people around the globe without access to water: giving them a chance to reinvent themselves to gain new opportunities for a higher standard of living.
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Reinvention is typically done by outsiders fundamentally questioning the assumption bedrock of entire industries, and with water, the notion of using microfinance to fund public services was radical... until it wasn't.
-Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures and cofounder of Sun Microsystems
Water is the ultimate systems challenge. It is a unique resource that underpins all drivers of inclusive and sustainable growth, and yet we are facing a global gap of 40 percent by the end of the decade. Gary White and Matt Damon have helped develop and prove one of the most groundbreaking ideas in decades: that people living in poverty have the capacity to solve this crisis. The Worth of Water describes how they ve done it and how closing this gap requires the centrality of those who are still in need.
-Professor Klaus Schwab, executive chairman, World Economic Forum, and cofounder, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
A seamless rendering of their journey of discovery, setbacks and solution finding . . . White and Damon succeeded where others have failed, at least in part because they focused on solving the water delivery problem with the community and not by parachuting in with a solution decided from afar.
-Associated Press
-Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures and cofounder of Sun Microsystems
Water is the ultimate systems challenge. It is a unique resource that underpins all drivers of inclusive and sustainable growth, and yet we are facing a global gap of 40 percent by the end of the decade. Gary White and Matt Damon have helped develop and prove one of the most groundbreaking ideas in decades: that people living in poverty have the capacity to solve this crisis. The Worth of Water describes how they ve done it and how closing this gap requires the centrality of those who are still in need.
-Professor Klaus Schwab, executive chairman, World Economic Forum, and cofounder, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
A seamless rendering of their journey of discovery, setbacks and solution finding . . . White and Damon succeeded where others have failed, at least in part because they focused on solving the water delivery problem with the community and not by parachuting in with a solution decided from afar.
-Associated Press
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