Matt Damon Gets Emotional Sharing How Being a Father Affects His Fight for Clean Water

Water.org co-founder opens up at Sundance 2017

By Sara Kitnick Jan 24, 2017 12:13 AMTags
Matt Damon, SundanceRick Kern/Getty Images for Stella Artois

Every 90 seconds, a child under the age of 5 will lose their life due to a lack of access to clean water and sanitation.

Matt Damon, co-founder of Water.org, recently shared this chilling fact with an intimate audience at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

"It's a massive issue for men, women and girls. I've traveled all around the world interacting with these little girls, and as a father of four girls, it's deeply affecting," Matt said emotionally. "These are real human beings and it's impossible not to see the faces of your own children in the faces of these children."

photos
Do-Gooder Gallery

"I remember being in Ethiopia and watching these villagers get water out of a hand-dug well, and these children were filling up these plastic bottles to take to school, and when they pulled it out, it literally looked like chocolate milk," the Oscar winner continued. "You want to slap it out of their hands, because you know they are going to get sick. But the reality is that if they don't drink the water that day, they are going to die."

Water.org has helped transform the lives of millions around the world, and in their recent partnership with Stella Artois Buy A Lady A Drink campaign, many more lives will be saved.

Watch: Matt Damon Almost Starred in "Manchester by the Sea"

Damon explained, "Here in America, if you walk into a bar and you order a Stella you not only get a great pint of beer, you're also providing someone you'll never meet in the developing world with clean water for a month. If you buy a six-pack in a supermarket, that'll be water for one person for six months and a 12-pack is for a year."

So far, Stella Artois has created access to clean water and sanitation for almost 1 million people, but the work is far from over.

With the help of Matt, Water.org and people like us, hopefully one day the world's water crisis will be a thing of the past.