See How A Thirteen-Year-Old Girl Changed Matt Damon’s Perspective
In 2013, Matt Damon publicly read from the speech that his lifelong friend Howard Zinn originally gave in 1970 reminding us that the core issues of humanity are not a result of disobedience but rather of obedience. As part of a recent interview with HuffPost Live, Matt has once again used the public spotlight to help build awareness and hopefully instigate change.
The focus this time, however, is on the lack of access that such a large portion of the human race still has to basic necessities – such as clean water, and adequate sanitation. Matt shares a couple of staggering statistics as well as a funny yet touching story of a young Haitian girl that he had the opportunity to speak as well, check it out: For many, and for good reason, the most staggering part of this interview is quite possibly the statistics that are given off the top by both Matt and the interviewer. It’s amazing that it is 2014 and yet one-ninth of the global population still lacks access to water, with 2.5 billion lacking access to adequate sanitation.
These are things that so many of us simply take for granted, having never experienced a reality without either of these or any other bare necessity not being readily available. This being the case, it’s great to see prominent figures such as Matt doing what they can to both build awareness as well as take action to help communities around the world. For me, the most impactful part of this interview was the story that Matt shared of the 13-year-old Haitian girl that he had spoken to a couple of years ago after an initiative he was a part of helped to bring water to her community.
The fact that the girl revealed that she had previously spent approximately 3 hours a day seeking a bare necessity for survival is staggering. It’s staggering not only because of how essential water is to our survival, but also because of what this daily search stripped her of. In my opinion, we as humans all deserve the right to play and experience life, especially as children, outside of the fight for survival. We recently released an article about an amazing piece of technology, the LifeStraw, that could help to make this a reality for the entire world. You can check out the article and find out more about the LifeStraw by clicking HERE.
There is absolutely no reason everybody on the planet cannot have their basic necessities provided for. For those of you that are also interested in seeing Matt Damon’s speech from 2013 it is viewable below: .
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