On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Matt Damon & Gary White ON: Seeing Problems and Taking Action & How to Help Others in Crisis

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on CalmJay Shetty sits down with Water.Org co-founders Matt Damon and Gary White to talk about the water crisis around the world. We see stories of extreme poverty in places that are less developed and have little to no access to basic services such as electricity and water. These stories of struggles are out there but we don’t get to hear the rawness of the situation and reality many people live in. The water crisis is real and it’s one of the major hindrances for children to have proper education and a chance at a better future. While everyone knows Matt Damon as an actor and producer and screenwriter, in 2006, he founded H20 Africa Foundation to raise awareness about water initiatives on the continent. Matt's active participation in the work of Water.Org and Walter Equity has positioned him as one of the world's experts on water and sanitation issues. Now in 1991, Gary White launched Water Partners, now the international NGO known as Water.Org. Today, he leads two organizations in creating and executing market-driven solutions to the global water crisis driving innovations in the way water and sanitation projects are delivered and financed.Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/What We Discuss:00:00 Intro03:14 The water crisis is a daily struggle09:35 Taking the problem one step at a time and find a solution 16:49 How the lack of water impacts women and girls more21:53 What else should a thirteen year old girl think about?24:41 The impact of seeing places in extreme poverty27:50 Tapping into existing microfinance institutions (MFIs) across the globe35:10 Finding a partner in the water credit space40:44 Spread awareness on these individual storiesEpisode ResourcesWater.OrgWater EquityThe Worth of WaterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. What do a flirtatious gambling double agent in World War Two? An opera singer who burned down an honorary to kidnap her lover.

And a pirate queen who walked free with all of her spoils, have in common. They're all real women who were left out of your history books. You can hear these stories and more on the Womanica podcast. Check it out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Regardless of the progress you've made in life, I believe we could all benefit from wisdom on handling common problems, making life seem more manageable, now more than ever.

I'm Eric Zimmer, host of the One You Feed Podcast, where I interview thought-provoking guests who offer practical wisdom that you can use to create the life you want. 25 years ago, I was homeless and addicted to heroin. I've made my way through addiction recovery, learned to navigate my clinical depression, and figured out how to build a fulfilling life. The one you feed has over 30 million downloads and was named one of the best podcasts by Apple Podcasts. Oprah Magazine named this as one of 22 podcasts to help you live your best life. You always have the chance to begin again and feed the best of yourself. The trap is the person often thinks they'll act once they feel better.

It's actually the other way around. I have had over 500 conversations with world-renowned experts, and yet I'm still striving to be better. Join me on this journey. Listen to the one you feed on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. About 11 years ago, we were in Haiti, and I was introduced to a little girl who was 13. She spent three to four hours every day collecting water.

So I say to this kid, I'm like, well, hey, you know, I kind of joke and say, now you have more time for homework. And she looked at me totally seriously and she's like, I don't need more time to do homework. I'm the smartest kid in my class. And I said, all right, well, so what are you going to do with all this time that you just found that you're new, you're new found four hours a day. And she looked at me and she goes, I'm going to play. Hey everyone, welcome back to on purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now, I know that our community at on purpose, all of you are

activists, our community is dedicated to making positive change in the world. I know that all of you have got behind so many causes that we've prioritized and given a platform to on this podcast. And this is one of those episodes. So if you've been looking and waiting to do something positive in the world to feel like you're a part of the solution, then I want you to listen to this episode. I want you to share it with all your friends and family

that are of the same energy and spirit because this one's gonna make a huge difference. Today I'm speaking to two incredible guests, Gary White and Matt Damon, who are co-founders of Water.org and Water Equity. While everyone knows Matt as an actor and producer and screenwriter, in 2006, he founded H20 Africa Foundation to raise awareness about water initiatives on the continent. Matt's active participation in the work of water.org and water equity has positioned him as one of the world's experts on water and sanitation issues.

Now, in 1991, Gary launched water partners, now the international NGO known as water.org. Today, he leads two organizations in creating and executing market-driven solutions to the global water crisis. Driving innovations in the way water and sanitation projects are delivered and financed. Welcome to on-purpose Matt Damon and Gary White. Matt and Gary, thank you so much for being here. And I know today we're talking about your book, The Worth of Water, our story of chasing solutions to the world's greatest challenge. I highly recommend everyone goes and grabs a copy of the book while you're listening or watching, but we will be diving into that and discussing it.

Gary and Matt, thank you for being here. It's so good to see you. Good to see you. Thank you for sharing your incredible platform with us, too. This is really awesome. We appreciate it. For sure. Thanks Jay. No, thank you for doing the work. You know, I spent three years living as a monk in India after business school. And a lot of the work we did was around building sustainable villages.

And a big part of that was making sure that clean water reached those places. So I have a personal affinity to the work that you're doing. And so when this came across my desk, I was, I was, to be honest, just super enthusiastic and excited to talk about it. I'd love to start off from both of you individually telling me about what is the water crisis and water issue right now for those who are unaware or those that have kind of seen it, but kind of think, oh yeah, like isn't, aren't there a lot of people dealing with that? And you know, it's kind of been talked about for a while. I'd love to hear from both of your perspectives personally as to what you believe the issue is right now.

Well, if I can go ahead and jump in, if that's right, it's, it's so complex, it's kind of hard to distill up, but I'll give it a shot. I think that for us, we tend to think of the water crisis as something that's looming. We know that, you know, with climate change, water resources are getting more scarce. And that is a looming crisis, and it is important we should be focused on that.

But for 771 million people around the world today, the crisis is already upon them, right? They're the ones that when they woke up this morning, they didn't necessarily know where they were going to get water for the day. They didn't know how much time they were going to have to spend walking to collect that water, or sometimes they have to buy it from these these urban slum vendors who sell it for Prices that are 10 to 15 times more than what they would pay if they had a water connection So to them the water crisis is a daily struggle to Make sure that they have enough water in order to kind of live the day

And then when you're struggling day to day like that, that water crisis becomes like a family health crisis. It becomes an education crisis. It becomes lack of employment crisis because you're focused so much on getting water or paying for water that you're not in school, you're not healthy. And so it is basically something that's right now

robbing hundreds of millions of people of their futures because until you have water, nothing else matters. Thank you for that, Gary. I really appreciate that. And the main thing that I'm hearing there is just we think of people just not having water to drink. And then it's almost like, well, wait a minute, let's think about the act of getting water and what that takes away time from, IE, their economic space, their home space, their family, the cooking, the feeding, everything that it expands out to.

So thank you for that. I wanna extend the same question to you as well. I'd love to hear about for you personally, what you see is the issue. So, well, I think Gary just did a pretty good summary there, but to follow on to that, I would just say that the effect. So, well, I think Gary just did a pretty good summary there, but to follow on to that, I would just say that the effect of that, right, leaving aside the needless disease and death, right,

that occurs when you don't have access to clean water and sanitation, you know, because we're losing, I mean, a million children under the age of five, you know, to completely preventable illness, right? And so that's its own tragedy, right? But when you look at the other effects of not having access, namely, you know, because this disproportionately affects women and girls, so many girls aren't in school because

they have to, for the sake of their survival of their families, be out looking for water every day. So you can imagine what that does to the outcomes of their lives and to their potential. So it's not only this needless disease and suffering, it's also robbing people of their potential in ways that are really incalculable. And that was the very first water collection I went on. This is 15, 16 years ago. And I was in Zambia in this really rural village. And it had been a range for me to meet this girl

when she got home from school. And we walked together to this well. And I talked to her, it was about a mile away. And in the course of our conversation, I said, you know, I said, are you going to live here for the rest of your life? Is this where you want to live? And she got really shy and she goes, no, no, I don't want to live here. I want to go to the big city. We're in this really rural area. She goes, I want to go to Lusaka. I want to be a nurse, right? And and I totally just connected to her because I remembered being 14, and I was gonna go to the big city with Ben Affleck,

and we were gonna be actors, we were going to New York, and that's like, what a 14-year-old should be thinking about, right? They should be dreaming about their futures, and the possibility that awaited them. And it wasn't until I got in the car and was driving away that I realized had it not been for the foresight of someone to sink a bore well a mile from this kid's house, she wouldn't have been in school. until I got in the car and was driving away that I realized had it not been for the foresight

of someone to sink a bore well a mile from this kid's house, she wouldn't have been in school. She wouldn't dream of someday being a nurse and contributing to the economic engine of her country and helping people, being a frontline healthcare worker, you know, all the things that, and living her dream, really, right? And so that was kind of a,

in epiphany for me and, and, and, and just the far reaching effect of lack of access, because I really found that it underpinned everything. It undergirds every issue of extreme poverty. It touches all of them. And so the fact that nobody was really talking about it, and it was this vastly interesting and complex thing, massive problem. That was what first got me really interested.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think there was a line in the book that really struck me and you said that for that girl, water was life and it was also a shot out of better life. And when you make that comparison of what you were thinking about at 14, what she's thinking about at 14, now I'm thinking about what I was thinking about at 14 and I would encourage our listeners and viewers right now and Gary I'm sure you've thought about this many times, but I'd like everyone who's listening and watching to think what were you thinking about at 14, what was your choice that you were having to make and you just realize how far off it is from someone who doesn't have access to water and clean water.

And that just makes you stop pause and think and go, wow, like I may think I may not have this opportunity or I may not have enough money to move to a city, but it's like here we're talking about not even having water and clean water to have access to let alone all those choices. One thing that comes to mind, and I wanna hear this from both of you,

because this has been work that you've been doing for a number of years, this is not something that both of you've just got involved with, and it's your life's work. It's something you're truly passionate about. When you first saw the pain for both of you, when I hear those numbers, 771 million people, is that right? Did I get that number right Gary? Like 771 million people, you know, don't

have access to clean water. When I'm hearing mats, you share the statistics just right now, we're losing a million children at year. When I'm hearing those numbers, they are so high, right? They're astronomical. I hear a lot of people when they're exposed to that much pain, our natural inclination is to feel like we can't do anything. And our natural inclination is to feel a bit helpless, to feel sad, to feel disheartened. We feel like our empathy takes over and we go, well, what can I do?

When you first saw that, what gave both of you the feeling A that you had to do something, but B that what you do could make a difference. Let's start there and then I'll follow up with another question. Let's start there and Gary, you can go first again for us. I came at it from a kind of an almost analytical perspective after I had that emotional response to it, right? So when I was in Guatemala as an undergraduate, you know, university doing a volunteer project there, just seeing this girl going, collecting this filthy water out of a drum, you know, in the slums and walking back through this sewage filled lane, that, that to me was one person, right?

And then coming back and then learning that this was the story for hundreds of millions of people, I didn't get discouraged. I just like could see that one person. And it's like, okay, if we can just kind of tackle this, you know, even one person at a time, that was kind of the idealistic view of it. And so to me, what's been important

about this journey that we kind of chronicle in the book is that you have to have that in goal in mind. And that can be daunting to see that our vision is that everyone in our lifetime has access to safe water. And the challenge then becomes to match the scale of the solution to the scale of the problem. And I knew that philanthropy alone wasn't going to be that solution. philanthropy has a role to play. But it was only by traveling and meeting women who are in these circumstances. I met a woman in India who had gone to a loan shark and was paying 150% interest

to that loan shark just so she could build the toilet that she wanted. Other people who were doing this to, you know, taking out loans for water connections at exorbitant rates. And then using those insights and saying, well, what if, you know, we could turn the problem around and look at like getting these people access to these small loans, what we now call water credit, that would then unleash them to get the solutions that they wanted. So I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, but my point is that you just have to take the problem a step at a time and find a solution that's there, evolve it, get the insights and move on. And that is the journey.

And I think that's one of the subplots, I guess, of the book, is that any of these seemingly intractable, big social problems do have solutions. If you're tenacious, if you innovate, and you work hard at it, you believe that we can get there. Yeah, that's, I would just say, it's interesting, because I had the exact same kind of reaction that Gary did, which was to say, okay, well, this is a complex issue and I don't understand it entirely, but I know that if I raise money, if I create an organization and raise money and start doing

his direct impact, we're building wells, right? I've seen the power of one well. So if it if it if a thousand people have access to that one well, then I've helped a thousand people. So why don't I start there? Why don't I just start moving forward? Why don't I start as Gary said, you know, take that first step? I don't know where the road is going, but I know I'm not getting there if I don't start walking. And so that was what, and so I did, I'm sure incredibly naive things, and I didn't, and Gary, when we met in 2008, Gary,

we talk about in the book, Gary led with all of his failures, right, which is an incredible attractive thing, incredibly attractive thing to me, because I think that is how, we can't be afraid of failure, we can't be afraid of, you know, that can't stop our momentum, right? And it's how we learn, and it's how we grow. And so I knew that I had to partner with somebody

who had a more sophisticated understanding of this issue. And I looked around for the best person available. And when they would not take my call, I found Gary. No. So, no. And that was really the one thing that I did in this, all of this work that was really. I'm really happy that I did that. It was that we was really one of the smartest choices I've ever made in my life.

And because of this water credit that Gary is talking about, which was this idea that came from his experience and his lifetime of experience of being in these communities and talking to people and understanding what life was like. He also understood that people in the poorest communities were paying for water. They were already paying for it. And in most cases, paying way more than the middle class, way more than the people staying in the fancy hotels, who take it totally for granted, they weren't connected to the infrastructure.

And as a result, their life was built around trying to get it story of these women, because, you know, over 90% of our borrowers are women. And this kind of incredibly heroic women, like an individual, one by one, by one, to the tune of millions and millions of them have paid these loans back at over 99% and it's just a beautiful story and it's about philosophically how we feel about trying to help. It's not a kind of paternalistic, here's your solution, you're welcome. It's like it's going into the communities and listening and then ultimately nudging a market towards people and letting them solve their own problems.

And that's what we've seen happen now over 43 million times. And that's really cool. Mm-hmm. I am Mianna. And on my podcast, The R-Spot, we're having inspirational, educational, and sometimes difficult and challenging conversations about relationships. They may not have the capacity to give you what you need and insisting means that you are

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I'm Mungeshia Tickler and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it.

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Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Not too long ago, in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, this explorer stumbled upon something that would change his life. I saw it and I saw, oh wow, this is a very unusual situation. It was cacao, the tree that gives us chocolate, but this cacao was unlike anything experts had seen or tasted. I've never wanted us to have a gun bite. I mean, you saw the stacks of cash in our office.

Chocolate sort of forms this vortex. It sucks you in. It's like I can be the queen of wild chocolate. We're all lost. It was madness. It was a game changer. People quit their jobs. They left their lives behind so they could search for more of this stuff. I wanted to tell their stories, so I followed them deep into the jungle. And it wasn't always pretty. Basically, this like disgruntled guy and his family surrounded the building arm with machetes. And we've heard all sorts of things that you know somebody got shot over this.

Sometimes I think all all days for a damn bar of talklet. Listen to obsessions while chocolate on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Yeah that's an that's an incredible impact. And I love the way you're thinking about it and the idea that there isn't just one size fits all solution. It's not about throwing money at it. It's actually giving people the tools and the skills and the abilities, as you rightly said, to solve their own challenges so that they feel empowered in the process rather

than dependent again on another outside source in another way. I mean, can you expand more for those who don't know how the lack of access to water impacts girls and women's more than boys and men? And when you uncovered that, just tell us some of the reasons because I don't know if everyone knows why or how that exists as a discrepancy,

but also tell us some of the stories of some of the women that you've worked with as well. Women and girls have been the ones and families that have been charged with collecting the water for their households, almost universally, around the world. So they obviously have the greatest stake in this and the greatest stake in trying to find a solution

and the greatest stake in ensuring that that solution is sustainable. And that to us, is an insight, that's an observation. So it's like, well, let's, where are we going to shape our solutions to meet their needs? And that's why more than 85% of the borrowers under our water credit program are women. And so they're the ones that are repaying these loans at a 99% rate. And they are the ones that have even more incentive

to make sure that if something breaks down that it gets repaired. And I think that's one of the beauties of water credit as well, because oftentimes water projects do break down. Some of the statistics are that about half of the water projects fail after five years. And if you have access to an ecosystem of finance for water and sanitation, not just a one and done grant, but you can access a microload to go get the, you know, solution that you need to fix, you know, your water tap or whatever,

that is an important part of the whole model. And giving people, we talk about, not necessarily seeing people living in poverty as a charity problem to be solved as much as a market to be served. And in order to kind of make the market work, we have to kind of nudge it towards the poor, which is what we do with

water.org to help get microfinance institutions that we partner with around the world to de-risk this for them because it's a new thing to loan for water toilets and they're not quite sure how it works. So we can use our philanthropic capital to kind of help them do market research to design these loan products so that they can go out and make these 43 million loans that have happened so far. And that is kind of the concept. And one way to just boil it down to the story, right, a woman I met in the Philippines recently, her name was Lynna Disa, and she was paying $60 a month to a water vendor who was selling water off the back of a truck, not even good quality water. And she took out a loan from one of our partners and her loan repayment, her payment each month

is $5. Her water bill each month is $5. So right there, you see $50 back in her pocket. I mean, think about, you know, when you're living in poverty, $50 is a lot of money. You can now work to get your kids into school. You know, you can now afford the medicines that you might need for your family. You can invest in your future and build a future. And I think that's what we're trying to, to help people unlock. And that's whose stories, we're fortunate to be able to tell in the book. Yeah, Gary, what I find fascinating there, Matt,

just before we come to you, that how of those, obviously those water vendors who are not selling the clean water or the best water, they've built up a certain level of authority and control in these markets. And like, how is that just, is that being dismantled as well? By you doing this work, like, where are those people? Like kind of, because I feel like that is so difficult.

Obviously, if you're not, if you haven't traveled to these countries, it's hard for people to understand how that even works. Um, but, but that kind of like, authority, influence, and power and control, how are they reacting to the dismantling of their economies? Because I'm sure that there's, you know, conflict or pain back from that side. Like how does that all work? Sorry if it's an ignorant question, but it's just...

No, no, no, no. And I think that I guess one thing to understand is that even they are not making a fortune off of this system, right? It's just really expensive to find water, to put it in a truck, to buy the diesel, to drive the truck around and distribute it. I mean, the efficiency of that versus doing it through a pipe is incredible, right? So it's no surprise that they have to charge those amounts. And so, yes, there's going to be dislocations there with some of these vendors, but we haven't seen that crop up as a problem. You so, yes, there's going to be dislocations there with some of these vendors, but we haven't seen that crop up as a problem. You know, it happens incrementally, you know,

everybody in the world is used to kind of having to reinvent themselves. And so I think that, you know, they might go on to other businesses. And you have tanker truck water that's needed for construction sites still so they can kind of adjust to those types of markets. Got it. That makes sense. And now, what about you? Was there a particular story of... I mean, there's plenty in the book, but if there's someone that comes to mind right now where you know, you saw women being more negatively affected by this, then men, obviously, we got the answer of why from Gary, but

is there a particular story that stands out or an experience in that direction? About 11 years ago, we were in Haiti and at a, we kind of were there for the kind of the christening of this new water system in this small village and it was a real celebration and amidst this celebration, I was introduced to a little girl who was 13 and and you know she and I got her story and her story was that she spent three to four hours every day collecting water. And she was very lucky because that was, she could still be in school. But after school every day, she went and she collected water, took her three or four hours to get water for her family. So I say to this kid, I'm like, well, hey, you know, I kind of joking and say, now you have more time for homework, right? And she looks at me

totally seriously. And she's like, I don't need more time to do homework. I'm the smartest kid in my class. And the way she said it, I knew she was telling me the truth. I was like, Oh, I remember being 13 and like, I remember you in my class, you are this part of the book. And I said, all right, well, so what are you going to do with all this time that you just found that you're new, you're new found four hours a day. And she looked at me and she goes, I'm going to play. Wow. Yeah. And I just, in it, like, buckled me, you know, I, because at the time, my, my oldest daughter was

13. And, you know, so again, I felt that connection to this kid. And'm like, what else should a 13-year-old girl be thinking about? You know, she should be thinking about playing and that's, you know, again, another one of those incalculable ways in which this is so pernicious, right? It just robs people of, you know, in this case, it robs children of their childhoods, you know, and then their potential, the potential of their adulthood. So, things like that, and it's good for us. We go out about once a year. I go once a year. Gary goes a lot more often, but to kind of go to these field visits and kind of connect to people and talk.

And it's just because as these numbers are accelerating and we're kind of going from strength to strength with our work, which is really exciting, it's important to kind of keep and keep a remind ourselves of what it means because it becomes numbers. 43.7 million people, I mean, what a number. But I'm still thinking about a girl I met 12 years ago. And so there are so many millions of these people that will never meet, but all of the stories are like that. And all of it, this is all about positive change. Yeah, absolutely.

As a follow-up to that Matt, how is your work with those people affected your daughter too? Because I'm intrigued as to how, you know, for her seeing her father, you know, for her seeing her father, you know, be so service focused and, you know, giving energy to this. Like, have you taken, have you, and Gary too? I, have you taken your kids out?

Like, you know, have you taken other children out and young people out? I'm just fascinated to hear how it feels when you're looking at someone your age, as opposed to both of you, obviously, as older men looking at younger people. But like, to have people looking at people their own age You have this mindset. I would love to hear some stories in that regard

I talk about in the book my mom and and how she took me as a teenager to Let places where I witnessed extreme poverty and it was you know And she didn't do any finger wagging at me or lecturing. She just let me absorb it and and it really impacted me And so my my kids are what my our oldest is 23 and so she just let me absorb it and it really impacted me. And so my kids are, our oldest is 23 and so she's out of the nest and then we've got a 15, a 13 and 11 year old. And so I've taken the 23 year old and I've taken our 15 year old, we took her on a trip to the Philippines a few years ago.

So she might have been 13 at the time. You know, it's kind of, you know, it's different with each kid. You kind of see why, what age can you, is this going to be a positive, you know, is this going to influence you positively? And so I took my daughter and her best friend on a trip, and it was great. friend on a trip and it was great. And it's, you know, letting them absorb, you know, with the kind of privilege that they have and they come from and that, you know, this is all about where you're born and you're born into a family. You don't have any, you know, say over it and letting them try to put their, let them try to put their lives in some context, which is how I felt, what I felt happened to me,

when my mother introduced me to a larger world, suddenly my life started to make more sense, right? And we're all trapped in these subjective realities and limited by them in some way, but I feel like travel and experience like this is kind of the greatest gift because it helps at least to try to open us up. Yeah, I think that's beautiful what you said about gauging when it's right for the individual because ever, you know, there's no right age for any of them to have this experience,

but really making it personalized. I think that makes a lot of sense. Gary, how about you? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Very nice chance to take my daughter to Kenya and Ethiopia when she was about the same age as Matt's daughter when we were in the Philippines. And yeah, it's, you know, those types of experiences, you never know how they're going to reverberate later, you know, certainly, you know, you know,

having that experience helped shape her. I, you know, she's done know, you know, having that experience helped shape her. I, you know, she's done some great volunteer work herself. She was a volunteer teacher, you know, after she got out of college. And so I think some of the echoes of what she saw there and experienced there and the fortune that she has relative to many others in the world has cropped up

and will continue to. Yeah, absolutely. I want you to explain Gary. We've mentioned it a few times now. And, and of course, you talk about it deeply in the book. For our audience, I'd love to for you to explain exactly in a simple way how water credit works. And then Matt, I want you to talk about when you actually, you know, you had a hard time accepting the idea behind water credit and then what made you change your mind to it. Because I think that's what I find fascinating about this partnership between both of you

is that it wasn't just like this, oh, we both love this, let's get it out, it wasn't as simple as that. There's been a lot of planning, thought, intention behind this partnership between both of you. And I'd love to understand that, to Gary, if you can explain what it is,

how it works, how it functions, we've obviously heard about some of the benefits and some elements of how it works, but I just want people to have a really clear idea. And then Matt, if you could tell us about your journey with how you changed your mind about it, that would be great. Our 20s are seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, full in love, make mistakes,

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Here, we have the conversations that help Black women dig a little deeper into the most impactful relationships in our lives, those with our parents, our partners, our partners, our children, our friends, and most importantly, ourselves. We chat about things like what to do with a friendship ends, how to know when it's time to break up with your therapist, and how to end the cycle of perfectionism. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia.

And I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the therapy for Black Girls Podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Take good care. This is what it sounds like inside the box car. I'm journalist and I'm Morton in my podcast City of the Rails. I plunged into the dark world of America's railroads, searching for my daughter Ruby, who ran off to hop train.

I'm just like stuck on this train, not where I'm going to end up, and I jump. Following my daughter, I found a secret city of unforgettable characters living outside society off the grid and on the edge. I was in love with a lifestyle on the freedom this community. No one understands who we truly are. The rails made me question everything I knew about motherhood history and the thing we call the American dream. It's the last vest call the American Dream. It's the last vestige of American freedom. Everything about it is extreme. You're either going to die or you can have this incredible

rebirth and really understand who you are. Come with me to find out what waits for us and the city of the Rails. Listen to city of the Rails on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Or cityoftherails.com. For sure, I'd be happy to. I think it is rooted in that concept that people are already paying for water, right? The challenges, they don't have that, you know, $2, 300, $400 up front that they need to get a water connection or to build a toilet at their home

or to install a hand pump or a water tank. And so they are struggling day to day. They can afford a dollar or two a day to get water, but they can't afford those large investments. And so what we saw, you know, we saw that people were struggling with this. And so it's like, well, what if we could get microfinance institutions that are already operating around the world just to make loans to them?

That makes complete sense, right? And then they would repay the loans. Well, we went knocking on the doors of a lot of those MFI's microfinance institutions. And we kind of got the doors slammed in our face. They're like, you guys don't understand microfinance. It's about income generating loans. We make loans for sewing machines or cows

because by the end of the week, you're generating revenue because you're selling clothes or you're selling milk. And this is way it works. And we're like, but we believe it will work because it's gonna help these people work at paying jobs and that part of it. So it's like, we'll take on the risk

and this is why we raise philanthropic capital because we need to make grants to a lot of these partners so that they can de-risk these types of loans so that they can do the market research and understand what things are good to loan for, what technologies are good, which ones are not to help them then launch lending businesses. Once they do then they go to the capital markets and get the wholesale capital then break it into millions of these micro loans. And so for a woman who gets that loan, literally overnight, you know, she may have been spending three hours a day securing water the day before. She now has a water tap right at her home. And so literally the values created overnight for her to go out and work at a paint job

so that she can repay the loan. And now you fast forward in these loans, you know, 3.5 billion dollars in loans have gone out. And they're repaid in a 99% rate. Over 85% of the borrowers live on less than six dollars a day. about 30 percent live on less than two dollars a day, and yet they keep coming forward to take out these loans because it makes sense for them, and they get the solutions that they want, and they don't feel like a charity case anymore, they feel like a market as a customer that's being served, and that's how the whole thing can work financially so that we've now got the financial plumbing if you will that connects the global capital markets where people can get a financial return on their investment to women making a few dollars a day, everybody wins and we all move

forward. Gary, thank you for that. Thanks for connecting the dots. I know we talked about parts of that all over this conversation so far, but that was a really comprehensive breakdown. And I think that really helps because there's so many facets of that that I think is new. It's just so new. It's so alien to us, which just shows how big an issue it is and how much emphasis it needs. And Matt, tell us about when you first had the idea and you were skeptical, slightly I guess, and then you obviously have come around 180.

I was excited about it as I, as, you know, as I kind of drilled down on it and really worked it over with Gary and thought about it. But there was the aspect of it that was a little stomach turning, which was, wait a minute, we're gonna make people, the poorest people on earth pay for, you know, I mean, they're going to take these, we're going to loan them money, we're not going to, right? But, but philosophically, we're very

aligned in this idea about, you know, charity, quote unquote charity and, and, and, and how is you feel? Like, like, there's a paternalistic aspect to it. There's a kind of, you know, here's your solution. You're welcome, you know, arrogance about it oftentimes. And what Gary's talking about is with these loan programs, the dignity that come with them, right? And it's the dignity on the side of the borrower, but it's also on the side of the lender kind of going,

I see you as a human being. You're a customer, you know what I mean? We can do business. It's a very different relationship than you're just some problem I got to throw money at, right? And so I got over that pretty quickly. You know, I mean, my stomach is like, oh, God, market-based solution. So no, what am I doing? But when I really thought about it, and it struck me as completely brilliant. And that's been born out. I mean, we reached our first million people in 2012. And now we're at 43 million.

We're reaching, however many million a quarter now, and it's just really accelerating, and that is illustrative of the demand, the demand for these loans, because they make sense. And it's not that paternalistic kind of charity solution that's going to be not working in five years, because nobody's going to take a loan out for something they don't want. Yeah. Yeah. They know what solution they need and that's what they're going to take a loan out for and it's going to work nudge the market towards them and let them claim

their own agency and solve their own problem with dignity. Yeah, I think that point and dignity is so powerful and so important. I know exactly what you mean. It takes a while to get a frowned at because you're like, wait a minute, are we charging people? But how does this work? it because you're like, wait a minute are we charging people for, you know, like, how does this work? But yeah, you're going, like, if you're going across the desert and you see somebody, you know, thirsty, you know, and then you sell them a bottle of water, like,

you know, it doesn't, it doesn't feel right, you know? Yeah, yeah. But, but you're saying, as you rightly said, that from a long-term perspective and from a sustainability perspective, this person is now building confidence. They're building it, as you said,, that from a long-term perspective and from a sustainability perspective, this person's now building confidence, they're building, as you said, a sense of agency, they're feeling empowered, they're feeling a sense of assurance that they are growing through this journey as well. And they're able to, as you said, loan it for things that are important to them.

Tell me about this partnership for chains that you both have because I think, I wonder whether when both of you got passionate because as far as I know, you got passionate independently and then of course connected with each other about this cause, when you're looking for a partnership for change, I think that can, you know, take a lot of time, effort, patience.

There's so many things that need to align. If there are people in our community audience thinking right now like I'd love to have someone else in my life that I could work with passionately about this or I'd love to find someone What are some of the things that they should look for Matt? We obviously know Gary was your second choice So we'll start with what you were looking for in your first choice and and Gary I'm sure you had some other picks too, so

But no, I would love to know what you were looking for in a partner Were you even looking or was it just, it was just so like, oh, wow, I'm so grateful that I've bumped into someone who has this passion. From both of your perspectives, I'd love to hear how you approach this. Because making a change is not easy. It's a long journey. You need different skill sets and different networks and communities. And so, I often think that a lot of people say,

oh, yeah, when I find someone, then I can do something. You were both independently. I mean, Gary, you started in your college days, right? So I want to hear about how it was in the search of a partner, the pursuit of the partner, and then what you actually looked for and why it was a good fit. Well, I was looking for the expert in the space

and that Gary's name was the name that kept coming up and and and in getting to know him, it was just clear why and I mean he's just brilliant and these I mean this water credit innovation is is a really big deal. I've did that through his intelligence, but also through his tenacity. So he was a logical partner for me, exactly what I was looking for. I kind of woke up in my late 20s with this very bizarre reality of being a celebrity and wanted to find ways to do something good with that. And I needed help. and wanted to find ways to do something good with that. And I needed help. And I wanted to be effective. I didn't want to just, it wasn't about soothing my own ego.

It was about really trying to do something that was helpful. And I think just in meeting Gary, like we joined our organizations and he had water partners at that point for 20 years and instantly gave up the title of water partners for Water.org. And I think that showed the lack of ego, right? And I think we both came at it from that perspective. It was never about us or about ego. It was really about how can we be most effective,, right? And that and we're really aligned in that

way. And and in that sense, it means just the perfect partner for me. That's beautiful. You made up for it, Matt, that was very hot, hot, and, no, genuinely, that's that's so wonderful to hear. I love hearing about that and and the quality of humility. And like you said, being able to put aside water partners and start something on the water dog, that's fantastic. Gary, Gary, your thoughts. Yeah, I think, you know, the serendipity of it was that's definitely a play allowing our paths to cross. But certainly, you know, I'd been heads down on this problem and had been trying to innovate. And, you know, this whole concept and this whole concept of coming at it from

initially I was very much about life, let's go drill wells and let's raise a lot of money and give it away, but quickly realized that there was never going to be enough. And so this concept of lighting a candle versus cursing the darkness is kind of where I came at it from. And so I was trying to find those ways to do that. And we were catching on. Water credit was like, it wasn't like gangbusters yet, but we knew that we kind of had a tiger by the tail in terms of how this could scale.

And but I'm an engineer. What do I know about storytelling? What do I know about storytelling? What do I know about moving an audience? What do I know about having a big voice in this? Because we were ready for that because we had a certain amount of humility until that point. And then it's like, now we got to tell the story. And then to be able to get introduced to and cross pass with an incredible storyteller that Matt is and seeing that firsthand. It just was, you know, it was one of those things, one plus one equals three for sure.

And it seemed that way at first for both of us, but then as we got to know each other, kind of at a deeper level, our philosophies and our upbringing and our experiences, it's just like, okay, I can really trust this guy. I think we both felt that from both directions. And once you have that trust and you have, everything set in motion, it's kind of a table set for you. And you bring those relative strengths. I can certainly say Matt has evolved more as a water expert than I have as an actor. I'm very low-partically are there. But what also you didn't tell you earlier is I went to Ben Affleck for a sheet tour of me

down the flat and I ended up in the flat. I love it. I love it. You've both been so generous with your time. I have one last question, which is just how people can support. Of course, I highly recommend everyone goes and grabs a copy of the book, The Worth of Water, our story of chasing solutions to the world's greatest challenge. It will be in the comments, the caption, the bio, the link in the podcast.

You can go and order the book right now. But Gary, you used a water metaphor at the end of the chapter of the chapter called the wave. And you said to end the crisis, we need a wave. I would love to know how my community can be a part of that wave, how I can be a part of that wave. What are the opportunities and ways people can get involved? Because I think ultimately there's gonna be no one who reads the book that isn't moved by the work

who everything you've shared today, I think we'll want to move people into action. How can people support? That's the last question I want to ask you because I know I'm mindful of your time as well. That's a great question. And you know, this we do need that support. This is such a big crisis. It's all hands on deck. And there are a number of ways, of course, as authors, Matt and I are donating all of our fees back to water.org for the book. So every time somebody buys the book, you are helping people get access to safe water.

You know, if the book moves you, take it to your book club, you know, spread the word that way, you know, pass the book on to someone else because it is, you know, these individual acts of people who provide that funding that we need so that these individual stories that are in the book can come to life. That is what it's going to take from all of us and to the extent that you're using your voice, Jay, to help make this happen. We greatly appreciate that. Absolutely. No, I would love to visit one of the places with you one day. I think it would be a really beautiful experience for me, my team, too. We'd love to have you.

Yeah, that would be really beautiful. That me, my team too. We would love to have you. Yeah, that would be really beautiful. That would be wonderful to do. Did you want to add anything to everything that Gary just said of how anyone can get involved or anything that comes to your mind or heart? Well, yeah, I mean, it's $5 to bring a person clean water for life. So it's not, you know, it's crazy, but that's what it is. And yeah, and the book obviously, you know, we'll, you know, all the, you know,

our money goes towards that. So, so yeah, and please share the story and, you know, talk about it. It's a really fascinating issue. I promise if you want to engage with it and, you know, and try to kind of move the needle, because it's again so hard for us to relate, because water is such abundance for us. Yeah. And as we were saying on purpose, it's like when we are apart of the solution, the

view of the problem changes, right? When you see these stories, and that's why I love what Gary and Matt have done here. When you read these stories and you hear these stories and when you share the book with people and you get to see that change does work that there are positive stories that, you know, we do live in a world that has challenges and issues, but that five dollars could make a difference to someone's daily life and how they feel when they wake up in the morning. And that makes a difference. Like that has a ripple effect and I think we need to tell these stories more because we can get caught up in the stories if we can't do anything and we are helpless.

But Gary and Matt I'm so grateful that you've given us a platform through which we can all feel like we're having an impact. Again, I highly recommend everyone grab the book. As you said, all proceeds from the book go towards all the amazing work. And I thank you both for taking the time and giving me your energy and look forward to continuing to support you guys. So thank you so much for what you're doing.

It's so powerful. Really appreciate it. Thanks, David. Take care. Thank you so much. Everyone who's been listening or watching, make sure you share this interview, pass it along, tag us all on social media,

letting us know what's resonated with you, what's connected with you, share it when you order the book, tag me to let me know you've ordered it so that I can reach share that across social media as well and thank you all for listening and watching. Thanks Matt, thanks Gary, thank you so much. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season, and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets. The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets.

Listen to season eight of Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Our 20s are often seen as this golden decade, our time to be carefree, make mistakes, and figure out our lives. But what can psychology teach us about this time? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the Psychology of Your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, and much more to explore the science behind our experiences. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg.

Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender and visible things we don't usually talk about. I'm Megan Devine. Host of the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look, everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days, and all those things we don't usually talk about, maybe we should. This season, I'm joined by Stellar Gas like Abbermote, Rachel Cargol, and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay.

New episodes each and every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts. you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.