When you think of Matt Damon, you might think of his many famous roles: Jason Bourne. Will Hunting. Mark Watney. Ben Affleck’s best friend. But one facet of his identity he really wants to be known for? Co-founder of Water.org, a global nonprofit focused on bringing safe water and sanitation solutions to communities around the world. On June 9, Damon and his Water.org co-founder Gary White sat down with Her Campus to introduce Get Blue, Water.org’s newest initiative to help end the global water crisis — and explained why it’s something Gen Zers should get behind.
“This issue is hard for us to relate to, because it’s not a problem for us [in the U.S.], right? We’re always a few steps away from a clean drink of water, and we always have been,” Damon tells Her Campus. Enter: Get Blue, which makes it easy to contribute to the cause with everyday actions and purchases. For example, when purchasing a Get Blue-affiliated product (such as items from Gap’s special collection, Starbucks’s new blue beverages, or products from Amazon’s Get Blue storefront), a portion of the sale will be donated to Get Blue. Other brand partners include Ecolab, AccuWeather, Ripple, and TikTok, each of which are incorporating the initiative into their usual offerings in unique ways.
“That’s what Get Blue is about — giving people the opportunity to help someone get safe water with something that they’re going to be doing anyway,” White says.
According to Damon and White, more than 2 billion people lack access to safe water. And this isn’t just a global health crisis — it also has a specifically harmful impact on women. “This is a massive issue for women and girls because they are in charge of the family water collection,” Damon says, referencing many communities across the world where clean water is scarce. “What that means is girls aren’t in school because they are tasked with going out and getting water, and that’s how they’re spending their time … There’s this issue of stifling human potential and opportunity, and that part is what’s really heartbreaking.”
Damon recalls meeting a 14-year-old girl on his first water collection trip in rural Zambia. “She was talking about how she was going to be a nurse, and it reminded me of the way Ben [Affleck] and I talked: ‘We’re getting out of this town, we’re going to New York, we’re going to be actors.’ And that’s how she was talking about her village. She was like, ‘I’m going to go to the big city, and I’m going to be a nurse,'” Damon says. In hindsight, he realized that girl wouldn’t have had those big dreams had she not had access to water — and that realization stuck with him. “It changed my life.”
While Get Blue makes it super simple for people to contribute to this cause with ease (I mean, you can literally ask Alexa to make a donation from the comfort of your own bed), Damon and White are hopeful it’ll inspire Gen Zers to take further action. “Hopefully it can open the door for people, and then they can see there are ways that you can attack some of these big problems and not get disillusioned,” White says, “because what you do does matter.”
Damon nods to the power that this generation of college students holds, and encourages those who want to make a difference — whether it’s with clean water or another worthy cause — to go after it, starting now. “Look at our culture — look at all the things that are starting in dorm rooms, absolutely changing the world,” he says. “I would encourage people to really reflect on what it is that they love and how they think they can be helpful and be intentional about that.”