Jennifer Lopez CRASHES Ben Affleck’s Las Vegas Interview

we're here at the Venetian very excited to be partnering with the Venetian to group uh to support uh the Eastern Congo initiative which is a philanthropy that I've been involved with for 15 years now and it supports among other things uh clean water health care munal care support for uh victims of survivors of gender-based violence in the eastern part of Congo and Africa which is a little talked about poorly understood region that's offered a tremendous amount of war and destabilization and doesn't get a lot of attention often times what we want to do is not just raise awareness but raise money and our approach is not that we are the experts at giving the money away what we do is identify congales community- based organizations who really understand their communities and have the best means to distribute it and uh over the years we have a a women's uh Le uh media news station called M supported uh hundreds of thousands of kids going to school we have now uh 400,000 people who are uh supported with health care and clean water uh which simply is not available in many areas and so by providing the sort of basic fundamentals that I believe every human being is really entitled to and actually turning many of them into uh entities that are sustainable that don't require ongoing investment you make one investment you build Healthcare doctors and nurses and you run the pipes through the water uh it runs people pay a couple of cents for a big thing of water which they can afford uh they have clean water they have health care in an ongoing way rather than have to come back and raise more money every time and it's it's worked really really well I'm enormously proud of it it's the first time we've ever done any publicity around any one of our events we've been doing fundraisers like this for a long time uh in part because I didn't want to be sort of trump comping this it's not about uh like self-aggrandisement it's a explicitly humble Endeavor that says these communities that people understand best how to care for what what they're um dealing with in their country their region their town and so we want to empower them but the um the Venetian was kind enough to really to throw a pretty spectacular event for us with to group Mark shinberg and so I felt that uh you know they really ought to be recognized for that because I'm very grateful I've learned that if you can help bring Partners into this you can I mean you can raise more money frankly imagine a couple of million dollar you know goes so far in a place where $500,000 going to do uh clean water and health care for 150,000 people forever it's really amazing we we work with u Justice programs where we take women who've been raped and and give legal counseling to help them get to the for system it's often quite difficult and you know uh former Child soldiers are who are trying to be uh reintegrated into a society need to be trained and find jobs and and connected with people that will hire them so that they don't have a kind of aimlessness and continue to perpetuate violence in the region these are all Concepts that were generated from the congales to us the ECI staff we have uh at facility we have 75 people in Congo now who are congales which is not about Americans or Western Europeans coming in and saying this is how to do it it's about us listening with humility and trying to provide support uh in 2005 uh when the war in in Congo was really you know raging out of control and it was really poorly understood and nobody even knew about it there had been millions of deaths uh I traveled to Africa I was actually in Tanzania and I heard about this SCH and no one would go there no NOS would go there no one would travel there and I was young and probably foolish enough to think well you know why why won't they go there if I have some value time I thought well I can shine a light on this and at least create some exposure and really what happened was that I was educated I got to I I spent months and then another year another year meeting with meeting with you know professionals with with locals with organizations on the ground doing this work international NOS academics uh heads of state you know Civil Society to really get educated on what is their problem uh because I was very mindful of coming in and saying here I am I'm famous I'm going to solve your problems because like a famous person showing up as it turns out doesn't solve anybody's problem uh what solves problems is support for people who just don't have access you know if you're a congales organization you're not a 501c3 you know Americans can't get M get a tax deduction first thing we do is become a conduit so people could do that and then we built up a staff local staff and expanded from there and there was fighting and there was war and we we did some films about it we worked with unhcr we we visited refugee camps and we didn't want to just show up at hospitals holding hands wanted to provide assistance not have it be about me uh but over the years I got I was invited to testify at the congress senate around what I had seen and it was really powerful and really meaningful to me I mean I look at I remember my own time in school for example you know in parts of Congo there is no school you have to pay $2 a month which is very difficult for some families so we started funding schools when I would visit them you would see you know a classroom with 100 kids in three kids at a desk a notebook pool this much paying attention raising their hands and I thought to myself I squandered and wasted it took for granted my educational opportunities oh I have to go to school or I'm going to cut when you don't have something how meaningful it was this is a story I often tell my children about like hey look this is what's going on here this is a valuable thing education we take it for granted and it really moved me it moved me that instead of when I went to Africa and I had heard about all this conflict I didn't see people who were victims who were lying around with flies in their eyes sort of waiting for savior it's an incredibly vibrant robust country I traveled to nine other countries around there in that sort of conflict Matrix at one point Congo had at least seven other countries inside that invaded their country because there's so many minerals there and I just felt like this is a a way in which a difference can be made needs to be made out of humility and by lising and not assuming that because a country is stabilized but doesn't have the same resources um that those of us who were born in place that does automatically sort of know better or or that we can just by showing up sort of lend some of the refractive Glory of our here let me you know give you a you know the things that I have that it's not about that you have to build a system that is sustainable uh I got that honor of working with Dr MC at the pany hospital very early on who was doing surgeries on women who had suffered sexual gender based violence on very young girls who had given birth too early and it moved me enormously he was doing 15 fisal surgeries day uh and we wanted to support him in his hospital he subsequently won the Nobel Prize I'm honored that like guys a friend of M I knew him when you know he's running for president now in Congress it's uh so we've had the chance by being in those organization that's consistently present over years and years really have some sense of what's happening in terms of who are reliable partners that we want to support so I obviously I can go on and on and on about this but uh and it is a little bit in Congress from a fun Vegas night but here's the thing that's okay like this is is okay to have fun it's okay have a great time and go out I call a beautiful aspect of it is that you can do the same thing you do otherwise enjoy yourself enjoy your life which we all should and also genuinely uh give some of what we have to those who yes have less and who also are in place and Desiring and able to take that and really build something in Co that's my wife Jennifer what's that are you ready for me to go okay time for me to go yeah all right what yeah I'm just going to ask last question any tips for the player side on how to win it all I've only won this event once so I don't know if you want to I would say play aggressively Reby often more chips you have the better like you got to win F1 plans what's that F1 plans oh watch tonight the the uh watch thank [Music] you

Channel: Access Hollywood

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Id: ahOwjkMjqLw

Length: 8min 52sec (532 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 21 2023