The Spring - The charity: water story

my name is Scott Harrison just listen this is my wife my son and my one on the way I lead an organization called charity water and our mission is to bring clean water to everyone on the planet I live in New York City now but I didn't always I grew up in suburbia and this was my house my dad was a business man and my mom was a writer they loved each other and they loved me we were a happy family until we weren't when I was 4 years old my mom collapsed on the bedroom floor we just moved into a new house and her house had a carbon monoxide gas leak but none of us knew it until then she didn't die that day that her immune system did she became allergic to everything perfume the ink from books radio waves she wore strange masks all the time and was often connected to oxygen the toxic gas destroyed her immune system and in a way my childhood - after the poisoning our roles reversed and I began to take care of her as the only child I had to be a good one I learned to cook do laundry and take care of the house I was a good Christian kid who played piano in church and wanted to be a doctor when I grew up to help sick people like her until I turned 18 [Music] music was my escape so I joined a band and moved to New York right about the time when the band broke up I got involved in producing these like live music shows in the city I realized that you could actually get paid in New York City to drink alcohol for free this job was called a nightclub promoter so you just had to get beautiful people in the clubs and if you got the right people in the clubs you could charge guys five hundred dollars to buy a bottle of champagne it cost you 40 I moved from Club to club to club filling up the VIP section and flashing my Rolex to the club photographers for almost ten years after that I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and was out drunk almost every night I was into strip clubs gambling and just about every drug except Tarawa a New Year's Eve we all went to Punta de Lestat it's a kind of party town in Uruguay we rented this incredible house with cooks waiters and magnums of expensive champagne although it looked glamorous on the outside there was a long decline in happiness I remember just feeling so unhealthy about at all the next day the party was still going but I wanted the music to stop I realize I was a spiritually bankrupt I was emotionally bankrupt I was certainly morally bankrupt I tried to find my way back to a very lost faith I wanted things to be different my left nightlife sold almost everything I owned and decided to take one year off to try serving others instead of myself I'm applying I'm filling out these long applications for these very credible humanitarian organizations that have long histories I put in the applications and then I wait and I guess I should not have been surprised but I am denied by all of these organizations they won't even let me volunteer because of my past they're like what do you do again we're serious people thankfully one organization says if you pay us $500 a month you can volunteer with us so I said here my credit card details where are you guys going they were an amazing team of doctors and surgeons who traveled the world on a hospital ship they specialized in removing facial tumors and they were going to Liberia one of the poorest countries in the world and a country I'd never even heard of I say I'm gonna sign up and be your volunteer photojournalist that I was taking pretty good pictures and photos and loved telling stories everything that my life changed I decided in one fell swoop to kind of never smoke again and never touch drugs again you know to never gamble again to you know to swear off pornography and strip clubs and just I needed to walk so far in the other direction and I walked up this gangway and this became my new home nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see I think help you I met a man named Harris he was suffocating to death with a benign tumor I got to see Harris his transformation because of an amazing surgeon named dr. Gary Parker so we we've got to get your blood nice and strong for an operation huh dr. Gary had moved his entire family on the ship to volunteer for a short time that was 29 years ago he just never left I'd never met anyone with that kind of dedication before very happy weekend that schedule he'll spend Christmas first first good Christmas in 13 years a couple weeks later I got to take care of back home to his village with an entirely new face ready to start a new life the uniform is put on people when you have these terrible deformities is your rubbish you're worthless you're spiritually cursed you're and when you can change the uniform it's huge and the person starts to imagine that they might not be rubbish after all no one in our world is rubbish [Music] there was one day when more than 5,000 sick people came to see our doctors some of them had walks for more than a month but there were too many of them and we just didn't have enough doctors I remember holding my camera crying [Music] we had to turn thousands away we were changing individual lives every day but I wanted to do even more I'm documenting these life-changing surgeries but I started to spend more and more time out in the rural villages and as I would travel around these villages I would see the most shocking things for in 75 people living here this is what they're drinking I would see as bugs rolling around in it I'm sort of putting this together saying look thousands of people are turning up sick and the most basic need for health isn't even met it wasn't okay kids shouldn't be drinking from scummy swamps or ponds or rivers I'll go with 50 econo isn't it gummy neurons gnome again salamanders tonight but mine answer to Luna he came here to fetch water yeah and a crocodile crocodile snatched him there were so many diseases caused by bad water cholera dysentery trachoma bilharzia things I'd never even heard of on top of that I found out people weren't just drinking this filthy water they were breaking their backs to get it women and girls are usually the ones responsible often walking for hours every day as a result many girls never make it through school they trade in their education and dreams to carry 40-pound jerrycans so their families can have water dirty water is responsible for more death in the world than all forms of violence including war even if it were a million people this would be a crisis but it's not 1 million its 785 million people who live on our planet right now without access to clean water that's twice the population of the United States nearly one in 10 people worldwide behind those statistics were real lives people who were dying because they couldn't get clean water and many of them were children sad I'm not a magician counselor marvelous a traveler is Oh Marilla Helicon being the alert somewhat really they panicked [Music] I'm tell me that meant using Aria stands definitely rooms dr. McCord welcome man finally I began to become really interested in the the water issue and who is doing something about this how come more people weren't talking about water I came back to New York City ready to go so starting with the party it's the only thing I knew how to do I was a nightclub promoter so I got someone to donate a club I threw my 31st birthday party I got 700 people to come out I lured them with open bar and I charged him 20 bucks to the door and this time instead of pocketing a $15,000 we took it immediately to a refugee camp in northern Uganda we build three wells we fix three wells and then we sent the photos and the GPS and the story back to those 700 people this was a big deal people could not believe that a charity would bother to report to them on a $20 gift and it's something actually happened with the money that they could say that they can connect with 700 people proved that we could make a difference even 20 dollars at a time was the beginning of charity water as I'm talking about setting up a charity I realized that so many of my friends don't trust charities in fact I've learned the 42 percent of people in America alone don't trust charities from the beginning I was determined to do things differently and I had a few big ideas first we'd handle money differently from day one charity water made a bold promise that a hundred percent of all donations would go directly to clean water I opened up a separate bank account for overhead and we never touch the water money to pay for things like staff salaries office rent or travel expenses we started looking for generous people with the resources to cover those overhead costs second we proved each water project we funded we put photos and GPS coordinates on Google Maps and even attached GPS trackers to drilling rigs so people could follow them later we created installed thousands of remote water sensors so we'd know that the project continued to work over time and even how much clean water was flown third we believe for the work to be sustainable it had to be led by locals water and sanitation program creates an enabling environment so that all aspects of development can take off and then beginning usually a handful of people were in the office every single day and it was funny back then because we were trying to look so professional and put together when if you just walked in the office and saw how we did what we did we had no idea what we were doing and we were just making everything up as we went we built outdoor exhibitions staged water walks and designed ads that made people think differently about water we got space on buses and taxis donated spreading the word to everyone we could we took over the windows of luxury retailers and created a TV commercial that ran for free to more than 20 million people people started to take notice and thousands began to donate people all around the world started donating their birthdays to raise money for clean water a seven-year-old named Max when door to door asking for $7 donations and he raised $22,000 Maggie Moran gave up her 16th birthday no no we gave up her 89 gave up my 28th birthday for charity water at 25th birthday 39th birthday twenty fifty thirty eight forty fourth and this movement of birthdays begins to spring up and people said look I don't need any more stuff that's exactly what Rachel Beckwith said she heard me speak a few months before her ninth birthday and told her mom that instead of presents or a party she wanted to raise three hundred dollars to help kids get clean water to drink instead she was disappointed when she didn't reach her goal but she raised $220 and her mom is shorter it was good enough she could try again next year she never got that chance a few weeks later Rachel lost her life in a car accident well just at nine years old Rachel Beckwith already had a legacy hers was charity water NBC's Lee Cowan explains how even now Rachel Beckwith continues to make a difference hundreds of strangers started to give nine dollars in her honor then it became thousands within weeks Rachel's fundraising campaign had raised over 1.2 million dollars for clean water the heart of his nine-year-old girl inspired 32,000 people to give but it didn't stop there 80,000 people pledged their birthdays like Rachel some people said I can't wait until my birthday I just need to fundraise now I need to do something about this now guys shave their beards complete strangers started climbing mountains to raise money for clean water walking and biking across countries sailing across oceans I've been giving up Christmas gifts for five years I raised just enough 32,000 I need 12 lemonade's parents for charity one day I was ten thousand dollars 15 water rachel reminded us that charity water wasn't just our story and she's now been joined by over 1 million people helping us fund over 50,000 water projects that will bring clean water to more than 11 million people and I got to see just how much impact one life really can have when I took Rachel's family to Africa we greatly loved Rachel and continue to love her family and I'm overwhelmed with how greatly you have honored her memory please receive my most deepest and hurtful things you've done it's a great honor today so thank you Rachel develop such a big head from such a young age that's understood and felt the pain of others on the other side of the world is the most beautiful gift a person [Music] lives all around the world were being changed the kids I saw sitting in the mud with the pigs drinking swamp water we're now drinking clean water from wells cholera parasites leeches those were all now things of the past clean water and toilets made a huge difference in schools and improved education for students mom's were now dancing around drilling rates and abednego Jones oh I've been abdomen you call it [Music] in the beginning there was water always changing and bringing new life wherever it goes it did for me and for so many others in very real ways even though I didn't grow up to be a doctor I'm thankful that my childhood gave me awareness of the importance of health of life dr. Gary is still on that ship helping people every single day my mom is still here to fighting for her health my son knows and loves her well so will my daughter now I know the world will change by the time my children reach my age but I believe there are only a few times in each of our lives that we get to witness a truly historic global moment [Applause] and giving clean water to the entire planet will be one of those moments I invite you to be a part of this we've been able to help more than eleven million people get clean water but we want to do so much more we want to go faster and help more people so we're introducing a new way to do just that it's called the spring we're building a community of givers so generous and constant the world has never seen anything like it before people who are willing to give not just once but who will stick with us month in and month out faithfully fighting for change we subscribe to things every month cable internet magazines movies and music we're loyal to these things because they benefit our lives but the spring benefits other people's lives it costs only 40 dollars to give one person clean water some of you can give that every month some of you can give more some of you less but whatever you can give a hundred percent goes directly to clean water and we'll keep showing you where your money goes and the lives that you're changing until the day we can finally say that no one on earth will die from dirty water [Music] so we realized people will tell us this can't be done when we think man if there's ever a time in the world when this is possible and certainly today people really looking to give they're looking to make it impact we know how to end the water crisis in our lifetime and with your help we will join the spring today [Music] you [Music]

Channel: charitywater

Views: 18,168,368

Rating: 4.9471483 out of 5

Keywords: Nonprofit, Water, Water Crisis, charity, charity: water, disease, Human, Rights, Children, Education, Health

Id: bdBG5VO01e0

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 13 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/1Nyjetsfan6]

Only 20 minutes?! Pathetic

45 minute YouTube ad