Matt Damon was the co-founder of a wonderful charity called H2O Africa. The aim of the charity was to bring clean, drinkable water to the areas and communities in the African continent that are lacking. Not only are there substandard or nonexistent access to clean, drinkable water in much of the continent, but several countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been in the midst of a years-long drought.

Now Matt Damon and H2O Africa are joining forces with Gary White at WaterPartners to form a new organization: Water.org. Their goal? To bring “clean, safe drinking water to some of the poorest communities on earth.” In the past few months, Matt has traveled to India and Ethiopia to view the situation with the lack of drinkable water. Matt made a press statement regarding the merger, and Water.org has full details about the merger:

Matt Damon, H2O Africa co-founder, and Gary White, WaterPartners executive director and co-founder, have joined forces to co-found a new organization – Water.org – a non-profit focused on bringing access to safe water and sanitation to the developing world. Water.org will leverage grassroots awareness-building expertise and nearly two decades of demonstrated innovation and success in the sector to help the nearly 890 million people without safe water and the more than 2.5 billion people without safe sanitation.

Matt Damon, a long-time advocate for safe water issues, explains the importance of launching Water.org. “Every 15 seconds, a child in the developing world dies from water-related disease. After visiting project sites in Africa and Asia with Gary, I’ve seen the problem and the impact of safe water.” Damon said, “As a clear leader in the sector at delivering innovative and sustainable solutions for those in need, WaterPartners was the natural choice with whom to work to truly affect lasting change.”

Gary White sees a bright future for Water.org and the people it serves. “For more than 20 years I’ve been working to realize the vision of global access to safe water, and with the help of our donors, staff, partner organizations, and the H2OAfrica team, I’m confident we can accelerate our impact,” said White, the Executive Director of the new organization.

White, who recently received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, said Water.org will set the stage for even broader impact in the sector. “It will open the door to advocacy work, and bring the water issue to new heights in the public’s consciousness.”

The merger of H2O Africa and WaterPartners will improve efficiencies, leverage expertise, and increase the overall social return on donations. Water.org will be an integrated advocacy and fundraising destination for safe water and sanitation issues. Through its partners worldwide, it will champion innovative business models, local partner development, project selection and oversight, program management, and post-development monitoring and evaluation. Later this year, the organization will launch an entirely new online experience that will bring unprecedented transparency and connectedness between donors and those in need.

[From Water.org]

This sounds like a very sophisticated project to get involved with, and it will most likely be a decades-long commitment for Matt Damon. I suspect he’s up for it – his involvement with various charities has always struck me as very sincere. Water.org already has on-going projects all of over Africa, Central America and Asia. In Africa, they’re working in Ethiopia, Kenya and Ghana. In Asia, they have projects in India, Philippines, and Bangladesh. In Central America: El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. You can donate here.

Women of strength – hand dug well in Ethiopia from water.org on Vimeo.

Most of the photos below are thanks to Water Partners International and are from their photostream on Flickr. Header image is of Damon at Ante Up For Africa on 7/2/09. Credit: PRPhotos.