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my name is scott harrison
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just listen this is my wife my son
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and my one on the way
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i lead an organization called charity
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water and our mission is to bring clean
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water to everyone on the planet
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i live in new york city now but i didn't
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always
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i grew up in suburbia and this was my
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house
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my dad was a businessman and my mom was
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a writer
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they loved each other and they loved me
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we were a happy family until we weren't
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when i was four years old my mom
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collapsed on the bedroom floor
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we'd just moved into a new house and our
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house had a carbon monoxide gas leak
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but none of us knew it until then
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[Music]
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she didn't die that day but her immune
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system did
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she became allergic to everything
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perfume
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the ink from books radio waves
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she wore strange masks all the time and
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was often connected to oxygen
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the toxic gas destroyed her immune
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system and in a way
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my childhood too after the poisoning our
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roles reversed
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and i began to take care of her as the
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only child i had to be a good one
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i learned to cook do laundry and take
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care of the house
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i was a good christian kid who played
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piano in church and wanted to be a
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doctor when i grew up to help sick
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people like her
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until i turned 18.
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[Music]
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music was my escape so i joined a band
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and moved to new york
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right about the time when the band broke
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up i got involved
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in producing these like live music shows
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in the city
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but i realized that you could actually
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get paid
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in new york city to drink alcohol for
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free this job was called
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a nightclub promoter so you just had to
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get beautiful people in the clubs
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and if you got the right people in the
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clubs you could charge guys 500
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to buy a bottle of champagne that cost
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you 40.
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i moved from club to club to club
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filling up the vip section
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and flashing my rolex to the club
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photographers
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for almost 10 years after that i smoked
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two packs of cigarettes a day
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and was out drunk almost every night i
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was into strip clubs
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gambling and just about every drug
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except heroin
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on new year's eve we all went to puente
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de lesta
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uh it's a kind of party town in uruguay
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we rented this incredible house with
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cooks waiters and magnums of expensive
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champagne although it looked glamorous
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on the outside
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there was a long
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decline in happiness
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i remember just feeling so unhealthy
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about it all
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the next day the party was still going
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but i wanted the music to stop
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i realized i was spiritually bankrupt i
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was emotionally bankrupt i was
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certainly morally bankrupt i tried to
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find my way back to a very lost faith
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i wanted things to be different i left
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nightlife
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sold almost everything i owned and
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decided to take one year off
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to try serving others instead of myself
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i'm applying i'm filling out these long
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applications for these
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very credible humanitarian organizations
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that have long histories
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i put in the applications and then i
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wait
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and i guess i should not have been
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surprised but i am denied by all of
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these organizations
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they won't even let me volunteer because
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of my past
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sarah like what do you do again we're
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serious people
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thankfully one organization says if you
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pay us 500
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a month you can volunteer with us
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so i said here are my credit card
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details where are you guys going they
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were an amazing
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team of doctors and surgeons who
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traveled the world on a hospital ship
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they specialized in removing facial
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tumors and they were going to liberia
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one of the poorest countries in the
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world and a country i'd never even heard
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of
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i say i'm going to sign up and be your
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volunteer photojournalist i'd always
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taken pretty good pictures and photos
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and
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love telling stories everything in my
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life changed
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i decided in one fell swoop to kind of
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never smoke again and never touch drugs
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again
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you know to never gamble again to you
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know to swear off pornography and strip
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clubs and just i needed
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to walk so far in the other direction
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and i walked up this gangway and this
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became my new home
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nothing could have prepared me for what
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i was about to see
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hi my name is scott i think we may be
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able to help you
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i met a man named harris he was
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suffocating to death
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with a benign tumor i got to see
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harris's transformation
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because of an amazing surgeon named dr
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gary parker
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so we we've got to get your blood nice
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and strong
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for our operation huh dr gary had moved
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his entire family on the ship
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to volunteer for a short time that was
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29 years ago
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he just never left i'd never met anyone
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with that kind of dedication before very
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happy we can uh
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schedule and he'll spend christmas here
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first uh first good christmas in 13
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years
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a couple weeks later i got to take
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harris back home to his village
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with an entirely new face ready to start
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a new life
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the uniform that's put on people when
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you have these terrible deformities is
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you're rubbish you're worthless you're
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spiritually cursed your
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and when you can change the uniform
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it's huge and the person starts to
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imagine that they might not be rubbish
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after all no one in our world is rubbish
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[Music]
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there was one day when more than 5 000
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sick people came to see our doctors
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some of them had walked for more than a
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month
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but there were too many of them and we
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just didn't have enough doctors
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i remember holding my camera crying
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[Music]
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we had to turn thousands away
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we were changing individual lives every
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day
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but i wanted to do even more i'm
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documenting these life-changing
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surgeries but i started to spend more
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and more time out in
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the rural villages and as i would travel
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around these villages
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i would see the most shocking things
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about 475 people living here
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this is what they're drinking you can
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see there's bugs
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crawling around in it
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i'm sort of putting this together saying
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look thousands of people are turning up
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sick
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and the most basic need for health isn't
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even met
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it wasn't okay kids shouldn't be
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drinking from scummy swamps
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or ponds or rivers
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[Music]
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again
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he came here to fetch water yeah and a
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crocodile
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fell into the river and if crocodile
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snatched him disappeared
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not even our body was not even found
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there were so many diseases caused by
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bad water cholera
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dysentery trachoma belharzia things i'd
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never even heard of
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on top of that i found out people
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weren't just drinking this filthy water
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they were breaking their backs to get it
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women and girls are usually the ones
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responsible often walking for hours
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every day
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as a result many girls never make it
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through school they trade in their
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education and dreams to carry 40 pound
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jerry cans
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so their families can have water
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dirty water is responsible for more
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death in the world than
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all forms of violence including war
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even if it were a million people this
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would be a crisis
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but it's not one million it's 785
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million people who live on our planet
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right now
00:08:32
without access to clean water that's
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twice the population of the united
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states
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nearly one in ten people worldwide
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behind those statistics were real lives
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people who were dying because they
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couldn't get clean water
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and many of them were children
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[Music]
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[Music]
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i began to become really interested in
00:09:19
the the water issue and
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who was doing something about this how
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come more people weren't talking
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about water
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[Music]
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i came back to new york city ready to go
00:09:31
so it started with a party it's the only
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thing i knew how to do i was a nightclub
00:09:34
promoter so i got someone to donate a
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club i threw my 31st birthday party i
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got 700 people
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to come out i lured them with open bar
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and i charged them 20 bucks at the door
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and this time instead of pocketing the
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15 000
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we took it immediately to a refugee camp
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in northern uganda
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we built three wells we fixed three
00:09:51
wells and then
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we sent the photos and the gps and the
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story
00:09:56
back to those 700 people this was a big
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deal people could not believe that a
00:10:00
charity would bother to report to them
00:10:02
on a 20
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gift and it's something actually
00:10:04
happened with the money that they could
00:10:05
see that they could connect with
00:10:07
700 people proved that we could make a
00:10:09
difference even 20
00:10:11
at a time this was the beginning of
00:10:14
charity water
00:10:18
as i'm talking about setting up a
00:10:19
charity i realize that so many of my
00:10:21
friends don't trust
00:10:22
charities in fact i learned 42
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of people in america alone don't trust
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charities
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from the beginning i was determined to
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do things differently
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and i had a few big ideas first we'd
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handle money differently
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from day one charity water made a bold
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promise that a hundred percent
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of all donations would go directly to
00:10:43
clean water
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i opened up a separate bank account for
00:10:46
overhead and we never touched the water
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money to pay for things like staff
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salaries
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office rent or travel expenses we
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started looking for generous people
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with the resources to cover those
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overhead costs
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second we proved each water project we
00:11:00
funded
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we put photos and gps coordinates on
00:11:03
google maps and even attached gps
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trackers to drilling rigs so people
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could follow them
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later we created and installed thousands
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of remote water sensors
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so we know that the project continued to
00:11:13
work over time and even how much clean
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water was flowing
00:11:18
third we believe for the work to be
00:11:20
sustainable it had to be led by locals
00:11:24
water and sanitation program creates
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an enabling environment so that all
00:11:30
aspects of development
00:11:32
can take off in the beginning
00:11:36
usually a handful of people were in the
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office every single day
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and it was funny back then because we
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were trying to look so professional and
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put together when if you just walked in
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the office and saw how
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we did what we did we had no idea what
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we were doing
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and we were just making everything up as
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we went
00:11:54
we built outdoor exhibitions staged
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water walks and designed ads that made
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people think differently about water
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we got space on buses and taxis donated
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spreading the word to everyone we could
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we took over the windows of luxury
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retailers and created a tv commercial
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that ran for free
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to more than 20 million people people
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started to take notice
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and thousands began to donate people all
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around the world
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started donating their birthdays to
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raise money for clean water a
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seven-year-old named max
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went door to door asking for seven
00:12:27
dollar donations
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and he raised twenty two thousand
00:12:29
dollars maggie moran
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gave up her 16th birthday no no ween
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gave up her 89
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gave up my 28th birthday for charity
00:12:39
water my 25th birthday
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39th birthday 25th 36th 38th 44th
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and this movement of birthdays begins to
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spring up and people said look i don't
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need any more stuff
00:12:50
that's exactly what rachel beckwith said
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she heard me speak a few months before
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her ninth birthday and told her mom that
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instead of presents or a party she
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wanted to raise 300
00:13:01
to help kids get clean water to drink
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instead
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she was disappointed when she didn't
00:13:06
reach her goal but she raised 220
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and her mom assured her it was good
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enough she could try again next year
00:13:15
she never got that chance
00:13:23
a few weeks later rachel lost her life
00:13:26
in a car accident
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well just at nine years old rachel
00:13:30
beckwith already had a legacy hers was
00:13:33
charity water nbc's lee cowan explains
00:13:35
how even now
00:13:36
rachel beckwith continues to make a
00:13:38
difference
00:13:40
hundreds of strangers started to give
00:13:42
nine dollars in her honor
00:13:44
then it became thousands within weeks
00:13:47
rachel's fundraising campaign had raised
00:13:49
over 1.2 million dollars for clean water
00:13:53
the heart of this nine-year-old girl
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inspired 32
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000 people to give but it didn't stop
00:14:00
there
00:14:00
80 000 people pledged their birthdays
00:14:02
like rachel some people said i can't
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wait until my birthday i just need to
00:14:05
fundraise now i need to do something
00:14:07
about this now
00:14:08
guys shave their beards complete
00:14:10
strangers started climbing mountains to
00:14:12
raise money for clean water
00:14:13
walking and biking across countries
00:14:16
sailing across
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oceans i've been giving up christmas
00:14:19
gifts for five years
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i've raised just above 32 000. i did 12
00:14:24
lemonade stands for charity water
00:14:27
i leave 10 000 for clean water rachel
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reminded us
00:14:31
that charity water wasn't just our story
00:14:34
and she's now been joined by over 1
00:14:36
million people
00:14:38
helping us fund over 50 000 water
00:14:40
projects
00:14:41
that will bring clean water to more than
00:14:43
11 million people
00:14:46
and i got to see just how much impact
00:14:48
one life really can have
00:14:50
when i took rachel's family to africa
00:14:56
we greatly loved rachel and
00:14:59
continue to love her family and
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i'm overwhelmed with how greatly you
00:15:06
have honored her memory
00:15:07
please receive my most
00:15:10
deepest and heartfelt things
00:15:13
you've done us a great honor today so
00:15:16
thank you
00:15:17
[Applause]
00:15:22
mention develop suck a big heart
00:15:25
from a young age that she understood and
00:15:28
felt
00:15:29
the pain of others on the other side of
00:15:32
the world
00:15:33
is the most beautiful gift a person
00:15:36
can give
00:15:45
[Music]
00:15:52
lives all around the world were being
00:15:54
changed
00:15:55
the kids i saw sitting in the mud with
00:15:57
the pigs drinking swamp water
00:16:00
were now drinking clean water from wells
00:16:02
cholera
00:16:03
parasites leeches those were all now
00:16:05
things of the past
00:16:07
clean water and toilets made a huge
00:16:09
difference in schools and improved
00:16:10
education for students
00:16:14
moms were now dancing around drilling
00:16:16
rigs
00:16:18
[Music]
00:16:46
[Music]
00:16:48
foreign
00:16:53
in the beginning there was water
00:16:56
always changing and bringing new life
00:16:59
wherever it goes
00:17:03
it did for me and for so many others in
00:17:06
very real ways
00:17:09
even though i didn't grow up to be a
00:17:11
doctor i'm thankful that my childhood
00:17:13
gave me awareness
00:17:14
of the importance of health of life
00:17:19
dr gary is still on that ship helping
00:17:22
people every single day
00:17:25
my mom is still here too fighting for
00:17:27
her health
00:17:28
my son knows and loves her well so will
00:17:31
my daughter
00:17:34
now i know the world will change by the
00:17:36
time my children reach my age
00:17:38
but i believe there are only a few times
00:17:40
in each of our lives
00:17:42
that we get to witness a truly historic
00:17:44
global moment
00:17:47
[Applause]
00:17:50
and giving clean water to the entire
00:17:52
planet will be one of those moments
00:17:55
i invite you to be a part of this we've
00:17:58
been able to help
00:17:59
more than 11 million people get clean
00:18:01
water
00:18:02
but we want to do so much more we want
00:18:04
to go faster
00:18:06
and help more people so we're
00:18:08
introducing a new way to do just that
00:18:10
it's called the spring we're building a
00:18:13
community of givers so generous and
00:18:15
constant
00:18:16
the world has never seen anything like
00:18:18
it before
00:18:19
people who are willing to give not just
00:18:21
once but who will stick with us
00:18:23
month in and month out faithfully
00:18:25
fighting for change
00:18:28
we subscribe to things every month cable
00:18:31
internet
00:18:31
magazines movies and music we're loyal
00:18:34
to these things
00:18:35
because they benefit our lives but the
00:18:38
spring
00:18:38
benefits other people's lives it costs
00:18:42
only forty dollars to give one person
00:18:44
clean water
00:18:46
some of you can give that every month
00:18:48
some of you can give more
00:18:50
some of you less but whatever you can
00:18:53
give
00:18:54
a hundred percent goes directly to clean
00:18:56
water and we'll keep showing you where
00:18:58
your money goes
00:18:59
and the lives that you're changing until
00:19:02
the day we can finally
00:19:03
say that no one on earth will die from
00:19:06
dirty water
00:19:06
[Music]
00:19:09
so we realize people will tell us this
00:19:10
can't be done but we think man if
00:19:12
there's ever a time
00:19:13
in the world when this is possible it's
00:19:15
certainly today
00:19:16
where people are really looking to give
00:19:19
they're looking
00:19:20
to make an impact
00:19:25
we know how to end the water crisis in
00:19:26
our lifetime and with your help
00:19:29
we will join the spring today
00:19:42
you
