Academy Award®-winner Matt Damon and WaterPartners’ Executive Director Gary White held a Fundraising Gala together with the ONEXONE Foundation on October 23 in San Francisco to raise awareness of the drinking water crisis and other critical health issues impacting millions of children around the world.   Celebrity guests included Carlos Santana, David Arquette, and seven-year-old piano prodigy Ethan Bortnick. The gala featured storytelling, live and silent auctions, as well as musical performances by Grammy® Award-winner Wyclef Jean, Josh Groban and the world-renowned African Children’s Choir.

“I want people to know that these problems can be solved, that it’s not impossible and it can be solved in our lifetime,” said Damon.  “If we don’t do it, the outlook for the world is extremely bleak, and if we do, it will be truly wonderful as this is about the world that we’re leaving behind for our kids.”

Water-related diseases are the leading cause of death for children under the age of five, and over one billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water.

“Lack of clean water contributes to disease, poverty and conflict, but the problem is not too big to solve with a partnership of resources and expertise,” said White, executive director and co-founder of WaterPartners. “We are working with similar-minded organizations such as ONEXONE so that eventually everyone in the world will be able to take a safe drink of water.”

About WaterPartners

WaterPartners is a highly respected 20-year-old U.S. non-profit 501 (c) (3) with a mission to provide safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries. WaterPartners fills a key role in addressing the water crisis worldwide. WaterPartners has transformed thousands of lives with access to safe water and sanitation in eight countries - Bangladesh, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Guatemala, India, Kenya, and the Philippines. WaterPartners’ vision: the day when everyone in the world can take a safe drink of water.  Visit www.water.org for more information.

About ONEXONE

ONEXONE is a unique umbrella organization that partners with talented and dedicated NGOs to implement specific programs that align with its mission statement – the alleviation of suffering of children locally and globally – and important programs targeted toward health, education, self-esteem and dignity.  Through its ongoing campaigns, the ONEXONE foundation is committed to supporting, preserving and improving the lives of children at home and around the world.  Please visit www.onexone.org for more information.

From Denny Hatch’s e-newsletter:

Take a gander at this paragraph from a Wall Street Journal story by Robin Sidel on Oct. 20, 2008:

AmEx recently slapped a $1,100-a-month spending limit on John and Monica Bell’s platinum AmEx charge card. The reason: AmEx customers who pay with plastic at the same places where Mrs. Bell shops and have the same mortgage lender have poor repayment histories, according to a letter sent by AmEx.

The couple pays $450 a year for the card which promises “no pre-set spending limit.” The couple routinely spent $5,000 a month that’s $60,000 a year and has never been late with a payment.

If the data goons are allowed to start treating blue-ribbon American Express Platinum Cardmembers like chronic deadbeats, what will happen to the rest of us?

The excess of zeal that fueled the subprime real estate debacle has turned into an excess of fear.

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November 15, 2008, will at last see a summit on how to reform failed global finance.  Invited to the USA, the heart of the failures, by President George W. Bush will be the “leaders” of global finance.  Architects of the failure range from economic globalization enthusiasts Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Alan Greenspan and free market Chicago School de-regulators and privatizers.  Add Wall Street “financial engineers” and quants who “innovated” all those mortgage-backed and credit card-backed securities and the $60 trillion of credit default swaps.

Read the full article by Hazel Henderson at www.ethicalmarkets.com

The Network for Sustainable Financial Markets (NSFM), an international, non-partisan network of finance sector professionals and academics with an interest in long-term investing, is conducting a survey of investment professionals to ask their opinion on how financial services should be reformed in the light of the current global financial crisis. NSFM argues that the financial system had become flawed in that it no longer reflected the interests of ordinary savers, and that insufficient attention had been paid to sustainable wealth creation.

In order to assist in formulating the necessary reforms to overcome the crisis, the NSFM has drafted a set of seven Principles for Financial Reform that address sustainable value creation, the identification of hidden risks and rewards, the balance between short and long-term views, market participants taking responsibility for their actions, improvements to governance in financial institutions, better aligning financial interests, and a coordinated global approach to better protect financial markets.