WaterPartners’ Charlie Engle receives Humanitarian Award at Toronto Film Festival

Edited by Traci Lawson

KANSAS CITY, MO (September 10, 2007) – “Extreme” runner Charlie Engle was honored Sunday for his humanitarian efforts in raising awareness for clean water needs in Africa. Engle ran for 111 days with two other athletes across the Sahara desert last year. Engle’s 4,500 mile run benefited H2O Africa, an organization founded by actor Matt Damon, host of the One X One benefit gala at the Toronto Film Festival. Damon’s media group, Live Planet produced a documentary “Running the Sahara,” which followed Engle and fellow runners Ray Zahab and Kevin Lin during their trek across the continent.

Engle said he is flattered by the award, but added there is much more work to be done. He said his run across Africa gave him an important first look at the crisis.

“One of the things that really motivated us was the fact we decided that water was our real focus during this expedition,” said Engle. “Almost every place we encountered lacked access to clean water. It was a life-changing event.”

Engle now sits on the board of WaterPartners International, LINK. WaterPartners works to provide safe water and sanitation systems in developing countries. Over 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, leading to the deaths of 6,000 children from water-borne disease each day – one child every 15 seconds. Since its founding in 1985, WaterPartners has completed safe water programs in more than 200 communities in eight countries to help combat the world’s water crisis.

Other celebrities receiving humanitarian awards at the event included Richard Gere, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, Wyclef Jean, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine and supermodel and philanthropist Petra Nemcova.

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