Gil Garcetti’s involvement with bringing safe water to the people of West Africa began in January 2001, after having served for eight years as Los Angeles County District Attorney. At that time, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation invited Gil’s wife to visit West Africa on a Foundation business trip and, fortuitously, Gil was invited to join them.  He was about to begin the next chapter of his life. 

They spent nearly two weeks in Niger, Ghana, and Burkina Faso, meeting with NGOs, government officials, and mostly with the villagers in the rural communities. The most startling fact he learned on this trip: roughly 70% of rural villages do not have access to safe water.  He returned to West Africa four more times, and in a meeting with Mali’s President, Amadou Touré, he heard this: “If I had the money, the first thing I would do is make sure every village in Mali had a sustainable supply of safe water. With safe water, everything good follows.” 

Although Gil spent 32 years in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, his passion for much of his life has been photography. He is an internationally acclaimed photographer, having published five photo books since 2002.  Thus, it was natural for him to document everything he saw on his journeys to West Africa with his camera:  the people and their living conditions, both in villages with and without safe water.  Along with hardship, he saw images of hope and beauty.

From these images, a book was born, “Water Is Key,” with the idea that it would be used to familiarize people in the industrialized world about the consequences of unsafe water and the life changes that come from drilling a well and providing people with safe water. For Gil, these visits to West Africa were life-transforming.  Since 2006, he has worked tirelessly to raise awareness and funds to drill wells in West Africa. 

In the Fall of 2007, the UCLA  Fowler Museum had an exhibition of his photographs, “Women, Water and Wells.”  In 2009, many of these photos were on exhibition in the visitors lobby of the United Nations in New York. In February, 2008, these same photographs and his words inspired the women of Salon Forum to found “Wells Bring Hope.”  In 2009, Gil and “Wells Bring Hope” partnered and they continue to work for this cause.