The 13 year old activist who took the Flint water crisis into her own hands

Mari Copeny talks with Yahoo Life about Flint water crisis and activism.

Video Transcript

MARI COPENY: My name is Mari Capeny, I'm 13 years old, I'm from Flint, Michigan, and you may know me as Little Miss Flint even though I'm not so little anymore.

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DEBBIE STABENOW: The people of Flint, Michigan got up this morning. If they took a shower it was with bottled water. This is an entire city who have poisoned water.

MARI COPENY: The whole water crisis had happened when I was inside first grade. We have not had clean water since 2014. We had ended up getting lead and other harmful bacteria into the water. It would make your eyes hurt, it would make your head hurt. Kids were getting lead poisoning from. It people were dying from Legionnaires because of how bad the water was. People had to go out and buy bottled water because of the water those come in our faucets, we could not drink. We couldn't even brush our teeth with it.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I had made a GoFundMe. I was raising awareness and money so I could get bottled water for the people who were inside Flint. So then I ended up teaming up with this water company called Hydroviv and I ended up getting my very own water filter. And it filters out every line of bacteria, every nasty thing inside the water. I've still been raising money for that one so I can ship 'em out all over the world. Because it's not just Flint that has a water crisis. America has a water crisis. People just don't talk about it enough.

DANA NESSEL: Richard Snyder, former governor of the state of Michigan, is charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty, thereby failing to protect the health and safety of Flint's residents.

MARI COPENY: The fact that Governor Snyder is being charged, it doesn't change the work that I do. If Snyder is convicted, he'll pay a penny per every person inside Flint. Our lives are worth more than just a single penny. Worth way more, actually. So I wanted to raise $400,000 for my filters. I wanted to raise $100,000 for every year Trump was president. So I ended up reaching that goal, but we're over that goal, too.

It feels absolutely amazing knowing that I'm doing all this at the age of 13 and helping around my community. I want to become president in 2044. The fact that we have a female, Black vice president, she is a very big role model. And she looks like me, too. We're literally going to see so much change. See what I have done, so then see what you can do, too, and then get inspired by me. Or get inspired by any other young kid activist. And then take on what you want to take on and take part in it and take lead in it. There's so much work that needs to be done, but I'm going to tackle it head on.