Welcome to my Blog

WELCOME TO MY BLOG................

The United Nations Website for reporting on the Millennium Development Goals (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/) reports that more than one billion people live in hunger and extreme poverty. Over 32 million children are out of school. In addition to an increased likelihood of being out of school as compared to boys, girls face gender discrimination that leads to lower earning, increased illness and violent crimes. The likelihood of a child dying before its first birthday is 8 times higher for those in developing countries than for those in developed countries, and 13 times higher for the bottom billion of the population. Maternal health, labor and sex trafficking, access to clean water, HIV/AIDS, and environmental sustainability each bear grim statistics that call for action, and perhaps the hardest of all to acknowledge, is that 24,000 children in developing countries die preventable deaths every day.

The purpose of this blog is to provide information related to understanding these issues and to provide multiple resources to enable readers of this blog to take individual action. The blog will also provide updates on current activities and partnerships addressing these issues as well as some “catch up” backstories as many have asked about the path that brought me to my current passion to address social injustices and the belief that real progress is not only possible it's essential and although many of the issues are complex there are many tangible and specific things that can be done now to reduce the suffering and improve the lives of literally billions of people.


Thursday, December 22, 2011

Flood Response in Thailand - December 2011


The flood waters in Thailand have been clearing but even months after the flooding began many neighborhoods are still under water and people are forced either into alternate locations or up to the second floor if they have one.  I joined the Bangkok Thai Ekachai church in flood response in Nonthuburi, Northeast of Bangkok and was again amazed at the resilience of the people I encountered.  Wading through water between calf and just above knee high we went house to house bringing welcomed care kits with food, water, and hygiene and sanitary products.  

Even as the flood water recedes the real work and impacts of the flooding is just beginning.  With over 1/3 of the country directly affected by the flood the scope and magnitude is staggering.  Some schools have been closed for more that 18 weeks – those of you in education can imagine how hard it would be to make up 18 weeks.  In rural areas especially this creates great risk.  In rural communities kids often don’t continue past primary school.  In one community 39 primary schools feed into just one high school and 3 vocational schools.  Keeping kids in school not only increases their education it provides safety from exploitation.  Following the floods many rural families have lost their livelihoods. In many cases farmland is mortgaged each year and paid for by the harvest. There will be no harvest this year so people may lose their land. With parents out of work and children out of school there is an increased risk of exploitation by traffickers.  The land will actually become more fertile in a year or two following the flood, but without intervention many will return to work their former land as wage earners. There are many opportunities for advocacy, community education, and vocational training to help the more than 2 million people who have been displaced as a result of these floods.

 Ekachai Church Team Members

Water marks show former water level (4-5 feet) 

 Water marks are higher than the bicycle

Boats are now used to get supplies in and out of the neighborhood 


Adding leg protection - the water is pretty nasty at this point. 

Ekachai Church Team Members 


Multiple Generations from Ekachai Church 

Ekachai Church Team Members 

This Soi (street) gets deeper the further down you walk or boat.
There should not be any water here - this is not a venice like neighborhood.
Note water marks. 

In the front of the boat. 

The boat comes along side a house and people come downstairs, 
and wade through water to receive the care packages, delivered with care.

 More Team Members

Riding in the boat after wading for a couple of hours

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Issues related to poverty and poverty itself can be eliminated


Since joining World Vision I’ve had many incredible experiences and opportunities to learn more about the state of developing countries and least developed populations.  Of these experiences the one that stands out the most is a visit to the Van Yen Area Development (ADP) in Vietnam about 5 ½ hours north of Hanoi. The Van Yen district has a population of approximately 116,000 people.  I took the picture at the top of this blog site not far from this ADP.

Area Development Project Overview

ADP’s are the name given by WV to community transformation efforts in which WV works with local communities for up to 15 years to address needs related to poverty, health, education, and child well- being. There are 36 ADPs in Vietnam and over 1800 ADPs in 60 countries served by World Vision. Ideally the projects are staffed with people local to the area or country, although the difficulty of accomplishing this increases as the remoteness and poverty level increases. The teams of 5-15 that do staff the projects assume significant responsibilities and personal burdens as they are usually separated from their families, at least during the week, and may have long travel to work through remote and sometimes dangerous access conditions.

What made this visit so inspiring and confirming were the results that this community has realized in the five years since the baseline was established.  A subset of the results the Van Yen ADP team of seven, working closely with the community, reported from 2006-2010:

·         The poverty rate has been reduced from 33% to 11% (26% adjusted for inflation)

·         The livelihood development efforts have provided new techniques to farmers resulting in increased productivity and yield of husbandry (285kg/person/yr to >415 kg/person/year)

·         29 bridges that will withstand flooding have been built as well as access roads and irrigation canals.

·         Pre-school and primary school enrollment increased from 63% to 84%.

·         In mountainous areas, where schools and access roads did not previously exist, day-boarding school enrollment increased from 0% to 65%.

·         Malnutrition decreased from 29% to 22%.

·         Improvements in maternal well-being, child well-being, accident preventions, and health education have also been significant.

·         The community is mobilized and actively participating in making these things happen.  In fact the ADP serves a facilitation and education role but it is the community involvement that makes change sustainable.
In 5 years this community has made measurable differences that not only improve the quality of life but also save lives. Through this work and these results I can see that issues related to poverty actually can be addressed and eliminated.  It’s not an overnight process, but it possible within our lifetime and that, for me, was a brand new and amazing realization.

Van Yen ADP Team and Visitors


Hanoi, Vietnam


ADP Manager Showing Communities on Map

North Vietnam 

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Backstory: Moving to Thailand


Last year at this time, almost to the day, I received the news that I had not been selected for the WV post in Panama.  It was disappointing to say the least, as I had felt my prior experiences, including moving to Spain a few years out of college, had been preparing me for this role.  World Vision did express interest in having me apply for the same role but serving a different region – East Asia based in Bangkok, Thailand, instead of Latin America/Caribbean based in Panama.  I had never been to either location but somehow Panama felt like a local move (my sense of “local” has been warping for the last 20 years) and Thailand felt like the other side of the world (because it is!). 


There was a feeling of calling that required my availability and responding I moved forward and began the interview process. By February I was in Bangkok for final face-to-face interviews.  During this trip I met with strategic leaders for community transformation, advocacy, child health, poverty eradication, and anti-trafficking.  I learned that 900 million of the world’s poor live in Asia, more than any other region in the world, including Africa, and that there was measurable evidence of progress to addressing and, possibly eliminating, many issues related to poverty, including poverty itself.  It was inspiring and daunting, all at the same time.  I'm not sure how to describe what I felt when the offer came through, but I realized the opportunity it represented and so after prayer and consultation with friends and family, I moved forward and by the first week of April I had relocated to Bangkok accepting the role of East Asia Director of People & Culture.  For more on this region and the work I am involved in check out this site (it also has coverage on the flooding in Thailand).  www.wvasiapacific.org






Monday, December 5, 2011

Backstory: Pepperdine University Master of Arts in Social Entrepreneurship and Change


In October 2010, as I contemplated the major shift that was underway in my life I realized that I would need to become conversant in an entirely new field.  While my past experience in leadership, change management, operations, and human resources would be relevant and applicable this was an entirely new landscape for me and I needed ways to come up to speed quickly.

I was led to the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology (http://gsep.pepperdine.edu/welcome/mission/) where I discovered a Master’s Degree in Social Entrepreneurship and Change program that seemed to be tailor made to meet the needs of my transition.  I was immediately interested, signed up for an information session, and began the application process for the Spring 2011 Cohort. 

The program brochure http://gsep.pepperdine.edu/masters-social-entrepreneurship-and-change/content/sec-program-brochure.pdf provides a great overview of the objectives and content of the program, and as I am now finishing up my third term and preparing for my Global Change Experience (see Champions Education Alliance page on this blog) I can attest to the quality of the program, and the incredible value it is providing as I continue my immersion into the field of Social Entrepreneurship and Change. 

Backstory: World Vision International

The vision and work of World Vision is both inspiring and aligned with my core values. Sometime in 2010 I began monitoring the World Vision employment website submitting one unanswered application for a program management role in Haiti and another for a role leading People & Culture (HR) for the Latin America and Caribbean Region, based in Panama City, Panama. Also around that time I was reading The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns the President of World Vision U.S. and found that the book provided exceptionally detailed information on the needs of the poorest of the poor and the hopeful yet inadequate response of individuals, organizations, and governments to address those needs. The interviews and candidate selection process was set to be completed just prior to Thanksgiving (2010) and I felt very good about the interviews, although I would not actually learn the outcome until the second week of December...


From World Vision International's website: http://www.wvi.org

World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice.

Inspired by our Christian values, we are dedicated to working with the world’s most vulnerable people.

We serve all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender.
           
            Our vision for every child, life in all its fullness;
Our prayer for every heart, the will to make it so.


Backstory - Beginning the Transition


I left Kaiser Permanente in August 2010.  Almost immediately several opportunities presented themselves, most with lucrative salaries and opportunities.  A series of conversations and interviews with Google ended in the recruiter’s conclusion that I should probably work for a non-profit due to my desire to serve and time allocation devoted to missions. A short term consulting assignment with the Santa Rosa Community Health Centers (through Resources Global Professionals) was especially fulfilling and I also began working on a change management book I had set aside a few years back. While these opportunities were reassuring and genuinely entertained, it was through prayer, not planning, that my next steps were chartered.  My attention was ultimately drawn to two organizations that would offer an opportunity for immersion in the field of social justice and humanitarian aid: World Vision International and Pepperdine University's Graduate School of Education and Psychology.


Backstory: Short-Term Mission Immersion Continues


Over the six months following The School of Nations I participated in missions to the Amazon (June 2010) with Mike Silva International, Indonesia (July/August 2010) with Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara and Revive Indonesia, and again to Indonesia (October 2010) with Revive Indonesia. Whether providing medical or dental clinics, or sharing and showing God’s love, I found each trip reinforcing the call to help and refining and confirming ways in which I could make a difference in the lives of people throughout the nations. I was fortunate to be born into the wealthiest nation of all time in the course of human history.  It was neither my right nor my fault.  It is my privilege, and with that privilege comes responsibility.  I am called to serve.

“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth”.  1 John 3: 17-18

Backstory: The School of Nations


In December 2009, following the trip to Fiji, I enrolled in a newly developed program sponsored by the same group (The Mission, Vacaville, CA). The School of Nations evening program had ten students, and each week from January through April, we studied a different region of the world. Each student would prepare and present a five-minute presentation on a country within the given region for that week. The weekly research, done mostly online and through multiple media sources, was eye opening and humbling.  It again reminded me that there is no excuse for inaction, no excuse for ignorance, no ability to say “I didn’t know”.  Each week we also hosted indigenous people or missionaries from a country within the studied region and learned from first hand experience what was happening in that country – areas of success and areas of need.  I heard chilling first hand accounts of ethnic cleansing in Croatia, starvation in Malawi, oppression in Romania, and devastation in South Africa caused by Aids and lack of clean water.  The reports were real-time, not historical recounts from 50 – 100 years ago.  Right now.  This course and community provided an amazing heart broadening experience that helped solidify my call to serve and informed my decision in  May 2010 to leave my executive post with Kaiser Permanente to create more flexibility to pursue my passion to serve those in need throughout the nations.

Backstory: Short-Term Mission Immersion and Important Realizations


In October 2009 an opportunity was presented to participate with another organization on a mission trip to Fiji. This trip was quite different from the trip to Indonesia. We happened to be there during a two-week national campaign to raise awareness to the social issues of gender inequality and child abuse. The dynamics in the groups we were leading, the Tala Tala, who were both the church leaders and village chiefs, confirmed what I was reading in the papers in the areas of gender inequality and the importance of addressing it for the stabilization and future of Fiji.  This trip also provided additional insight to the importance of respecting, and in some cases restoring, indigenous culture.  As in Indonesia the culture supports community and sharing to a much greater extent than most Western cultures. It was a reminder that providing aid or assistance to another culture is a delicate venture.  The West does not have all of the answers and many of our ways are not only unappealing to other cultures, they can create disharmony in well-balanced communities if not done appropriately.

Backstory: Serving Through Short-Term Missions - Kupang, Indonesia


In 2008 I felt a strong calling to service and international missions that had been tugging at me for some time, increase to the point of demanding action and I signed up for a mission trip to Kupang, Indonesia.  What I experienced on that trip was truly life altering and when I returned to from that trip I knew without a doubt that a new season was opening and my calling was again being refined. On that trip in July 2009, to Kupang, Indonesia, on the Island of Timor I was able to experience, first hand, the love and similarities between people from distant nations, as well as the stark differences in access to clean drinking water, medical supplies and services, and shelter following devastating events such as earthquakes and tsunamis. An entire people group and region of the world became immediately real and tangible. It forever changed my life. I knew the time to make a difference was now. I just wasn’t clear on how to do it.  I did note that friends, family, and neighbors were eager to hear about my trip. Colleagues I had never even had lunch with invited me to their homes for dinner to hear about the trip. I shared my experiences mostly through the photos I had taken, and found it to be a great opportunity to expose people to the needs of others and to share my faith.  

Backstory: An Important Personal Question


From 2002 to 2009 as I was maturing both as an individual and in my faith, my worldview and life perspective began to change significantly. Up to this time the full-page magazine ads and other reporting on modern day genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation, and human trafficking were so far removed from my daily reality that I could see them yet still not grasp the magnitude and realness of them. Over time, however, it became more and more difficult to ignore or gloss over the harsh realities that people were experiencing throughout the world. Documentaries, movies, and books, such as Born into Brothels, Schindler’s List, and Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, kept the issue of ongoing social injustices visible. They also pointed out something else – that individuals could make a difference.  The concept is both inspiring and condemning.  If individuals could make a difference, a real difference addressing grave social injustices, then why wasn’t I?  It’s a simple question, and unfortunately too easy to answer with rationalizations.  I had to change my question to “how can I use my talents and abilities to reduce social injustices on a global basis?”

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Introductory Blog - Backstory

In early 2009 I became overwhelmingly aware of a profound calling on my life to serve God and to share God’s love with people on a global level.  The platform for this work was not clear to me then, and in fact it is still being framed, but the calling was undeniable and I began preparing for a fundamental shift in my life’s focus and purpose.  I soon found myself participating in a short-term mission trip to Indonesia. This life-changing trip in July 2009 revealed the power of God’s love, and although we had gone to bless the people of Indonesia, I believe that we received an even greater blessing from them.  Later that year I joined a team traveling to Fiji. The country was in the midst of a government-sponsored campaign for awareness of gender inequality and child abuse and through a series of events it became clear that change in each of these areas of social injustice was both needed and possible. After returning from this trip I enrolled in the School of Nations, an intensive 4-month program that focused on different global regions each week and featured missionaries from around the world, sharing their stories and perspectives on the mission field.  The first hand narratives and consistent themes of hardship and perseverance brought new perspective and seemed to make the world a little smaller. Over the next eight months, through mission trips, I visited the Amazon, returned two more times to Indonesia, and left my executive post with a large health care provider. I had heard and accepted a request to live a life worthy of the calling I had received and I placed my faith in God to guide my path forward.