Before joining the Marine Corps, Jake Harriman had listened to his father talk about his eight years of service in Vietnam. “He would always tell me stories about his time in Vietnam, and I always felt a commitment and need to serve,” says Harriman. While going to school, he felt a nagging sense of wanting to travel and see the world and go on an adventure that led him to join the military.
Harriman launched Nuru International in 2008 after a life-changing experience that gave him a new perspective on life. (Courtesy Nuru International)
Harriman served in the Marine Corps for seven and half years. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a platoon commander in both the Infantry and a Special Operations unit called Force Recon. During his time there, he led Marines in four operational deployments throughout Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, including two combat tours in Iraq, and was awarded the Bronze Star for actions in combat during his second tour in Iraq.
“I loved the Marine Corps, the missions, the adventure and the excitement and adrenaline rush, but when I was in combat I had some pretty severe experiences that opened up my eyes to a new way to look at the world,” he says.
In April 2003 a life-changing experience gave Harriman a new perspective on life. After witnessing the brutal murder of the family of a farmer trying to escape Iraqi militants, for the first time Harriman says he didn’t know what to do. “I put myself in this guy’s shoes and everything slowed down, and I thought, ‘I live in a world of choices. We all want to go to school; we want our kids to grow up and we decide what kind of breakfast we’ll eat or clothes I will wear. I mean, what were this guy’s choices that morning. He can watch his kids starve to death or make a desperate attempt to provide for his family. He didn’t have any choices,” says Harriman.
That was the beginning of Harriman’s desire to help and have a greater impact on the war on terror and fight against what he believes is the leading contributor of terrorism, which is extreme poverty. “I talked to my guys about my idea and that I wanted to get out and tackle this issue from a different flank,” he says.
Leaving the Marine Corps was a very difficult decision for Harriman, but so was continuing to see the same problem when deployed. “When I got out I quickly realized that extreme poverty is a massive problem. I wasn’t a Peace Corp guy or an economist. I was just a Marine with an engineering degree from the Naval Academy, but I was committed,” says Harriman
His commitment to fight extreme poverty led him to enroll in the Stanford’s Graduate School of Business to build an organization that could ultimately combat the problem of extreme poverty. Harriman launched Nuru International in 2008. “I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes made in the past. I didn’t want to build an organization that was going to have little impact in a couple of villages. I wanted to build a company,” he says.
Nuru International focuses on creating leaders and equiping people with tools and knowledge to lead their communities out of extreme poverty. They use local income-generating activities and address four key problems, including hunger, ability to cope with economic shocks, preventable disease and death and lack of quality education for children. Nuru has four programs: agriculture, economic development, health care and education. “Every organization to be lasting requires two things, people and capital. We have an aggressive leadership program that identifies leaders within a community to be able to build the solutions in their communities long after we’re gone,” says Harriman.
Nuru’s goal, according to Harriman, is to go into these countries and build a working model with the leaders over seven years and leaving a self-sustaining model independent of Western staff and donations.
Since Harriman launched Nuru in Kenya and Ethiopia, where it helped a handful of farmers, it has grown to benefit more than 30,000 people. “Extreme poverty rips away an individual’s plan for the future. I’ve seen the power of giving people the ability of make meaningful choices for their families, and I’m so excited about the potential of this model in a global scale,” says Harriman.
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
To fight poverty, start with women
There's a coming showdown between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of income inequality. President Obama has called it the "defining issue of our time."
Progressives recognize that sustaining unemployment benefits, increasing the minimum wage and ensuring equal pay are key weapons. Republicans, who recently voted to leave 1.3 million Americans in the cold by not extending unemployment benefits, frame the inequality debate as yet another attempt to implement liberal, anti-free market, big-government giveaways. Americans know better.
In a speech last week, GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio said federal money should be given to the states to figure out how to deal with poverty. He called for replacing the Earned Income Tax Credit with a subsidy to encourage people to take low-wage jobs, and for the federal government to encourage marriage. He called President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty a failure.
But there is no question that without the War on Poverty, millions more would be in it today. Attempts to paint it any other way will backfire, as majorities of Americans support its policies. Republicans have a chance to show they are on the side of the American people in addressing poverty and inequality. America's women and children, in particular, are depending on them.
In fact, 50 years after Johnson declared war on poverty, an astonishing new report by Maria Shriver paints a bleak picture of today's barren economic landscape for 42 million women and 28 million children.
Shriver's father, Sargent Shriver, helped lead the Johnson administration's all-out campaign on behalf of the elderly, the hungry and vulnerable families and children. While facts show that without this effort many more Americans would be in poverty today, Maria Shriver's report, "A Woman's Nation Pushes Back From the Brink," describes a much-changed nation in which poverty wears a different face.
On the one hand, it is indisputable that women have made much progress. A majority of women are now family breadwinners, and they hold more college degrees than men. Women have also made gains in reaching the highest levels in business and politics. But these benchmarks mask a disturbing reality: Too many women are one missed paycheck, one illness, one hospital visit or car breakdown away from economic disaster.
A recent best-seller urged career women to "lean in" to succeed in the workplace. The Shriver report underscores how many women lie awake at night worrying that they could fall out of the middle or working class and into the ranks of the poor. While many of us are pondering how to have it all, these strong women are doing it all, without having much. Shamefully, the richest country in the world does not invest enough to allow women to keep fueling America's economic growth while securing their own economic futures and those of their children.
The report lists many reasons for this predicament -- the lack of well-paying jobs that offer upward mobility; the change in the family structure where majorities of low-income women, many of them single, are heads of households; and most importantly, the lack of good education.
Those are the overarching realities, but there are many more subtle, hidden aspects of the economic landscape for women in America. One-third live in or on the brink of poverty. They struggle to get their children to school at 7 for breakfast, so they can take their mothers to medical appointments and still make it to work by 9. Forty-two million women represent two-thirds of minimum-wage workers in the country, and women still make just 77% of what men make.
So what can be done? For starters, we can fix the wage discrepancy between men and women. This could cut the poverty rate in half for struggling working women and it would represent an economic stimulus of half a trillion dollars.
The Shriver report also outlines a set of other public policy solutions, including raising the minimum wage for all and helping women access better paying jobs through job training. It describes how government support structures could allow for better and more affordable child care, enabling women to balance the roles of caregiver and breadwinner.
And in a surprising revelation, it uncovers the regret many of these low-income women express about marrying early -- and also, in many cases, their satisfaction at having gotten divorced. Republican lectures about marriage and family values will not work to solve poverty. But making education and child care accessible, closing the wage gap and leveling the playing field will.
Republicans should note that one of the studies in the Shriver report shows that women of color -- a key demographic with whom the party desperately needs to make inroads -- overwhelmingly believe government has a role to play in providing adaptive workplace structures and policies that support today's contemporary families. No, this is not a plea for a handout. These women, while in a more financially precarious position than their white counterparts, are also more optimistic about their futures. As in: I want to work hard and know there are better economic opportunities out there for me to succeed.
These policy solutions the report offers are not new; progressives have been fighting for them for a very long time. But it also outlines what we can do as individuals, communities and corporations. We can, for example, help young girls make smarter choices, promote a "college before kids" mentality, and help businesses identify best practice policies that can better support low-wage women workers.
So let's forgo the showdown. These are common-sense proposals that uphold mainstream principles of taking care of our families and children. They are not liberal, progressive or Democratic values. They are American values that will protect and secure the American dream for everyone once and for all. Americans expect our leaders from both parties to uphold them. Let's get to work.
Progressives recognize that sustaining unemployment benefits, increasing the minimum wage and ensuring equal pay are key weapons. Republicans, who recently voted to leave 1.3 million Americans in the cold by not extending unemployment benefits, frame the inequality debate as yet another attempt to implement liberal, anti-free market, big-government giveaways. Americans know better.
In a speech last week, GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio said federal money should be given to the states to figure out how to deal with poverty. He called for replacing the Earned Income Tax Credit with a subsidy to encourage people to take low-wage jobs, and for the federal government to encourage marriage. He called President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty a failure.
But there is no question that without the War on Poverty, millions more would be in it today. Attempts to paint it any other way will backfire, as majorities of Americans support its policies. Republicans have a chance to show they are on the side of the American people in addressing poverty and inequality. America's women and children, in particular, are depending on them.
In fact, 50 years after Johnson declared war on poverty, an astonishing new report by Maria Shriver paints a bleak picture of today's barren economic landscape for 42 million women and 28 million children.
Shriver's father, Sargent Shriver, helped lead the Johnson administration's all-out campaign on behalf of the elderly, the hungry and vulnerable families and children. While facts show that without this effort many more Americans would be in poverty today, Maria Shriver's report, "A Woman's Nation Pushes Back From the Brink," describes a much-changed nation in which poverty wears a different face.
On the one hand, it is indisputable that women have made much progress. A majority of women are now family breadwinners, and they hold more college degrees than men. Women have also made gains in reaching the highest levels in business and politics. But these benchmarks mask a disturbing reality: Too many women are one missed paycheck, one illness, one hospital visit or car breakdown away from economic disaster.
A recent best-seller urged career women to "lean in" to succeed in the workplace. The Shriver report underscores how many women lie awake at night worrying that they could fall out of the middle or working class and into the ranks of the poor. While many of us are pondering how to have it all, these strong women are doing it all, without having much. Shamefully, the richest country in the world does not invest enough to allow women to keep fueling America's economic growth while securing their own economic futures and those of their children.
The report lists many reasons for this predicament -- the lack of well-paying jobs that offer upward mobility; the change in the family structure where majorities of low-income women, many of them single, are heads of households; and most importantly, the lack of good education.
Those are the overarching realities, but there are many more subtle, hidden aspects of the economic landscape for women in America. One-third live in or on the brink of poverty. They struggle to get their children to school at 7 for breakfast, so they can take their mothers to medical appointments and still make it to work by 9. Forty-two million women represent two-thirds of minimum-wage workers in the country, and women still make just 77% of what men make.
So what can be done? For starters, we can fix the wage discrepancy between men and women. This could cut the poverty rate in half for struggling working women and it would represent an economic stimulus of half a trillion dollars.
The Shriver report also outlines a set of other public policy solutions, including raising the minimum wage for all and helping women access better paying jobs through job training. It describes how government support structures could allow for better and more affordable child care, enabling women to balance the roles of caregiver and breadwinner.
And in a surprising revelation, it uncovers the regret many of these low-income women express about marrying early -- and also, in many cases, their satisfaction at having gotten divorced. Republican lectures about marriage and family values will not work to solve poverty. But making education and child care accessible, closing the wage gap and leveling the playing field will.
Republicans should note that one of the studies in the Shriver report shows that women of color -- a key demographic with whom the party desperately needs to make inroads -- overwhelmingly believe government has a role to play in providing adaptive workplace structures and policies that support today's contemporary families. No, this is not a plea for a handout. These women, while in a more financially precarious position than their white counterparts, are also more optimistic about their futures. As in: I want to work hard and know there are better economic opportunities out there for me to succeed.
These policy solutions the report offers are not new; progressives have been fighting for them for a very long time. But it also outlines what we can do as individuals, communities and corporations. We can, for example, help young girls make smarter choices, promote a "college before kids" mentality, and help businesses identify best practice policies that can better support low-wage women workers.
So let's forgo the showdown. These are common-sense proposals that uphold mainstream principles of taking care of our families and children. They are not liberal, progressive or Democratic values. They are American values that will protect and secure the American dream for everyone once and for all. Americans expect our leaders from both parties to uphold them. Let's get to work.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Deep divides split Washington over how to combat poverty
Fifty years after President Lyndon Johnson first declared "War on Poverty," lawmakers are still looking for ways to root it out of society. In 2014, it stands to be a central issue as Democrats shape their legislative and campaign agendas around issues like unemployment benefits and a minimum wage increase. But there are Republicans looking get in on the action as well.
As political divisions between the two parties have deepened in recent years, so have the differences between their fiscal philosophies. The debate over whether to extend emergency unemployment benefits is a microcosm of this larger divide as Democrats call for an unconditional extension of benefits and Republicans seek to offset the cost and add additional job-creation measures. Many of the 2014 debates may well center around who is doing more to help low-income and middle-class Americans.
Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in his 1964 State of the Union address in an effort to reduce the 19 percent poverty rate in the United States. His Great Society legislation, a continuation of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, helped launch Medicare and Medicaid, expanded the federal food stamp program and funding for education, and launched a slew of volunteer programs. The success of the program is a mixed bag: the poverty rate has fallen just four points, from 19 percent to 15 percent, but many argue that Johnson’s programs made a major improvement for the standard of living for the poorest Americans and prevented the poverty rate from climbing higher.
President Obama and congressional Democrats have both pointed to issues of economic equality as a central focus of the next year. “We have a situation in America today that is really not good. The last 30 years, the top one percent of Americans, and their income and wealth has increased three hundred percent. The middle class during that same thirty years has lost almost ten percent. We’ve got to turn this around,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “I have nothing against rich people. But the rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. The middle class are being squeezed out of existence.”
His tone echoes that of Mr. Obama, who gave a speech in December calling the combination of growing income inequality and a lack of upward mobility as “the defining challenge of our time.” The speech was light on specific policy prescriptions, but the issue is expected to be a central focus of his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. During the coming year, Democrats will likely push for issues like a minimum wage increase, universal pre-kindergarten, and closing tax loopholes and deductions that benefit the wealthy.
On the Republican side, a handful of lawmakers in particular are seeking to become champions on the issue of poverty. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. – who Democrats accuse of targeting the poor and seniors with his tax-cutting, entitlement-reforming budgets – is seeking to model himself after mentor and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp. He has taken to quietly visiting inner-city neighborhoods to discuss the issue, and delivered a speech near the end of his run as the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee where he said the government’s “centralized, bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs” have failed.
"In this war on poverty, poverty is winning," he said during the speech, in which he encouraged people to measure success in fighting poverty by outcomes rather than dollars spent. Ryan will mark the anniversary of Johnson’s speech in an interview about poverty with NBC’s Brian Williams on Thursday.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the child of Cuban immigrants, has spoken frequently in about the increasing difficulty in achieving the American dream and called for a variety of measures to increase opportunity like education reform. Over the weekend, he released a video pledging to release an agenda for the country that would create a “new opportunity society in America” that will reduce government deficits and give people the skills they need to succeed though measures like repealing and replacing Obamacare and strengthening retirement programs.
“After 50 years, isn’t it time to declare big government’s war on poverty a failure?” he asks.
Rubio and Ryan aren’t the only two. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., used a recent speech in Detroit to advocate for the idea of “economic freedom zones” in the bankrupt city by lowering taxes and encouraging immigration. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, spoke at the Heritage Foundation in November and encouraged his fellow conservatives to take a leading role in reforming government anti-poverty efforts by doing a better job of directing federal funds to those in need and reforming education, the criminal justice system, taxes, and regulations, among other things. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has fashioned himself the GOP’s champion of education reform.
It remains to be seen who will claim Johnson’s legacy – or achieve far more than he could. His daughter, Lynda Johnson Robb, will attend a ceremony at the Capitol Wednesday marking the 50th anniversary of his speech, hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus.
As political divisions between the two parties have deepened in recent years, so have the differences between their fiscal philosophies. The debate over whether to extend emergency unemployment benefits is a microcosm of this larger divide as Democrats call for an unconditional extension of benefits and Republicans seek to offset the cost and add additional job-creation measures. Many of the 2014 debates may well center around who is doing more to help low-income and middle-class Americans.
Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in his 1964 State of the Union address in an effort to reduce the 19 percent poverty rate in the United States. His Great Society legislation, a continuation of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, helped launch Medicare and Medicaid, expanded the federal food stamp program and funding for education, and launched a slew of volunteer programs. The success of the program is a mixed bag: the poverty rate has fallen just four points, from 19 percent to 15 percent, but many argue that Johnson’s programs made a major improvement for the standard of living for the poorest Americans and prevented the poverty rate from climbing higher.
President Obama and congressional Democrats have both pointed to issues of economic equality as a central focus of the next year. “We have a situation in America today that is really not good. The last 30 years, the top one percent of Americans, and their income and wealth has increased three hundred percent. The middle class during that same thirty years has lost almost ten percent. We’ve got to turn this around,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “I have nothing against rich people. But the rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. The middle class are being squeezed out of existence.”
His tone echoes that of Mr. Obama, who gave a speech in December calling the combination of growing income inequality and a lack of upward mobility as “the defining challenge of our time.” The speech was light on specific policy prescriptions, but the issue is expected to be a central focus of his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. During the coming year, Democrats will likely push for issues like a minimum wage increase, universal pre-kindergarten, and closing tax loopholes and deductions that benefit the wealthy.
On the Republican side, a handful of lawmakers in particular are seeking to become champions on the issue of poverty. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. – who Democrats accuse of targeting the poor and seniors with his tax-cutting, entitlement-reforming budgets – is seeking to model himself after mentor and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp. He has taken to quietly visiting inner-city neighborhoods to discuss the issue, and delivered a speech near the end of his run as the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee where he said the government’s “centralized, bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs” have failed.
"In this war on poverty, poverty is winning," he said during the speech, in which he encouraged people to measure success in fighting poverty by outcomes rather than dollars spent. Ryan will mark the anniversary of Johnson’s speech in an interview about poverty with NBC’s Brian Williams on Thursday.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the child of Cuban immigrants, has spoken frequently in about the increasing difficulty in achieving the American dream and called for a variety of measures to increase opportunity like education reform. Over the weekend, he released a video pledging to release an agenda for the country that would create a “new opportunity society in America” that will reduce government deficits and give people the skills they need to succeed though measures like repealing and replacing Obamacare and strengthening retirement programs.
“After 50 years, isn’t it time to declare big government’s war on poverty a failure?” he asks.
Rubio and Ryan aren’t the only two. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., used a recent speech in Detroit to advocate for the idea of “economic freedom zones” in the bankrupt city by lowering taxes and encouraging immigration. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, spoke at the Heritage Foundation in November and encouraged his fellow conservatives to take a leading role in reforming government anti-poverty efforts by doing a better job of directing federal funds to those in need and reforming education, the criminal justice system, taxes, and regulations, among other things. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has fashioned himself the GOP’s champion of education reform.
It remains to be seen who will claim Johnson’s legacy – or achieve far more than he could. His daughter, Lynda Johnson Robb, will attend a ceremony at the Capitol Wednesday marking the 50th anniversary of his speech, hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Can de Blasio keep promise to end inequality?
Less than a day after officially concluding 12 tumultuous years as mayor, Michael Bloomberg sat stone-faced in the front row at the inauguration of his liberal successor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, as one speaker after another made blistering, thinly veiled attacks on Bloomberg's legacy.
The Rev. Fred Lucas, one of the clergymen who delivered the opening invocation, asked God to turn "the plantation called New York City" into a better place. Actor Harry Belafonte used his turn at the podium to call for an end to what he called the city's "deeply Dickensian justice system." And the newly elected public advocate, Letitia James, ticked off a litany of criticisms of Bloomberg's police, education and economic policies.
The attacks, which dominated an inauguration ceremony that is normally a celebration of municipal unity, jarred many observers. "As outside observer, hard to understand the bitter partisanship at De Blasio ceremony," noted an Israeli journalist on Twitter. "There's a time for everything, and this isn't it."
Things got so heated that, an hour into the event, former President Bill Clinton, who administered the oath of office to de Blasio, tried to reset the tone by offering the first praise of Bloomberg, noting that the departing mayor "leaves the city stronger and healthier than he found it." De Blasio himself departed from his prepared speech to ask the crowd to applaud Bloomberg.
The criticism was partly a matter of political overreach: Polls suggest that a majority of New Yorkers, while ready to turn the page on the Bloomberg years, also think the city is on the right track. Forty-nine percent approve of what Bloomberg did for the city, including innovative programs aimed at low-income residents.
But over the years, Bloomberg -- a Wall Street veteran and a multibillionaire with a chilly managerial style -- became an irresistible target for those who decry the gap between rich and poor. At a time when homelessness in New York has soared to a record-high 50,000 people (PDF) sleeping in city shelters every night, Bloomberg's habit of jetting off to a home in Bermuda on weekends was fodder for criticism from opponents.
The same was true of Bloomberg's free-spending ways: One conservative estimate places Bloomberg's spending on his campaigns and other political efforts at an eye-popping $650 million from his personal fortune, overwhelming liberal Democratic challengers in 2001, 2005 and 2009.
It was easy for liberal politicians to point the finger at Bloomberg as a symbol of inequality, but as de Blasio will soon discover, the issue won't vanish with the Bloomberg administration. Slate business correspondent Matthew Yglesias has wisely suggested that progressives not get too giddy over what the de Blasio equality agenda can deliver in the foreseeable future.
"Everyone should take a deep breath or two," he wrote in August. "Economic inequality is a serious issue and municipal governance is a serious matter, but the fact is that the two have relatively little to do with each other."
Poverty has bedeviled New York and other cities for centuries, and mayors have scant power to affect broad trends like the decline of manufacturing, the loss of low-skilled jobs to foreign countries and the destruction of jobs by automation and the information revolution.
But New York's newly-elected mayor won last November on a campaign promise to use the power of government to attack yawning gaps of wealth and income between rich and poor. Even before taking office on New Year's Day, de Blasio began ratcheting up the rhetoric, explicitly positioning his new administration as a place the rest of the nation should watch for clues about how to address economic inequality.
On Wednesday he told the inauguration crowd, "We are called to put an end to economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love."
A large audience will indeed be watching to see whether de Blasio -- or any mayor -- can make the mighty wheels of the national economy spin in the direction of uplifting the poor. If he can crack the code, an effective attack on economic inequality will be making news long after the ungracious sendoff of Bloomberg has faded from memory.
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