December 2, 2024 • 60 mins
Explore the power of transformation and empowerment in this special retrospective episode of Optimistic Voices. Join Dr. Laura Horvath, Emmanuel Nabeu, and Yasmin Vaughn as we promise to uncover the compelling journey of Helping Children Worldwide (HCW) through 2024, celebrating remarkable milestones and visionary shifts in global leadership. We reflect on standout episodes that shed light on crucial topics like maternal and child health improvements in Sierra Leone, transitioning care leavers to adulthood, and fostering dynamic partnerships between NGOs and churches. Our discussions dive deep into the empowerment model, highlighting a pivotal movement from immediate relief to sustainable growth, with a closer look at our fruitful collaboration with the Sierra Leone Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Journey with us as we recount our global adventures and pioneering initiatives throughout 2023. Our visits to Kenya and Mozambique, and participation in significant international conferences like the CAFO Summit and the ICAR 8 conference, have deeply informed our focus on transitioning orphanages to family care models across Africa. Yasmin Vaughn offers insights from the Rising Tides Conference, revealing how intimate collaborations among global health professionals are crucial to empowering communities and strengthening family bonds. Learn how these experiences have shaped our collective mission to create lasting impacts in child welfare and global health.
Celebrate the growth of Helping Children Worldwide as we approach our 25th anniversary in 2025, emphasizing our commitment to shifting power and decision-making to local leaders in the Global South. This transformative journey is highlighted by empowering local solutions, exemplified
________
Travel on International Mission, meet local leadership and work alongside them. Exchange knowledge, learn from one another and be open to personal transformation. Step into a 25 year long story of change for children in some of the poorest regions on Earth.
https://www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org/mission-trips.html
******
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A bible study for groups and individuals, One Twenty-Seven: The Widow and the Orphan by Dr Andrea Siegel explores the themes of the first chapter of James, and in particular, 1:27. In James, we learn of our duty to the vulnerable in the historical context of the author. Order here or digital download
___________
Family Empowerment Advocates support the work of family empowerment experts at the Child Reintegration Centre, Sierra Leone. Your small monthly donation, prayers, attention & caring is essential. You advocate for their work to help families bring themselves out of poverty, changing the course of children's lives and lifting up communities. join
____
Organize a Rooted in Reality mission experience for your service club, church group, worship team, young adult or adult study. No travel required. Step into the shoes of people in extreme poverty in Sierra Leone, West Africa, Helping Children Worldwide takes you into a world where families are facing impossible choices every day.
Contact support@helpingchildrenworldwide.org to discuss how.
Shout out to our newest sponsor: The Resilience Institute
Helpingchildrenworldwide.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm Dr Melody Curtis, Executive Director of Helping
Children Worldwide, andoccasionally I get to host an
episode of Optimistic Voices,and occasionally I get to host
an episode of Optimistic VoicesMore frequently.
That honor goes to Dr LauraHorvath, Emmanuel Nabeu and
Yasmin Vaughn, all of whom arehere with me today.
Say hi guys, Hi guys, Hello, Hi.
(00:40):
We want to welcome ourlisteners to our 2024
end-of-year review.
First, I want to celebrate withyou that Optimistic Voices is
now in the top 50% of podcastsin terms of leadership, impact
and global reach.
Let's celebrate for a minute.
That was fun.
(01:01):
But also our content is fabulous, If I do say so myself,
radically honest, evenconversations from learned
voices working in the spaces ofchild and family welfare, global
health and ethical missionpractices on topics ranging from
the controversial to theinspirational and even a tiny
(01:23):
bit of the reassuring.
So, regardless of how hard thetopic may be, we close every
episode with a note of optimismfrom these amazing humans who
are changing the world.
Before we begin to discuss thefuture of Helping Children
Worldwide, I'd like to give eachof our hosts the opportunity to
speak of one show this seasonin optimistic voices that they
(01:45):
think our listeners should hearagain, or for the first time, if
they missed it when it wasreleased and one from our prior
seasons.
So please keep it to 30 secondseach if you can.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, I can hop in and go first.
My favorite are actually twoepisodes this year the two
episodes we did on our maternaland child health mission project
, which features the work thatHCW is doing to expand in health
system strengthening throughtraining midwives in Sierra
Leone.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, I have a second here From the recent episodes.
I'm going to take from there mytwo favorites.
One, the experiences of fivecare leavers.
You know, children I grew upwith in the orphanage, but now
they are all adults, so theorphanage is titled From
Orphanage to Adult FoodResilience and Adaptation in
Sierra Leone.
That is very if you missed that, you want to listen to that,
(02:37):
just hearing the stories ofthose care leavers.
And then the second one is theepisode on engaging your church
with angel, this kind ofperspectives from the pastors on
the joy that comes from healthypartnership between NGOs and
churches, ours helping childrenworldwide as they express their
unity in Christ and allow moreopportunity to serve with their
(03:00):
diverse expertise.
And thank you to the guests ofthose episodes Reverend JC, and
as well as Reverend Gina fromThrois, unc and now Reverend JC
from Baddow Street.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Thank you All right, I think it's my turn.
I think this might be cheating,but usually my favorite episode
of Optimistic Voices is the onethat was the most recent, and
that's true in this case, Ithink.
It's called Be the Change and itfeatures two of our friends and
colleagues from the GlobalSouth, george and David, and
right now it's my favoritebecause it's evidence of how
(03:32):
leaders in the Global South arestepping into center stage and
taking the ground, but actuallyentering into a global
conversation about care, reformfor children, and it's just
really cool to see them steppinginto roles that are new to them
and putting us in roles thatare new to us in ways that I'm
(03:55):
sort of excited about.
And if I have to think aboutone in the past, the first one
that comes to mind is itmight've been the first episode.
It was with Dr Andrea Siegeland Dan Hope from Strengthening
Families and Children.
We actually recorded it inSierra Leone and it was kind of
about the role of social workand best practices in social
(04:18):
work in terms of child welfare,family strengthening, child
protection.
So yeah, I guess I bookendedour entire existence on
optimistic voices.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, I am going to cheat Listeners.
I think you should stay tunedto us right now and then share
this episode with a friend andlisten to it a second time with
them, and then you know, maybeyou could also listen to the
December 23rd 2022 episode.
Yes, melody, we can change theworld.
We thought we'd give you aglimpse into the things we talk
(04:53):
about at the internationalheadquarters as we prepare to
take stock of the progress wemade since December 2022.
If you tuned in in 2022 toOptimistic Voices, you would
have learned that HCW leanedinto the empowerment model of
international development, withthe belief that it was better
than a relief model if youwanted to achieve a sustainable
(05:16):
development in the global south.
Hey, laura, it occurs to methat maybe I'm using language
that not all of our listenersrecognize.
Global south, global north Canyou give us a quick definition
of those terms?
Speaker 5 (05:30):
Sure.
So I think in the past, interms of international
development, we've probablytalked about developing nations.
That was probably thevernacular that we used for a
while.
These days we talk about theglobal north and the global
south, and the global southtends to be those on the ground
(05:50):
doing the actual day-to-dayclient-facing.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You know, roll up your sleeves, facing the
challenges, work where those ofus in the global north and HCW's
international staff considersourselves to be primarily a
global north organization tendto be the capacity builders, the
bridge to resources that kindof thing, and the reason it's
north versus south is that, froma geographical standpoint, most
(06:18):
of the impoverished nationsactually exist in the Southern
Hemisphere, although not allimpoverished communities exist
outside of the Global North andnot all of the Global South is
impoverished.
This year we spent a great dealof time in conversation with our
(06:40):
longest term ally, which is theSierra Leone Annual Conference
of the United Methodist Church,and Sierra Leone is very much in
the global south.
We wanted to talk with themabout our 25-year history
together and where we eachimagine we could take our shared
mission forward.
That is obviously aboard-to-board level leadership
(07:04):
conversation.
Consequently, we brought alongour board chair, mr Rick Amann,
to share his perspective withyou, our listeners, on the
outcome of that conversation,and we will get to all of that
later.
But sorry, rick, I did not giveyou a chance to say hi before.
Maybe you could share a littleminute or two about how you got
involved with this motley crewof optimistic world changers.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Sure, I'd be happy to Melody, you know, 2000,.
When two crazy preachers, johnYomassu and Tom Berlin, came up
with this idea of starting anorphanage in Sierra Leone, I was
one of the congregation whosaid we're doing what where?
I was one of the congregationwho said we're doing what where
they made the case for it, andI've been a huge supporter and
(07:50):
donor to the effort ever since.
Quite a few years back now.
I can't remember how many, butI made my first trip to Sierra
Leone and you know fair warningto any of you out there
listening to this Once you'vegone there and seen the need and
seen the work that HelpingChildren Worldwide does, it kind
of submets your commitment tothe sustainment of this
(08:11):
initiative.
And because of that, I think,is when somebody approached me
and asked me to join the board,I said absolutely, be happy to,
and became chair a couple ofyears ago, and I could not be
prouder of this Motley crew thanof any organization I've ever
been associated with.
It's just fantastic peopledoing amazing work and I'm just
(08:35):
proud to be part of it.
So thanks for having me todayand I look forward to the
conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Well, thank you, rick .
We will talk some more aboutyour experience in Sierra Leone
in October of this year and whatexcites you about what we're
doing next and where you see themission in 2025 and the future,
but we'll do that later.
Optimistic Voices is notusually focused on helping
children worldwide's impact fromour other programs.
(09:05):
It is one of the ways we makean impact.
We bring the voices ofimportant thought leaders to our
listeners and since thisepisode is about the other
things we do to make an impactand how that's going for us, I
think we should catch ourlisteners up on what happened
after our 2022 end of yearepisode, our listeners up on
(09:27):
what happened after our 2022 endof year episode.
This is where we shared withour listeners that we were going
to be taking some enormousleaps to get to where we are and
where we wanted to be at thispoint and, honestly, I'm still
catching my breath from some ofthose fantastical gymnastics you
all put me through.
But we got to the other side ofalmost everything we suggested
doing two years ago and so well.
(09:50):
I'm just going to cheat again,because there's a synopsis of
the progress that HelpingChildren Worldwide made put out
every year, and I've linked thewhole thing in our show notes
and on our website.
But this is a listeningaudience, so telling you where
to go find it isn't going to bevery helpful.
I'm going to just pull up page22 of the HCW magazine and
(10:14):
here's a brief list of theimpacts that we made in the
first year of that transition topursue more opportunities to
network, collaborate and empowerlocal organizations to operate,
rather than directly managingthem, even with respect to our
(10:37):
strategies for providingfinancial aid.
Our allied organization, theChild Reintegration Center,
served 1,600 children in 429families an additional 1,409
children because the TCM that's,our transition coaching and
mentoring department extendedtheir work to 80 organizations
(11:01):
and 25 residential careinstitutions in Sierra Leone and
three other countries andmentored eight of them in
transition, conducting 30workshops and monthly televised
events and overseeing thereintegration of 81 children.
Mercy Hospital, another one ofour allied, treated over 13,000
(11:24):
adult and child patients andimproved services that are
available nowhere else in thecountry.
8,000 mothers, infants andchildren received medical
outreach services in 45impoverished communities through
mobile clinics.
200 malnourished babiesbenefited from nutrition
(11:45):
services in rural Sierra Leone.
190 babies were deliveredsafely at Mercy Hospital.
Midwives and maternal healthspecialists are together from
global health memberscollaborated on good birth
practices for tens of thousandsof maternity and obstetric
patients.
(12:05):
Our Together for Global HealthCoalition expanded held an
international conference inWashington DC, provided systems
improvement, support for healthservices for children and
families in 31 countries onthree continents.
Three rural villages partneredwith HCW, mercy and CRC to
create a family resiliency planand network in their community,
(12:29):
impacting 2,650 villagers.
A network of internationalteachers collaborated on a
teacher training curriculum totrain 100 teachers and impact
3,500 students in Sierra Leone.
That was a lot.
Honestly, I don't want you tothink that's the last word these
(12:53):
people will have on the topic.
In fact, laura, let me tap youfirst.
Since you've been with theorganization the longest.
Can you talk about the progressthat's been made since 2022?
The longest?
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Can you talk about the progress that's been made
since 2022?
I love that.
The request is can you tell uswhat we've done since 2022, but
in as few words as possible?
So let me try to tackle that.
This is, honestly, feedback.
I get all the time.
So I think, like a lot ofnonprofits that are in the same
spaces that we occupy all overthe world, we move so fast that
(13:29):
it's really hard to rememberwhere we were, even a month ago,
and for me anyway, but, as youpointed out, I'm with the
organization the longest, somaybe that's an age thing.
Let me try some broad strokes.
So in early 2023, 2023 was ahuge travel year for HCW.
Obviously, we travel often toSierra Leone, but 2023 had us in
(13:52):
a lot of new places.
Traveled right at the beginningof the year to Kenya with our
friends from Church of theResurrection to see some
programs there.
An orphanage there sorry,that's trying to embark on
transition programs there.
An orphanage there sorry,that's trying to embark on
transition.
We visited a Youth Empowerinitiative that has given us
some ideas and informed andimpacted how we're thinking
about development and capacitybuilding with allies on the
(14:15):
ground in the global south, andI think that trip underscored
the direction that we've beenmoving in to focus more on
empowerment local empowerment,both financial and personal, for
families and communities, butI'll talk more about that later.
Let's see after that.
Melody, I think you and I andour film crew of two and our two
(14:36):
stars, george and David,traveled to Mozambique and there
, in spite of breaking my foot,on the first day of a three-week
film capture trip, we spenttime capturing film for the
story we're calling FirmlyRooted, which is our documentary
about how two social workersand local leaders from Sierra
Leone are traveling all over thecontinent of Africa to show how
(15:00):
challenging and critical thework to transition orphanages to
family care models is and howimportant it is to do it, even
though it's super hard.
We watched them and capturedthem on film, talking with
United Methodist bishops fromall over Africa about how family
is the root of every child'sfuture.
And then we watched them andfilmed them, meeting with social
(15:25):
workers and orphanage directorsand others about the importance
of transition, the difficultiesof transition and how it has to
be done well, because kids'lives are at stake.
And seeing all that beingcaptured on film was just a
really amazing experiencepersonally.
Plus, you haven't lived untilyou've watched the filmmakers
(15:47):
put a drone up in the sky and anentire village comes out of run
to see what that thing is andto get on camera.
Just some really fun things andthen in July, we took that same
crew to Sierra Leone to capturethe footage there.
So that was amazing.
We've added a ton ofconferences this year.
(16:08):
We, of course, went back toCAFO Summit, as we have every
year since 2019.
We always attend, we alwayspresent, and this year we
attended a couple newconferences.
Yaz attended a conference inJuly, represented HCW at the
ICAR 8 conference.
This is typically a conferencethat's centered around
(16:28):
international adoption, butthey've kind of widened their
sphere and included us in thoseconversations and the work that
we do, and before that she ranRising Tides.
Yaz, do you want to talk aboutRising Tides for a second?
Sure.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to talk about both of those
conferences.
So our Together for GlobalHealth network meets monthly on
Zoom to discuss specific globalhealth and humanitarian topics.
We usually cover one topicevery meeting and this virtual
format accommodates our diversemembership that's spread across
probably four or five differenttime zones.
But we know that there's agreat value to in-person
(17:07):
interactions, to foster deeperconnections and encourage
collaborative discussions thatare just not possible to have
over a Zoom meeting.
So to facilitate this, weorganized an in-person gathering
to bring together, for globalhealth, members who shared a
similar interest, which enabledthem to be able to share ideas
and insights in this moreimmersive setting have those
(17:28):
hallway conversations, asthey're called and to meet in
smaller groups with people thatshared our interest.
So last March we hosted ourannual Rising Tides Conference.
We held it in DC at the UnitedMethodist Building right next to
the Capitol, and the theme wasTogether for Global Health.
So it was a really powerful twodays.
It allowed global healthprofessionals to connect, to
(17:52):
learn, to inspire change, and itwas a small group there was
about 40 of us but because ofthat it was a more intimate
space and it led this reallypassionate group to be able to
talk more to address globalhealth challenges.
We know that by fosteringcollaboration and knowledge
sharing, this conference reallyempowered people to be
re-energized in the work thatthey do and get some new ideas
(18:14):
on how to impact the lives ofvulnerable communities.
So that's Rising Tides.
This year we also expanded ourconnections in child welfare by
attending the ICAR conference,as Laura was telling you, the
International Conference onAdoption Research.
It was in Minneapolis, minnesota, this year and for a long time
it's been this really vitalplatform for researchers and
(18:36):
even adopted persons to sharetheir knowledge and experience
around adoption.
But in the last few years thisconference has really broadened
its scope to encompass the issueof caring for children
separated from families globally.
So not just the issues ofdomestic or international
adoption, but encompassing allof the issues that lead to
(18:56):
children being separated fromfamilies in the first place and
what the impact of thoseexperiences are.
As you guys probably know,intercountry adoption has really
been in decline over the lastcouple of years and there's this
really large global movementthat we've been a part of to
close orphanages and prioritizefamily reunification or domestic
fostering to children in needand so being on the forefront of
(19:18):
this movement, advocating forthese solutions that keep
children connected to theirfamilies and communities.
We were actually able toco-present a research project
done by Dr Sarah Neville on theimpact of the attachment theory
workshop hosted by the CRC,which helped show people that
are skeptical about the domesticadoption and family
reunification space how it canbe done well and how children
(19:42):
can thrive in those spaces.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
I think entering into these conversations and
entering into a new conversation, into a new space, is super
exciting and seeing how the workthat we support of our allies
in Sierra Leone is nowintersecting and into this
international adoption space isreally interesting to watch.
As I said, we went to CAFO thisyear.
(20:08):
We always go to CAFO, but thisyear we actually brought two
folks with us.
We brought George Kulanda, whois the Senior Case Manager at
the Child Reintegration Centerin Bow, and David Musa, who's
the Head of the TransitionCoaching and Mentoring
Department.
They joined us at CAFO thisyear.
This was their first time inthe United States.
It was their first time at CAFO, which drew its largest crowd
(20:32):
ever in the history of Summit.
Over 2,500 people were inattendance, so you can imagine
how overwhelming that probablywas for the two of them.
But not only did they come andattend CAFO as participants,
they presented with us at CAFO.
George and Dr Sarah, who Yazmentioned and I presented at a
(20:53):
research symposium on the CRC'sFamily Strengthening Workshop
curriculum and the research thatSarah drew out of that, and
that was to an audience of 200people in person but over a
thousand people online.
I think that was George's firsttime presenting at an
international conference andthat was quite an audience that
(21:15):
he was presenting to.
It was a thrill to bepresenting alongside him and
have him share his expertise.
And then later on in the weekwe presented a kind of panel
conversation.
George, david Melody and Ipresented on the nature and
evolution of our workingrelationship between HCW and our
allies in Sierra Leone,specifically the Child
(21:37):
Reintegration Center, and howthat balance of leadership and
power it has been shifting moreand more toward our Global South
colleagues.
And honestly, one of the bestmoments for me at CAFO was we
weren't on the ground 24 hoursbefore people that I've known
for years and met at CAFO foryears were tapping me on the
shoulder and saying to me hey,where are George and David?
(22:00):
We want to talk to them.
So that was just a reallyamazing moment for me.
So another conference that Yazand I attended this year that's
completely new to us and weattended just as participants
was DevEx World, held inWashington DC just about a week
(22:21):
before our recent presidentialelection, for our recent
presidential election, and thisgave us a fascinating, if
somewhat sobering insight intothe worlds of foreign policy and
foreign aid as they stand rightnow, or as they stood.
As I say, one week before theelection and sort of watching
that and seeing how theseforeign policy folks and World
(22:42):
Bank folks are seeing the trendsof foreign aid was pretty
eye-opening.
Yasmin, did you say something?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
We really got to see ourposition within the global
landscape, thinking of the largebilateral organizations like
USAID and the World Bank and theUN all those big players in the
game of internationaldevelopment and then trying to
see where we stood in that space.
And it actually was a reallygood time for us to do that,
(23:14):
because earlier this year wetook some time to step back and
really define our purpose withinthe landscape of international
development and how we're goingto accomplish it.
Helping Children Worldwidestarted its mission because God
calls us to care for vulnerablepeople and children are
especially vulnerable to harm.
Our model for that has evolvedbeyond caring for individual
children to influencing a socialsystem around which a child
(23:37):
lives, and the first layer ofthat is, of course, the family
that the child lives in and thework that the ZRC does to
provide tools that family needsto be strong so they can care
for children.
The next layer is the community, which includes social workers,
pastors and medicalprofessionals in the community
and our work with communityinfrastructure projects and
supporting those kinds ofcommunity resources.
(24:00):
The next layer is institutionsin the community like churches
or other NGOs that can worktogether to take care of
different aspects of a child'slife.
And then we also influenceentire social systems by our
sharing of impact stories andconducting research, like we
were talking about earlier,sharing data across multiple
(24:21):
platforms and engaging withother organizations at the NGO
level, like we're doing at DevEx.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, building on that, yes, and HSDM has
continued to make progress.
And in that instance of thatAfrican proverb that says if you
want to go fast, you go alone,but if you want to go far, you
go together.
So, at Happy Children Worldwide, we are committed to going
forward together.
So, as Trusted Allies, we arecommitted to equipping local
(24:51):
leaders and organizations withthe tools and resources and
authority they need so that theycan continue to thrive
independently.
Our evolving role emphasizesthis collaborative support,
ensuring that autonomy andresilience will remain central
to everything we do.
This is a strategy that alignsour resources and energy where
(25:16):
they are most effective,ensuring that we remain
steadfast in our commitment tocreating that lasting and
meaningful change, to creatingthat lasting and meaningful
change.
So, together, in mission withyou and our mission allies
across the globe, we continue todemonstrate our true
collaborative efforts.
We can have locally drivensolutions to continue to take
(25:36):
the lead to transform outcomesfor communities everywhere.
So, yas, can you elaborate alittle bit on how this strength
of helping children will havefit us into even the global
health space?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, I'd be happy to .
So you know, as NAB said, Ithink a key strength of helping
children worldwide is ourability to collaborate
effectively with otherorganizations and, to put it
simply, I like to call itplaying well with others.
I like to call it playing wellwith others.
We are an organization thatembraces partnerships and we're
not afraid to share knowledgeand resources so that we can
maximize our impact.
(26:11):
We know that collaborating withorganizations that have
specific expertise in otherregions or other areas of focus,
then we can leverage ourcollective strengths and address
complex challenges moreeffectively.
We know that, working together,we can achieve greater results
and make a more significantdifference in the lives of
(26:31):
children worldwide, and a greatexample of this is in our
Together for Global Health work.
So, growing out of our Togetherfor Global Health group, we
decided to embark on thismaternal health mission.
So, for those of you who don'tknow, or those of you who have
not listened to my two favoritepodcast episodes of the year,
our maternal health mission isan ongoing project to tackle
(26:54):
maternal and child mortalitythrough health system
strengthening.
So in January of this year,2024, we trained 98 midwives to
be equipped to perform emergencyand obstetric and newborn
procedures at their localfacilities.
And this project is really anexceptional step in the right
direction for our organization.
First, because, trainingmidwives to effectively handle
(27:16):
emergencies at their facilities,we are not only improving
immediate outcomes for mothersand babies, but also
strengthening the overall healthsystem that supports them, the
most vulnerable group within ahealthcare system.
This approach also fosterssustainable healthcare solutions
and empowers local healthcareproviders beyond the walls of
Mercy Hospital, although Mercywas one of our participants.
(27:40):
But I think one of the mostremarkable parts of this is that
the success of this project isa testament to the impact of
collaborative endeavors.
Although we were kind of one ofthe rallying points of this,
there were at least sixorganizations three kind of in
our core group and thenexpanding out to six that
collaborated to do this, andeach of those six organizations
(28:01):
reached out to others to getsupplies and equipment, so about
19 organizations all togethercame together to make this
possible.
None of the singleorganizations, ourselves
included, would have been ableto accomplish this because not
everyone had the skills, thefunding, the capacity to achieve
it at the scale of 100 midwiveslike we did.
(28:21):
But we pooled our resources,our expertise, we pooled our
connections and we were able toachieve more than we ever would
have been able to do on our own.
We learned a lot from thisproject, though, about how to do
this well, and are again tryingto share that knowledge with
others, so we've been doing somecommunication with other
networks that do work withmidwives, like the Good Birth
(28:43):
Network, midwives at the Edges,and even did a presentation for
the Virtual International Day ofthe Midwife, so we can even
share our collaborative efforts.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Yeah, I think our ability as an organization to
play well with others is a corestrength, but I honestly think
it's that without it, I'm notsure how any of this gets done.
So my word for this year wasuncharted, and I think it became
HCW's word as well, and havinga year that feels uncharted,
(29:16):
where everything seems uncharted, has been extraordinarily good
and extraordinarily challengingin a lot of ways, in a lot of
difficult ways.
We've been looking, as I'vebeen thinking, about Rising
Tides 2025, I've been thinkingabout futures planning and some
of the things that we learned atDevEx, and one of the things we
know about the future is thatit's unknown, but we act as if
(29:40):
we know where we're headedanyway.
We keep doing the things eventhough we don't really know what
the future has in store for us,and the truth is we do know a
little bit about the future.
But one of the lessons that Icame away from DevX with is that
it's important to forecast, butit's easier to forecast if
you're collaborating with others.
That collaboration helps withforecasting and forecasting
(30:03):
helps with collaboration, and soI still think that that
collaboration helps withforecasting and forecasting
helps with collaboration, and soI still think that that
collaboration and our ethicaround.
That is really, reallyimportant, and our uncharted
territory this year has led usto really continue more and more
to let go of the lead and stepinto much more supporting roles
(30:24):
that let our allies in the Southdo some of the forecasting and
do some of the navigating intothe future, getting ourselves
out of the driver's seat.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah, absolutely, laura.
That made me think of all ofour talk about collaboration and
working together.
Makes me think of the James 127study that was published this
year.
So James 127 is the verse aboutwidows and orphans, and as a
part of the research that we didon God's call to care for
widows and orphans, we werelooking at some of the verses in
(30:59):
the Old Testament, and in OldTestament law it specified that
the Israelites were supposed toharvest their fields one time
and whatever was left over theywere supposed to leave for
widows and orphans andforeigners to be able to harvest
to feed themselves.
So God specified that theIsraelites had this obligation
to care for these people, buthis call was not for them to
(31:20):
harvest all the grain and thengive some to the widows.
His command was for them to beable to collaborate together on
the same project of harvestingthe wheat, and so it's striking
this balance between support anddignifying independence.
So the Israelites had anobligation to leave food in the
fields and the widows also hadto step up and do their part and
(31:41):
take care of themselves.
And this is really whatdignifying partnerships look
like with people who come fromdifferent economic, social and
cultural backgrounds.
It's not a handout, it's notdoing everything for them, but
making it possible fororganizations to do their best
and bring their skills and worktogether to take care of our
(32:02):
common issues.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Thank you, yas.
I always like the way that youbring us back to our root, our
own perspective of scripture andChristian perspective on why we
do this work.
But I want to say hey, laura, Ihave been sitting on my
(32:24):
microphone not to make any, notmake any remarks because I got
pretty excited as you weretalking about George and David
from the CRC presenting for thefirst time in the global stage.
At that exact moment itoccurred to me that this
experience is what reallypropelled me forward in my
(32:45):
commitment to balance powerbetween the global South and the
global North.
I saw it first at the GBGMconference with all of the
African bishops there inMozambique, and what an impact
it had for them to be hearingfrom Africans two Africans
(33:06):
talking about this work.
And then at the ChristianAlliance for Orphans, I saw that
same phenomenon repeated.
I think it's what rises to thetop for me when I think about
our mission anchors.
And then the work we're doinglocally in the Strong Family for
Every Child initiative is aclose second which that James
(33:26):
127 study.
It comes out of that work.
We have five mission anchorsbeing financially healthy,
providing global leadership,linking resources to needs,
focusing on family and communityand equipping and empowering
local ownership.
Hey, rick, I hate to put you onthe spot since you're
(33:51):
responsible for my performancereviews, but from a board
perspective, what work do yousee will be most important?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, that's a great question, Melody, and I
appreciate you putting that onthe table because, excuse me, I
do think this coming year isgoing to be a challenge for HCW
in new ways.
We have even gone so far in ourrelationships with many of our
colleagues in changing ourterminology Instead of talking
(34:24):
about partnerships, we now talkabout alliances.
And there's a reason for that,and the reason is that we
realize that it's not a goodpolicy for us to be in the
middle of day-to-day operationsin some place that's 6,000 miles
away and how many time zonesand how many time zones.
(34:54):
And unfortunately, when we findourselves in that position, we
tend to impose a particularlyWestern view of how things could
and should be done, andoftentimes that comes across as
the right way to do somethingno-transcript.
Our role is going to be one ofsupporting, consulting, offering
(35:17):
expertise, offering insight,and that's going to require an
adjustment on our part, as wellas an adjustment on the part of
our alliances, who have beenused to us working differently.
We've got some significant workto do in how we back out of
that decision process andallowing the people who are on
(35:39):
the job, on the ground, doingthe work, to make the decisions,
because they're the ones whomost best know what needs to be
done, not us on the other sideof the ocean here.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
So for me, 2025 is going to be a year of
celebration the 25 years of HCWin existence and transformation,
both in how we work with ouralliances and our collaborative
partners that we've been talkingin here.
Rick, I could not agree withyou more.
I think you know these anchorshave been our guiding anchors
for a while now, but I thinkthis year for me, saw two of
those anchors kind of cometogether.
I'm going to highlight the oneon global leadership and the one
on equipping and empoweringglobal leaders to shift the
(36:31):
balance of power and create amore sustainable impact, and
just to kind of go back toSummit again as an example of
where I saw that play out in away that I think was so exciting
for me.
Every time I've been at Summitand in some of these other
international conference spaces,there's usually a room full of
(36:51):
people from the Global North wholook a lot like me, who talk
about how important it is for usto get the lead, the voices of
leaders from the Global South,into these conversations, into
these discussions.
We need to have theirperspective and we just frankly,
haven't done a great job ofdoing that.
We just haven't.
(37:11):
And so having these two CRCstaff travel to summit not just
as attendees but as presentersand have their voices mic'd and
projected out into a room fullof people.
I think is just the verybeginning of where not just HCW
should be heading, but where allof NGOs like ours should be
(37:33):
heading.
One of my favorite summitmoments was David Moussa went
off to attend a session on hisown.
I'm not sure if George wentwith him or not, but he went to
attend a session and when hecame back I said to him well,
how was it?
You know, what did you think?
And he thought for a reallylong time which is something he
does and then he said thesepeople have a lot to learn from
(37:55):
us and he's right those of usthat are experts here in the
global North.
You get to go to summit, youget to go to rising tides and I
car CCI, h um, dev X, world Um.
We've even spoken at UN uhconvention meetings and things
like that.
Convention meetings and thingslike that.
(38:20):
We have a lot to learn from ourcolleagues in the global South.
A lot more listening to do anda lot less talking to do.
Two of the coolest things that Iget to do in my role in global
advocacy for HCW is that I sortof represent two secretariat
positions that HTW has taken onas an organization and those
(38:40):
secretariat positions allow usto be of service, but not
necessarily in leadership, whichhas been an interesting and
kind of rewarding evolution forme from the days when we were
here and when we here in the USwere making decisions down to
the smallest detail about aprogram as you're saying, rick
that was 6,000 miles away onanother continent.
(39:02):
Two of my favorite are HCW sitsas a secretariat for the Sierra
Leone Coalition for Family Careand it's one of my favorite
roles, not just because all I dois run the Zoom meeting and
take notes and find resourcesthe coalition asks me to go out
and find but I get to witness asfour leading child welfare
(39:23):
organizations in Sierra Leonethat include the CRC engage
their government and theirministries to share knowledge
and best practices and find waysto work together to connect
their work to their goals fornational and regional care
reform for children.
Children who have livedexperience of residential care
(39:43):
at three of these organizations,including the CRC, were able
this year to participate in thedevelopment of a policy document
for the United Nations throughan effort of the UN Human Rights
Council by participating in aUN consultation.
So a child of the CRC who haslived experience of residential
care sat in a room on a Zoomwith the support of a couple of
(40:06):
case managers and offered hisinsight into what he believes
children like him have a rightto in terms of growing up in a
family.
That is amazing and that thatshould be happening.
The other secretariat role I getto do is I serve as the
secretariat for the UnitedMethodist Church's education and
advocacy campaign called AStrong Family for Every Child.
(40:28):
A Strong Family offers freeresources that help churches in
the UMC and, frankly, others aswell to learn more about how
they can help strengthenfamilies in their congregations,
communities, nations and theworld.
And I just get to be the girlin the wings.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Yeah, one of our strategic anchors focuses on
empowering and equipping localownerships.
We said right there, and we aremaking significant progress in
this area, as Rick mentioned andLaura is talking about this and
Melody is talking we are alltalking about this same area
here.
So, as the mission of helpingchildren worldwide continues to
evolve, so also do ourorganizational practices,
because this is how it works,right, what we say, how they
(41:08):
feel about what we say and whatthey think about it, what we do.
So it's very, very criticalwhen it comes to changing our
missions, very critical when itcomes to changing our missions.
We have taken many full stepsto strengthen transformative
alliances with our globalsub-allies, including the Sierra
Leone United Methodist Churchand the program leaders of the
CLC and Massive Hospital.
By actively transformingdecision-making and
responsibility to local leadersthose closer to the problem we
(41:31):
are laying the foundation forour global sub-allies to become
empowered hosts of an expandingnetwork of mission partners.
This approach ensuressustainable impact and
reinforces our shared mission tocreate lasting change.
It is an approach that trulyhonors local insight and
experience, allowing our alliesto be more fully driven into
this mission that we do together.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yeah, nabs, I completely agree.
A great example of this is howMercy Hospital is growing.
So Mercy is really reaching outand trying new things and
managing them all on their own.
Last year they pursued somegrants to get a new x-ray
machine and lab equipment sothat they can treat more
patients and do moresophisticated diagnostics and
with that for the non-destitutepatients, be able to raise more
(42:16):
income to support thesustainability of the hospital.
And for the past few years wehave been sending mission teams
to Sierra Leone to providetechnical advice on chronic and
non-communicable diseases likediabetes and hypertension, and
through that support MercyHospital has gotten training on
how to recognize and providepatient education for these
(42:38):
conditions.
And they're beginning to see anincreasingly larger number of
cases of patients with diabetesand hypertension.
And as they begin to see moreof these patients coming in,
they realize that even more needfor this education for
healthcare workers to diagnoseand treat these conditions and
to continue to screen in thecommunity as they're a rising
(42:58):
prevalence.
So they've continued to ask usto send mission teams for that
training and support.
Now, chronic disease is not afocus of helping children
worldwide.
Our focus has always been onmaternal and child health, but
that focus also includes healthsystem strengthening, and in
supporting Mercy Hospitals inthis project that they want to
pursue, we're able to strengthenthe overall health system,
(43:22):
providing advice and supportthat they need.
So in this diabetes projectthey've been working on, we've
helped them grow into this ideathat aligns with their interests
.
So they've sought out otherorganizations to partner with,
including Insulin for Life, andwe were able to help them with
some of the application and justsome of the stuff involving
(43:44):
getting the resources andproviding expertise on how to do
this.
But the ownership andmanagement of this project has
remained firmly in their hands,and so we've shifted from
soliciting all the support onour own and saying, don't you
think it's a good idea to dothis, to a more supportive and
empowering role, strengtheningour relationship with our allies
(44:04):
, allowing them to grow on theirown and contributing to the
long term sustainability of thework.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, thank you, yaz.
I too am really excited to seehow Mercy is stepping into
ownership of its programs andour role in supporting that.
Maybe, rick, maybe you'd liketo weigh in on the reasons we're
changing our description of ourrelationship from partnership
(44:34):
to alliance and what that changemeans to you.
I know we're still stumblingover the change in language, but
I'm wondering if you canexplain to our audience why we
think this is an essentiallanguage change we need to make?
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Yeah, and I agree with you, melody.
I think this is incrediblyimportant for us, but also for
any organizations who do thiskind of work internationally or
in any collaborativerelationship, relationship as
(45:19):
partnerships.
We realize that our mentalmodel for that word includes
some degree of ownership, whichI think all of us would agree.
When we talk about we areentering into a partnership, we
feel some part of that ownershipof that mission or the work or
whatever it is is going to bedone.
What we've realized is thatwhen that is our mental model,
we feel obligated, entitled,able even to step in and say
(45:41):
this is what you should do, thisis how it should work, this is
the work that should happen next.
Here's why we do it that way,as opposed to in an alliance.
We don't own the mission or thework.
Rather, we are supporting themission and work, and so the big
change is we're no longerdecision makers, we're no longer
(46:04):
contributing to the decisions.
We're offering insight,opinions, consultation.
We still offer support andresources and capacity building
Absolutely, but it's importantthat we go back to this basic
foundation realization that thework is best done by the people
(46:25):
on the ground and not driven bythose of us who are in other
places trying to do good thingsand sometimes becoming the
problems ourselves because ofthe way we intervene in the work
.
So this transition is one thatwe're working with, with our
collaborative relationships now,and we are working on ourselves
(46:48):
this year in understanding howto move towards this notion of
more empowerment and away frombeing actively involved in
operations, day-to-dayactivities, decision-making that
we've done in the past.
I think it's going to be a realchallenge.
It's going to take some timebecause these are habits we've
built up over the years andwe're going to have to break
(47:10):
some of those habits.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Yeah, rick, I completely agree with that.
We even talked about this inour episode two years ago our
shift to encouraging localownership and decision making,
stepping away from a directmanagement role and positioning
ourselves as funders andadvisors and how we see that
playing out is that funders youknow, we're the ones who raise
(47:31):
the support for the projectsthat they do that align with our
mission and that means that westill have an expectation of
accountability and transparency,but the ownership lies with
them in what they do and whatthey pursue.
And as technical advisors, ourrole is to provide resources
that they need to improve andexpand their work, whether that
means the mission teams that wesend with skills to support them
(47:53):
.
Laura talked earlier aboutdoing research for the coalition
, sharing information from otherorganizations that we think
would benefit them, or justhaving weekly meetings to
discuss problems and new ideas.
Both of these roles don't comewithout challenges.
Our partners sometimes strugglewith the management aspects
because they're so skilled atthe people aspects and for so
(48:16):
long, as Rick said, you know, weheld on to managing those
things, and so we have to helpsupport them in developing their
own management procedures andwith determining what sort of
data they want to gather,thinking about it from a
monitoring and evaluationperspective, so that we can.
It aligns with both thepriorities of us and the
(48:37):
priorities of them, and Rick hitit right on the spot when it
comes to technical advising,it's really easy to try and jump
back in and solve all of theproblems on our own, insisting
on our way of doing things, anda lesson that I think we're
still trying to learn with thatis giving our allies the space
to try to succeed and sometimesto fail.
(49:01):
I want to use a metaphor, but Iwant to make sure it's conveyed
that I'm not trying toinfantilize our allies in Sierra
Leone, but think about a storyof a child riding a bicycle.
You know, you help them, youtrain them and then eventually
they go out on their own, andthen sometimes they fall off the
bicycle and instead of jumpingin and trying to pick them up,
you wait and give them theopportunity to do it themselves.
(49:24):
So our partners needopportunities to experiment,
make mistakes, ultimatelydevelop their own solutions.
Nonprofits in generalautomatically feel like they
don't have the ability to failsometimes, and this causes a
reluctance to innovate, and soby embracing this risk of trying
(49:44):
on their own, supporting theirexperimentation, we can foster a
culture of innovation andlong-term impact.
Over the past couple of years,our goal has been to let them
build it on their own, avoidstepping in, and to hear what
they are asking for us in termsof help and advice, rather than
imposing it ourselves.
Speaker 5 (50:03):
Yeah, I just want to build off of your bike riding
metaphor a little bit because,again, this is another lesson.
I kind of got at DevEx when wewere at DevEx together and we
were talking about somethingthat nonprofits don't often get
the opportunity to do, that forprofits do, and that is the
opportunity to try things andfail.
That if you're going toinnovate, if you're going to
(50:26):
grow, if you're going to moveforward as an organization, you
need the opportunity to trythings and fail and then learn
from that failure and grow fromthat.
And so you know, part ofallyship that's different than
(50:49):
partnership is stepping backenough so that our allies on the
ground that are doing theactual, real work have the space
they need to try some thingsand see what happens and learn
from what happens, totally agree.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I'm going to introduce another perspective.
We operate from three corevalues radical honesty, radical
courage and radicalcollaboration.
Just being radically honest, animbalanced power dynamic in an
allyship cuts two ways.
It creates a dependency thathobbles both sides of the
(51:20):
equation.
Honestly, when I reviewfinancial reports from allied
programs that we are supportingfinancially, all I'm looking for
is transparency and accurateinformation about past
expenditures and outcomes.
I'm just looking for the dataon what happened, but sometimes
those budget to actual reportslook more like a demand for more
(51:44):
funding to me, and I can onlyimagine what would happen if my
donor appeal was you gave usmoney and we used it, and when
it ran out, we adjusted yourcontribution, so now you have to
give us more money.
I don't think that would godown very well.
Sure, it would make the 2025revenue plan pretty simple for
you, nabs.
(52:04):
Seriously, though, the reasonto balance power is that the
best solutions do come fromthose closest to the problems.
You just can't plan, manage oradjust from halfway around the
world to problems you cannotbegin to fully understand, just
like my colleagues have said,and that's what we're trying to
do is just get the solutions inthe hands of the people who can
(52:29):
actually make them consistentand viable.
Speaker 4 (52:33):
Yeah, thank you, melinda.
That's what I said.
I mean, in trying to make allthe decisions on the ground, it
poses a lot of threats really tomove into a more supportive,
capacity building role we are in.
(52:58):
By facilitating clear roles andresponsibilities, we are
creating a space where localinsight from the dynamics, local
ownership and responsibilitycan continue to play a critical
role in informing every phase ofthe mission, from planning to
execution, ensuring true, trulylocalized solutions can address
(53:19):
the unique challenges thosepeople are facing.
They know their situationsbetter than we do.
So involving them in this workand helping them take that
leadership role, we can startseeing significant changes, and
we believe this is very criticalto creating the world we all
want.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Thank you, nabs.
We've been talking for a whilenow, so we're going to take a
little break.
We invite you to return for thesecond half of our episode, the
Optimistic Voices Retrospectiveon Helping Children Worldwide,
and, in the meantime, 30-seconddance party Outro Music.
I'm Dr Melody Curtis, Executive Director of Helping
Children Worldwide, andoccasionally I get to host an
episode of Optimistic Voices,and occasionally I get to host
an episode of Optimistic VoicesMore frequently.
That honor goes to Dr LauraHorvath, Emmanuel Nabeu and
Yasmin Vaughn, all of whom arehere with me today.
Say hi guys, Hi guys, Hello, Hi.
(00:40):
We want to welcome ourlisteners to our 2024
end-of-year review.
First, I want to celebrate withyou that Optimistic Voices is
now in the top 50% of podcastsin terms of leadership, impact
and global reach.
Let's celebrate for a minute.
That was fun.
(01:01):
But also our content is fabulous, If I do say so myself,
radically honest, evenconversations from learned
voices working in the spaces ofchild and family welfare, global
health and ethical missionpractices on topics ranging from
the controversial to theinspirational and even a tiny
(01:23):
bit of the reassuring.
So, regardless of how hard thetopic may be, we close every
episode with a note of optimismfrom these amazing humans who
are changing the world.
Before we begin to discuss thefuture of Helping Children
Worldwide, I'd like to give eachof our hosts the opportunity to
speak of one show this seasonin optimistic voices that they
(01:45):
think our listeners should hearagain, or for the first time, if
they missed it when it wasreleased and one from our prior
seasons.
So please keep it to 30 secondseach if you can.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, I can hop in and go first.
My favorite are actually twoepisodes this year the two
episodes we did on our maternaland child health mission project
, which features the work thatHCW is doing to expand in health
system strengthening throughtraining midwives in Sierra
Leone.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, I have a second here From the recent episodes.
I'm going to take from there mytwo favorites.
One, the experiences of fivecare leavers.
You know, children I grew upwith in the orphanage, but now
they are all adults, so theorphanage is titled From
Orphanage to Adult FoodResilience and Adaptation in
Sierra Leone.
That is very if you missed that, you want to listen to that,
(02:37):
just hearing the stories ofthose care leavers.
And then the second one is theepisode on engaging your church
with angel, this kind ofperspectives from the pastors on
the joy that comes from healthypartnership between NGOs and
churches, ours helping childrenworldwide as they express their
unity in Christ and allow moreopportunity to serve with their
(03:00):
diverse expertise.
And thank you to the guests ofthose episodes Reverend JC, and
as well as Reverend Gina fromThrois, unc and now Reverend JC
from Baddow Street.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Thank you All right, I think it's my turn.
I think this might be cheating,but usually my favorite episode
of Optimistic Voices is the onethat was the most recent, and
that's true in this case, Ithink.
It's called Be the Change and itfeatures two of our friends and
colleagues from the GlobalSouth, george and David, and
right now it's my favoritebecause it's evidence of how
(03:32):
leaders in the Global South arestepping into center stage and
taking the ground, but actuallyentering into a global
conversation about care, reformfor children, and it's just
really cool to see them steppinginto roles that are new to them
and putting us in roles thatare new to us in ways that I'm
(03:55):
sort of excited about.
And if I have to think aboutone in the past, the first one
that comes to mind is itmight've been the first episode.
It was with Dr Andrea Siegeland Dan Hope from Strengthening
Families and Children.
We actually recorded it inSierra Leone and it was kind of
about the role of social workand best practices in social
(04:18):
work in terms of child welfare,family strengthening, child
protection.
So yeah, I guess I bookendedour entire existence on
optimistic voices.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, I am going to cheat Listeners.
I think you should stay tunedto us right now and then share
this episode with a friend andlisten to it a second time with
them, and then you know, maybeyou could also listen to the
December 23rd 2022 episode.
Yes, melody, we can change theworld.
We thought we'd give you aglimpse into the things we talk
(04:53):
about at the internationalheadquarters as we prepare to
take stock of the progress wemade since December 2022.
If you tuned in in 2022 toOptimistic Voices, you would
have learned that HCW leanedinto the empowerment model of
international development, withthe belief that it was better
than a relief model if youwanted to achieve a sustainable
(05:16):
development in the global south.
Hey, laura, it occurs to methat maybe I'm using language
that not all of our listenersrecognize.
Global south, global north Canyou give us a quick definition
of those terms?
Speaker 5 (05:30):
Sure.
So I think in the past, interms of international
development, we've probablytalked about developing nations.
That was probably thevernacular that we used for a
while.
These days we talk about theglobal north and the global
south, and the global southtends to be those on the ground
(05:50):
doing the actual day-to-dayclient-facing.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You know, roll up your sleeves, facing the
challenges, work where those ofus in the global north and HCW's
international staff considersourselves to be primarily a
global north organization tendto be the capacity builders, the
bridge to resources that kindof thing, and the reason it's
north versus south is that, froma geographical standpoint, most
(06:18):
of the impoverished nationsactually exist in the Southern
Hemisphere, although not allimpoverished communities exist
outside of the Global North andnot all of the Global South is
impoverished.
This year we spent a great dealof time in conversation with our
(06:40):
longest term ally, which is theSierra Leone Annual Conference
of the United Methodist Church,and Sierra Leone is very much in
the global south.
We wanted to talk with themabout our 25-year history
together and where we eachimagine we could take our shared
mission forward.
That is obviously aboard-to-board level leadership
(07:04):
conversation.
Consequently, we brought alongour board chair, mr Rick Amann,
to share his perspective withyou, our listeners, on the
outcome of that conversation,and we will get to all of that
later.
But sorry, rick, I did not giveyou a chance to say hi before.
Maybe you could share a littleminute or two about how you got
involved with this motley crewof optimistic world changers.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Sure, I'd be happy to Melody, you know, 2000,.
When two crazy preachers, johnYomassu and Tom Berlin, came up
with this idea of starting anorphanage in Sierra Leone, I was
one of the congregation whosaid we're doing what where?
I was one of the congregationwho said we're doing what where
they made the case for it, andI've been a huge supporter and
(07:50):
donor to the effort ever since.
Quite a few years back now.
I can't remember how many, butI made my first trip to Sierra
Leone and you know fair warningto any of you out there
listening to this Once you'vegone there and seen the need and
seen the work that HelpingChildren Worldwide does, it kind
of submets your commitment tothe sustainment of this
(08:11):
initiative.
And because of that, I think,is when somebody approached me
and asked me to join the board,I said absolutely, be happy to,
and became chair a couple ofyears ago, and I could not be
prouder of this Motley crew thanof any organization I've ever
been associated with.
It's just fantastic peopledoing amazing work and I'm just
(08:35):
proud to be part of it.
So thanks for having me todayand I look forward to the
conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Well, thank you, rick .
We will talk some more aboutyour experience in Sierra Leone
in October of this year and whatexcites you about what we're
doing next and where you see themission in 2025 and the future,
but we'll do that later.
Optimistic Voices is notusually focused on helping
children worldwide's impact fromour other programs.
(09:05):
It is one of the ways we makean impact.
We bring the voices ofimportant thought leaders to our
listeners and since thisepisode is about the other
things we do to make an impactand how that's going for us, I
think we should catch ourlisteners up on what happened
after our 2022 end of yearepisode, our listeners up on
(09:27):
what happened after our 2022 endof year episode.
This is where we shared withour listeners that we were going
to be taking some enormousleaps to get to where we are and
where we wanted to be at thispoint and, honestly, I'm still
catching my breath from some ofthose fantastical gymnastics you
all put me through.
But we got to the other side ofalmost everything we suggested
doing two years ago and so well.
(09:50):
I'm just going to cheat again,because there's a synopsis of
the progress that HelpingChildren Worldwide made put out
every year, and I've linked thewhole thing in our show notes
and on our website.
But this is a listeningaudience, so telling you where
to go find it isn't going to bevery helpful.
I'm going to just pull up page22 of the HCW magazine and
(10:14):
here's a brief list of theimpacts that we made in the
first year of that transition topursue more opportunities to
network, collaborate and empowerlocal organizations to operate,
rather than directly managingthem, even with respect to our
(10:37):
strategies for providingfinancial aid.
Our allied organization, theChild Reintegration Center,
served 1,600 children in 429families an additional 1,409
children because the TCM that's,our transition coaching and
mentoring department extendedtheir work to 80 organizations
(11:01):
and 25 residential careinstitutions in Sierra Leone and
three other countries andmentored eight of them in
transition, conducting 30workshops and monthly televised
events and overseeing thereintegration of 81 children.
Mercy Hospital, another one ofour allied, treated over 13,000
(11:24):
adult and child patients andimproved services that are
available nowhere else in thecountry.
8,000 mothers, infants andchildren received medical
outreach services in 45impoverished communities through
mobile clinics.
200 malnourished babiesbenefited from nutrition
(11:45):
services in rural Sierra Leone.
190 babies were deliveredsafely at Mercy Hospital.
Midwives and maternal healthspecialists are together from
global health memberscollaborated on good birth
practices for tens of thousandsof maternity and obstetric
patients.
(12:05):
Our Together for Global HealthCoalition expanded held an
international conference inWashington DC, provided systems
improvement, support for healthservices for children and
families in 31 countries onthree continents.
Three rural villages partneredwith HCW, mercy and CRC to
create a family resiliency planand network in their community,
(12:29):
impacting 2,650 villagers.
A network of internationalteachers collaborated on a
teacher training curriculum totrain 100 teachers and impact
3,500 students in Sierra Leone.
That was a lot.
Honestly, I don't want you tothink that's the last word these
(12:53):
people will have on the topic.
In fact, laura, let me tap youfirst.
Since you've been with theorganization the longest.
Can you talk about the progressthat's been made since 2022?
The longest?
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Can you talk about the progress that's been made
since 2022?
I love that.
The request is can you tell uswhat we've done since 2022, but
in as few words as possible?
So let me try to tackle that.
This is, honestly, feedback.
I get all the time.
So I think, like a lot ofnonprofits that are in the same
spaces that we occupy all overthe world, we move so fast that
(13:29):
it's really hard to rememberwhere we were, even a month ago,
and for me anyway, but, as youpointed out, I'm with the
organization the longest, somaybe that's an age thing.
Let me try some broad strokes.
So in early 2023, 2023 was ahuge travel year for HCW.
Obviously, we travel often toSierra Leone, but 2023 had us in
(13:52):
a lot of new places.
Traveled right at the beginningof the year to Kenya with our
friends from Church of theResurrection to see some
programs there.
An orphanage there sorry,that's trying to embark on
transition programs there.
An orphanage there sorry,that's trying to embark on
transition.
We visited a Youth Empowerinitiative that has given us
some ideas and informed andimpacted how we're thinking
about development and capacitybuilding with allies on the
(14:15):
ground in the global south, andI think that trip underscored
the direction that we've beenmoving in to focus more on
empowerment local empowerment,both financial and personal, for
families and communities, butI'll talk more about that later.
Let's see after that.
Melody, I think you and I andour film crew of two and our two
(14:36):
stars, george and David,traveled to Mozambique and there
, in spite of breaking my foot,on the first day of a three-week
film capture trip, we spenttime capturing film for the
story we're calling FirmlyRooted, which is our documentary
about how two social workersand local leaders from Sierra
Leone are traveling all over thecontinent of Africa to show how
(15:00):
challenging and critical thework to transition orphanages to
family care models is and howimportant it is to do it, even
though it's super hard.
We watched them and capturedthem on film, talking with
United Methodist bishops fromall over Africa about how family
is the root of every child'sfuture.
And then we watched them andfilmed them, meeting with social
(15:25):
workers and orphanage directorsand others about the importance
of transition, the difficultiesof transition and how it has to
be done well, because kids'lives are at stake.
And seeing all that beingcaptured on film was just a
really amazing experiencepersonally.
Plus, you haven't lived untilyou've watched the filmmakers
(15:47):
put a drone up in the sky and anentire village comes out of run
to see what that thing is andto get on camera.
Just some really fun things andthen in July, we took that same
crew to Sierra Leone to capturethe footage there.
So that was amazing.
We've added a ton ofconferences this year.
(16:08):
We, of course, went back toCAFO Summit, as we have every
year since 2019.
We always attend, we alwayspresent, and this year we
attended a couple newconferences.
Yaz attended a conference inJuly, represented HCW at the
ICAR 8 conference.
This is typically a conferencethat's centered around
(16:28):
international adoption, butthey've kind of widened their
sphere and included us in thoseconversations and the work that
we do, and before that she ranRising Tides.
Yaz, do you want to talk aboutRising Tides for a second?
Sure.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to talk about both of those
conferences.
So our Together for GlobalHealth network meets monthly on
Zoom to discuss specific globalhealth and humanitarian topics.
We usually cover one topicevery meeting and this virtual
format accommodates our diversemembership that's spread across
probably four or five differenttime zones.
But we know that there's agreat value to in-person
(17:07):
interactions, to foster deeperconnections and encourage
collaborative discussions thatare just not possible to have
over a Zoom meeting.
So to facilitate this, weorganized an in-person gathering
to bring together, for globalhealth, members who shared a
similar interest, which enabledthem to be able to share ideas
and insights in this moreimmersive setting have those
(17:28):
hallway conversations, asthey're called and to meet in
smaller groups with people thatshared our interest.
So last March we hosted ourannual Rising Tides Conference.
We held it in DC at the UnitedMethodist Building right next to
the Capitol, and the theme wasTogether for Global Health.
So it was a really powerful twodays.
It allowed global healthprofessionals to connect, to
(17:52):
learn, to inspire change, and itwas a small group there was
about 40 of us but because ofthat it was a more intimate
space and it led this reallypassionate group to be able to
talk more to address globalhealth challenges.
We know that by fosteringcollaboration and knowledge
sharing, this conference reallyempowered people to be
re-energized in the work thatthey do and get some new ideas
(18:14):
on how to impact the lives ofvulnerable communities.
So that's Rising Tides.
This year we also expanded ourconnections in child welfare by
attending the ICAR conference,as Laura was telling you, the
International Conference onAdoption Research.
It was in Minneapolis, minnesota, this year and for a long time
it's been this really vitalplatform for researchers and
(18:36):
even adopted persons to sharetheir knowledge and experience
around adoption.
But in the last few years thisconference has really broadened
its scope to encompass the issueof caring for children
separated from families globally.
So not just the issues ofdomestic or international
adoption, but encompassing allof the issues that lead to
(18:56):
children being separated fromfamilies in the first place and
what the impact of thoseexperiences are.
As you guys probably know,intercountry adoption has really
been in decline over the lastcouple of years and there's this
really large global movementthat we've been a part of to
close orphanages and prioritizefamily reunification or domestic
fostering to children in needand so being on the forefront of
(19:18):
this movement, advocating forthese solutions that keep
children connected to theirfamilies and communities.
We were actually able toco-present a research project
done by Dr Sarah Neville on theimpact of the attachment theory
workshop hosted by the CRC,which helped show people that
are skeptical about the domesticadoption and family
reunification space how it canbe done well and how children
(19:42):
can thrive in those spaces.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
I think entering into these conversations and
entering into a new conversation, into a new space, is super
exciting and seeing how the workthat we support of our allies
in Sierra Leone is nowintersecting and into this
international adoption space isreally interesting to watch.
As I said, we went to CAFO thisyear.
(20:08):
We always go to CAFO, but thisyear we actually brought two
folks with us.
We brought George Kulanda, whois the Senior Case Manager at
the Child Reintegration Centerin Bow, and David Musa, who's
the Head of the TransitionCoaching and Mentoring
Department.
They joined us at CAFO thisyear.
This was their first time inthe United States.
It was their first time at CAFO, which drew its largest crowd
(20:32):
ever in the history of Summit.
Over 2,500 people were inattendance, so you can imagine
how overwhelming that probablywas for the two of them.
But not only did they come andattend CAFO as participants,
they presented with us at CAFO.
George and Dr Sarah, who Yazmentioned and I presented at a
(20:53):
research symposium on the CRC'sFamily Strengthening Workshop
curriculum and the research thatSarah drew out of that, and
that was to an audience of 200people in person but over a
thousand people online.
I think that was George's firsttime presenting at an
international conference andthat was quite an audience that
(21:15):
he was presenting to.
It was a thrill to bepresenting alongside him and
have him share his expertise.
And then later on in the weekwe presented a kind of panel
conversation.
George, david Melody and Ipresented on the nature and
evolution of our workingrelationship between HCW and our
allies in Sierra Leone,specifically the Child
(21:37):
Reintegration Center, and howthat balance of leadership and
power it has been shifting moreand more toward our Global South
colleagues.
And honestly, one of the bestmoments for me at CAFO was we
weren't on the ground 24 hoursbefore people that I've known
for years and met at CAFO foryears were tapping me on the
shoulder and saying to me hey,where are George and David?
(22:00):
We want to talk to them.
So that was just a reallyamazing moment for me.
So another conference that Yazand I attended this year that's
completely new to us and weattended just as participants
was DevEx World, held inWashington DC just about a week
(22:21):
before our recent presidentialelection, for our recent
presidential election, and thisgave us a fascinating, if
somewhat sobering insight intothe worlds of foreign policy and
foreign aid as they stand rightnow, or as they stood.
As I say, one week before theelection and sort of watching
that and seeing how theseforeign policy folks and World
(22:42):
Bank folks are seeing the trendsof foreign aid was pretty
eye-opening.
Yasmin, did you say something?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
We really got to see ourposition within the global
landscape, thinking of the largebilateral organizations like
USAID and the World Bank and theUN all those big players in the
game of internationaldevelopment and then trying to
see where we stood in that space.
And it actually was a reallygood time for us to do that,
(23:14):
because earlier this year wetook some time to step back and
really define our purpose withinthe landscape of international
development and how we're goingto accomplish it.
Helping Children Worldwidestarted its mission because God
calls us to care for vulnerablepeople and children are
especially vulnerable to harm.
Our model for that has evolvedbeyond caring for individual
children to influencing a socialsystem around which a child
(23:37):
lives, and the first layer ofthat is, of course, the family
that the child lives in and thework that the ZRC does to
provide tools that family needsto be strong so they can care
for children.
The next layer is the community, which includes social workers,
pastors and medicalprofessionals in the community
and our work with communityinfrastructure projects and
supporting those kinds ofcommunity resources.
(24:00):
The next layer is institutionsin the community like churches
or other NGOs that can worktogether to take care of
different aspects of a child'slife.
And then we also influenceentire social systems by our
sharing of impact stories andconducting research, like we
were talking about earlier,sharing data across multiple
(24:21):
platforms and engaging withother organizations at the NGO
level, like we're doing at DevEx.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, building on that, yes, and HSDM has
continued to make progress.
And in that instance of thatAfrican proverb that says if you
want to go fast, you go alone,but if you want to go far, you
go together.
So, at Happy Children Worldwide, we are committed to going
forward together.
So, as Trusted Allies, we arecommitted to equipping local
(24:51):
leaders and organizations withthe tools and resources and
authority they need so that theycan continue to thrive
independently.
Our evolving role emphasizesthis collaborative support,
ensuring that autonomy andresilience will remain central
to everything we do.
This is a strategy that alignsour resources and energy where
(25:16):
they are most effective,ensuring that we remain
steadfast in our commitment tocreating that lasting and
meaningful change, to creatingthat lasting and meaningful
change.
So, together, in mission withyou and our mission allies
across the globe, we continue todemonstrate our true
collaborative efforts.
We can have locally drivensolutions to continue to take
(25:36):
the lead to transform outcomesfor communities everywhere.
So, yas, can you elaborate alittle bit on how this strength
of helping children will havefit us into even the global
health space?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, I'd be happy to .
So you know, as NAB said, Ithink a key strength of helping
children worldwide is ourability to collaborate
effectively with otherorganizations and, to put it
simply, I like to call itplaying well with others.
I like to call it playing wellwith others.
We are an organization thatembraces partnerships and we're
not afraid to share knowledgeand resources so that we can
maximize our impact.
(26:11):
We know that collaborating withorganizations that have
specific expertise in otherregions or other areas of focus,
then we can leverage ourcollective strengths and address
complex challenges moreeffectively.
We know that, working together,we can achieve greater results
and make a more significantdifference in the lives of
(26:31):
children worldwide, and a greatexample of this is in our
Together for Global Health work.
So, growing out of our Togetherfor Global Health group, we
decided to embark on thismaternal health mission.
So, for those of you who don'tknow, or those of you who have
not listened to my two favoritepodcast episodes of the year,
our maternal health mission isan ongoing project to tackle
(26:54):
maternal and child mortalitythrough health system
strengthening.
So in January of this year,2024, we trained 98 midwives to
be equipped to perform emergencyand obstetric and newborn
procedures at their localfacilities.
And this project is really anexceptional step in the right
direction for our organization.
First, because, trainingmidwives to effectively handle
(27:16):
emergencies at their facilities,we are not only improving
immediate outcomes for mothersand babies, but also
strengthening the overall healthsystem that supports them, the
most vulnerable group within ahealthcare system.
This approach also fosterssustainable healthcare solutions
and empowers local healthcareproviders beyond the walls of
Mercy Hospital, although Mercywas one of our participants.
(27:40):
But I think one of the mostremarkable parts of this is that
the success of this project isa testament to the impact of
collaborative endeavors.
Although we were kind of one ofthe rallying points of this,
there were at least sixorganizations three kind of in
our core group and thenexpanding out to six that
collaborated to do this, andeach of those six organizations
(28:01):
reached out to others to getsupplies and equipment, so about
19 organizations all togethercame together to make this
possible.
None of the singleorganizations, ourselves
included, would have been ableto accomplish this because not
everyone had the skills, thefunding, the capacity to achieve
it at the scale of 100 midwiveslike we did.
(28:21):
But we pooled our resources,our expertise, we pooled our
connections and we were able toachieve more than we ever would
have been able to do on our own.
We learned a lot from thisproject, though, about how to do
this well, and are again tryingto share that knowledge with
others, so we've been doing somecommunication with other
networks that do work withmidwives, like the Good Birth
(28:43):
Network, midwives at the Edges,and even did a presentation for
the Virtual International Day ofthe Midwife, so we can even
share our collaborative efforts.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Yeah, I think our ability as an organization to
play well with others is a corestrength, but I honestly think
it's that without it, I'm notsure how any of this gets done.
So my word for this year wasuncharted, and I think it became
HCW's word as well, and havinga year that feels uncharted,
(29:16):
where everything seems uncharted, has been extraordinarily good
and extraordinarily challengingin a lot of ways, in a lot of
difficult ways.
We've been looking, as I'vebeen thinking, about Rising
Tides 2025, I've been thinkingabout futures planning and some
of the things that we learned atDevEx, and one of the things we
know about the future is thatit's unknown, but we act as if
(29:40):
we know where we're headedanyway.
We keep doing the things eventhough we don't really know what
the future has in store for us,and the truth is we do know a
little bit about the future.
But one of the lessons that Icame away from DevX with is that
it's important to forecast, butit's easier to forecast if
you're collaborating with others.
That collaboration helps withforecasting and forecasting
(30:03):
helps with collaboration, and soI still think that that
collaboration helps withforecasting and forecasting
helps with collaboration, and soI still think that that
collaboration and our ethicaround.
That is really, reallyimportant, and our uncharted
territory this year has led usto really continue more and more
to let go of the lead and stepinto much more supporting roles
(30:24):
that let our allies in the Southdo some of the forecasting and
do some of the navigating intothe future, getting ourselves
out of the driver's seat.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah, absolutely, laura.
That made me think of all ofour talk about collaboration and
working together.
Makes me think of the James 127study that was published this
year.
So James 127 is the verse aboutwidows and orphans, and as a
part of the research that we didon God's call to care for
widows and orphans, we werelooking at some of the verses in
(30:59):
the Old Testament, and in OldTestament law it specified that
the Israelites were supposed toharvest their fields one time
and whatever was left over theywere supposed to leave for
widows and orphans andforeigners to be able to harvest
to feed themselves.
So God specified that theIsraelites had this obligation
to care for these people, buthis call was not for them to
(31:20):
harvest all the grain and thengive some to the widows.
His command was for them to beable to collaborate together on
the same project of harvestingthe wheat, and so it's striking
this balance between support anddignifying independence.
So the Israelites had anobligation to leave food in the
fields and the widows also hadto step up and do their part and
(31:41):
take care of themselves.
And this is really whatdignifying partnerships look
like with people who come fromdifferent economic, social and
cultural backgrounds.
It's not a handout, it's notdoing everything for them, but
making it possible fororganizations to do their best
and bring their skills and worktogether to take care of our
(32:02):
common issues.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Thank you, yas.
I always like the way that youbring us back to our root, our
own perspective of scripture andChristian perspective on why we
do this work.
But I want to say hey, laura, Ihave been sitting on my
(32:24):
microphone not to make any, notmake any remarks because I got
pretty excited as you weretalking about George and David
from the CRC presenting for thefirst time in the global stage.
At that exact moment itoccurred to me that this
experience is what reallypropelled me forward in my
(32:45):
commitment to balance powerbetween the global South and the
global North.
I saw it first at the GBGMconference with all of the
African bishops there inMozambique, and what an impact
it had for them to be hearingfrom Africans two Africans
(33:06):
talking about this work.
And then at the ChristianAlliance for Orphans, I saw that
same phenomenon repeated.
I think it's what rises to thetop for me when I think about
our mission anchors.
And then the work we're doinglocally in the Strong Family for
Every Child initiative is aclose second which that James
(33:26):
127 study.
It comes out of that work.
We have five mission anchorsbeing financially healthy,
providing global leadership,linking resources to needs,
focusing on family and communityand equipping and empowering
local ownership.
Hey, rick, I hate to put you onthe spot since you're
(33:51):
responsible for my performancereviews, but from a board
perspective, what work do yousee will be most important?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, that's a great question, Melody, and I
appreciate you putting that onthe table because, excuse me, I
do think this coming year isgoing to be a challenge for HCW
in new ways.
We have even gone so far in ourrelationships with many of our
colleagues in changing ourterminology Instead of talking
(34:24):
about partnerships, we now talkabout alliances.
And there's a reason for that,and the reason is that we
realize that it's not a goodpolicy for us to be in the
middle of day-to-day operationsin some place that's 6,000 miles
away and how many time zonesand how many time zones.
(34:54):
And unfortunately, when we findourselves in that position, we
tend to impose a particularlyWestern view of how things could
and should be done, andoftentimes that comes across as
the right way to do somethingno-transcript.
Our role is going to be one ofsupporting, consulting, offering
(35:17):
expertise, offering insight,and that's going to require an
adjustment on our part, as wellas an adjustment on the part of
our alliances, who have beenused to us working differently.
We've got some significant workto do in how we back out of
that decision process andallowing the people who are on
(35:39):
the job, on the ground, doingthe work, to make the decisions,
because they're the ones whomost best know what needs to be
done, not us on the other sideof the ocean here.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
So for me, 2025 is going to be a year of
celebration the 25 years of HCWin existence and transformation,
both in how we work with ouralliances and our collaborative
partners that we've been talkingin here.
Rick, I could not agree withyou more.
I think you know these anchorshave been our guiding anchors
for a while now, but I thinkthis year for me, saw two of
those anchors kind of cometogether.
I'm going to highlight the oneon global leadership and the one
on equipping and empoweringglobal leaders to shift the
(36:31):
balance of power and create amore sustainable impact, and
just to kind of go back toSummit again as an example of
where I saw that play out in away that I think was so exciting
for me.
Every time I've been at Summitand in some of these other
international conference spaces,there's usually a room full of
(36:51):
people from the Global North wholook a lot like me, who talk
about how important it is for usto get the lead, the voices of
leaders from the Global South,into these conversations, into
these discussions.
We need to have theirperspective and we just frankly,
haven't done a great job ofdoing that.
We just haven't.
(37:11):
And so having these two CRCstaff travel to summit not just
as attendees but as presentersand have their voices mic'd and
projected out into a room fullof people.
I think is just the verybeginning of where not just HCW
should be heading, but where allof NGOs like ours should be
(37:33):
heading.
One of my favorite summitmoments was David Moussa went
off to attend a session on hisown.
I'm not sure if George wentwith him or not, but he went to
attend a session and when hecame back I said to him well,
how was it?
You know, what did you think?
And he thought for a reallylong time which is something he
does and then he said thesepeople have a lot to learn from
(37:55):
us and he's right those of usthat are experts here in the
global North.
You get to go to summit, youget to go to rising tides and I
car CCI, h um, dev X, world Um.
We've even spoken at UN uhconvention meetings and things
like that.
Convention meetings and thingslike that.
(38:20):
We have a lot to learn from ourcolleagues in the global South.
A lot more listening to do anda lot less talking to do.
Two of the coolest things that Iget to do in my role in global
advocacy for HCW is that I sortof represent two secretariat
positions that HTW has taken onas an organization and those
(38:40):
secretariat positions allow usto be of service, but not
necessarily in leadership, whichhas been an interesting and
kind of rewarding evolution forme from the days when we were
here and when we here in the USwere making decisions down to
the smallest detail about aprogram as you're saying, rick
that was 6,000 miles away onanother continent.
(39:02):
Two of my favorite are HCW sitsas a secretariat for the Sierra
Leone Coalition for Family Careand it's one of my favorite
roles, not just because all I dois run the Zoom meeting and
take notes and find resourcesthe coalition asks me to go out
and find but I get to witness asfour leading child welfare
(39:23):
organizations in Sierra Leonethat include the CRC engage
their government and theirministries to share knowledge
and best practices and find waysto work together to connect
their work to their goals fornational and regional care
reform for children.
Children who have livedexperience of residential care
(39:43):
at three of these organizations,including the CRC, were able
this year to participate in thedevelopment of a policy document
for the United Nations throughan effort of the UN Human Rights
Council by participating in aUN consultation.
So a child of the CRC who haslived experience of residential
care sat in a room on a Zoomwith the support of a couple of
(40:06):
case managers and offered hisinsight into what he believes
children like him have a rightto in terms of growing up in a
family.
That is amazing and that thatshould be happening.
The other secretariat role I getto do is I serve as the
secretariat for the UnitedMethodist Church's education and
advocacy campaign called AStrong Family for Every Child.
(40:28):
A Strong Family offers freeresources that help churches in
the UMC and, frankly, others aswell to learn more about how
they can help strengthenfamilies in their congregations,
communities, nations and theworld.
And I just get to be the girlin the wings.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Yeah, one of our strategic anchors focuses on
empowering and equipping localownerships.
We said right there, and we aremaking significant progress in
this area, as Rick mentioned andLaura is talking about this and
Melody is talking we are alltalking about this same area
here.
So, as the mission of helpingchildren worldwide continues to
evolve, so also do ourorganizational practices,
because this is how it works,right, what we say, how they
(41:08):
feel about what we say and whatthey think about it, what we do.
So it's very, very criticalwhen it comes to changing our
missions, very critical when itcomes to changing our missions.
We have taken many full stepsto strengthen transformative
alliances with our globalsub-allies, including the Sierra
Leone United Methodist Churchand the program leaders of the
CLC and Massive Hospital.
By actively transformingdecision-making and
responsibility to local leadersthose closer to the problem we
(41:31):
are laying the foundation forour global sub-allies to become
empowered hosts of an expandingnetwork of mission partners.
This approach ensuressustainable impact and
reinforces our shared mission tocreate lasting change.
It is an approach that trulyhonors local insight and
experience, allowing our alliesto be more fully driven into
this mission that we do together.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yeah, nabs, I completely agree.
A great example of this is howMercy Hospital is growing.
So Mercy is really reaching outand trying new things and
managing them all on their own.
Last year they pursued somegrants to get a new x-ray
machine and lab equipment sothat they can treat more
patients and do moresophisticated diagnostics and
with that for the non-destitutepatients, be able to raise more
(42:16):
income to support thesustainability of the hospital.
And for the past few years wehave been sending mission teams
to Sierra Leone to providetechnical advice on chronic and
non-communicable diseases likediabetes and hypertension, and
through that support MercyHospital has gotten training on
how to recognize and providepatient education for these
(42:38):
conditions.
And they're beginning to see anincreasingly larger number of
cases of patients with diabetesand hypertension.
And as they begin to see moreof these patients coming in,
they realize that even more needfor this education for
healthcare workers to diagnoseand treat these conditions and
to continue to screen in thecommunity as they're a rising
(42:58):
prevalence.
So they've continued to ask usto send mission teams for that
training and support.
Now, chronic disease is not afocus of helping children
worldwide.
Our focus has always been onmaternal and child health, but
that focus also includes healthsystem strengthening, and in
supporting Mercy Hospitals inthis project that they want to
pursue, we're able to strengthenthe overall health system,
(43:22):
providing advice and supportthat they need.
So in this diabetes projectthey've been working on, we've
helped them grow into this ideathat aligns with their interests
.
So they've sought out otherorganizations to partner with,
including Insulin for Life, andwe were able to help them with
some of the application and justsome of the stuff involving
(43:44):
getting the resources andproviding expertise on how to do
this.
But the ownership andmanagement of this project has
remained firmly in their hands,and so we've shifted from
soliciting all the support onour own and saying, don't you
think it's a good idea to dothis, to a more supportive and
empowering role, strengtheningour relationship with our allies
(44:04):
, allowing them to grow on theirown and contributing to the
long term sustainability of thework.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, thank you, yaz.
I too am really excited to seehow Mercy is stepping into
ownership of its programs andour role in supporting that.
Maybe, rick, maybe you'd liketo weigh in on the reasons we're
changing our description of ourrelationship from partnership
(44:34):
to alliance and what that changemeans to you.
I know we're still stumblingover the change in language, but
I'm wondering if you canexplain to our audience why we
think this is an essentiallanguage change we need to make?
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Yeah, and I agree with you, melody.
I think this is incrediblyimportant for us, but also for
any organizations who do thiskind of work internationally or
in any collaborativerelationship, relationship as
(45:19):
partnerships.
We realize that our mentalmodel for that word includes
some degree of ownership, whichI think all of us would agree.
When we talk about we areentering into a partnership, we
feel some part of that ownershipof that mission or the work or
whatever it is is going to bedone.
What we've realized is thatwhen that is our mental model,
we feel obligated, entitled,able even to step in and say
(45:41):
this is what you should do, thisis how it should work, this is
the work that should happen next.
Here's why we do it that way,as opposed to in an alliance.
We don't own the mission or thework.
Rather, we are supporting themission and work, and so the big
change is we're no longerdecision makers, we're no longer
(46:04):
contributing to the decisions.
We're offering insight,opinions, consultation.
We still offer support andresources and capacity building
Absolutely, but it's importantthat we go back to this basic
foundation realization that thework is best done by the people
(46:25):
on the ground and not driven bythose of us who are in other
places trying to do good thingsand sometimes becoming the
problems ourselves because ofthe way we intervene in the work
.
So this transition is one thatwe're working with, with our
collaborative relationships now,and we are working on ourselves
(46:48):
this year in understanding howto move towards this notion of
more empowerment and away frombeing actively involved in
operations, day-to-dayactivities, decision-making that
we've done in the past.
I think it's going to be a realchallenge.
It's going to take some timebecause these are habits we've
built up over the years andwe're going to have to break
(47:10):
some of those habits.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Yeah, rick, I completely agree with that.
We even talked about this inour episode two years ago our
shift to encouraging localownership and decision making,
stepping away from a directmanagement role and positioning
ourselves as funders andadvisors and how we see that
playing out is that funders youknow, we're the ones who raise
(47:31):
the support for the projectsthat they do that align with our
mission and that means that westill have an expectation of
accountability and transparency,but the ownership lies with
them in what they do and whatthey pursue.
And as technical advisors, ourrole is to provide resources
that they need to improve andexpand their work, whether that
means the mission teams that wesend with skills to support them
(47:53):
.
Laura talked earlier aboutdoing research for the coalition
, sharing information from otherorganizations that we think
would benefit them, or justhaving weekly meetings to
discuss problems and new ideas.
Both of these roles don't comewithout challenges.
Our partners sometimes strugglewith the management aspects
because they're so skilled atthe people aspects and for so
(48:16):
long, as Rick said, you know, weheld on to managing those
things, and so we have to helpsupport them in developing their
own management procedures andwith determining what sort of
data they want to gather,thinking about it from a
monitoring and evaluationperspective, so that we can.
It aligns with both thepriorities of us and the
(48:37):
priorities of them, and Rick hitit right on the spot when it
comes to technical advising,it's really easy to try and jump
back in and solve all of theproblems on our own, insisting
on our way of doing things, anda lesson that I think we're
still trying to learn with thatis giving our allies the space
to try to succeed and sometimesto fail.
(49:01):
I want to use a metaphor, but Iwant to make sure it's conveyed
that I'm not trying toinfantilize our allies in Sierra
Leone, but think about a storyof a child riding a bicycle.
You know, you help them, youtrain them and then eventually
they go out on their own, andthen sometimes they fall off the
bicycle and instead of jumpingin and trying to pick them up,
you wait and give them theopportunity to do it themselves.
(49:24):
So our partners needopportunities to experiment,
make mistakes, ultimatelydevelop their own solutions.
Nonprofits in generalautomatically feel like they
don't have the ability to failsometimes, and this causes a
reluctance to innovate, and soby embracing this risk of trying
(49:44):
on their own, supporting theirexperimentation, we can foster a
culture of innovation andlong-term impact.
Over the past couple of years,our goal has been to let them
build it on their own, avoidstepping in, and to hear what
they are asking for us in termsof help and advice, rather than
imposing it ourselves.
Speaker 5 (50:03):
Yeah, I just want to build off of your bike riding
metaphor a little bit because,again, this is another lesson.
I kind of got at DevEx when wewere at DevEx together and we
were talking about somethingthat nonprofits don't often get
the opportunity to do, that forprofits do, and that is the
opportunity to try things andfail.
That if you're going toinnovate, if you're going to
(50:26):
grow, if you're going to moveforward as an organization, you
need the opportunity to trythings and fail and then learn
from that failure and grow fromthat.
And so you know, part ofallyship that's different than
(50:49):
partnership is stepping backenough so that our allies on the
ground that are doing theactual, real work have the space
they need to try some thingsand see what happens and learn
from what happens, totally agree.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I'm going to introduce another perspective.
We operate from three corevalues radical honesty, radical
courage and radicalcollaboration.
Just being radically honest, animbalanced power dynamic in an
allyship cuts two ways.
It creates a dependency thathobbles both sides of the
(51:20):
equation.
Honestly, when I reviewfinancial reports from allied
programs that we are supportingfinancially, all I'm looking for
is transparency and accurateinformation about past
expenditures and outcomes.
I'm just looking for the dataon what happened, but sometimes
those budget to actual reportslook more like a demand for more
(51:44):
funding to me, and I can onlyimagine what would happen if my
donor appeal was you gave usmoney and we used it, and when
it ran out, we adjusted yourcontribution, so now you have to
give us more money.
I don't think that would godown very well.
Sure, it would make the 2025revenue plan pretty simple for
you, nabs.
(52:04):
Seriously, though, the reasonto balance power is that the
best solutions do come fromthose closest to the problems.
You just can't plan, manage oradjust from halfway around the
world to problems you cannotbegin to fully understand, just
like my colleagues have said,and that's what we're trying to
do is just get the solutions inthe hands of the people who can
(52:29):
actually make them consistentand viable.
Speaker 4 (52:33):
Yeah, thank you, melinda.
That's what I said.
I mean, in trying to make allthe decisions on the ground, it
poses a lot of threats really tomove into a more supportive,
capacity building role we are in.
(52:58):
By facilitating clear roles andresponsibilities, we are
creating a space where localinsight from the dynamics, local
ownership and responsibilitycan continue to play a critical
role in informing every phase ofthe mission, from planning to
execution, ensuring true, trulylocalized solutions can address
(53:19):
the unique challenges thosepeople are facing.
They know their situationsbetter than we do.
So involving them in this workand helping them take that
leadership role, we can startseeing significant changes, and
we believe this is very criticalto creating the world we all
want.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Thank you, nabs.
We've been talking for a whilenow, so we're going to take a
little break.
We invite you to return for thesecond half of our episode, the
Optimistic Voices Retrospectiveon Helping Children Worldwide,
and, in the meantime, 30-seconddance party Outro Music.
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