Obama on the Wall

I hung a picture of president Obama on my wall yesterday. It’s a black and white close up of his face and, as black and white photography always is, it is striking and revealing. The picture came from a story in the December 7, 2009 issue of The New Yorker called “Portraits of Power” (http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2009/12/07/091207_audioslideshow_platon).

One of the photographers for the magazine set up a photo booth at the recent UN General Assembly and tried to catch as many world leaders’ photos as possible. The result is several pages of simple, gripping photos of some of the worlds most revered and notorious leaders.

So why did I pick Obama to put on the wall? Sure, he’s my president, sure it was practically a national (international?) holiday when he was elected, sure he’s wildly popular around the world. But I didn’t put his picture up for those reasons. I put Obama on the wall because I needed someone to remind me that change requires courage and courage demands something more of yourself than you might freely give.

That probably sounds basic enough; it’s something we perhaps even all think is true, right, obvious. But it hass become very clear to me the last several days, if you’ll forgive the cliché, that there is a difference between knowing what is right and doing what is right. We all often know what is right; resting in the safety of our familiar world it is relatively easy to understand the best course of action, having to face opposition and the very real consequences of pursing that course of action is another thing entirely.

In the face of a situation that has a very clear right and wrong, the desire to simply acquiesce to the situation and not make waves can be intense. Wouldn’t it just be easier to not make a big deal out of things, to just deal with it? But isn’t that tantamount to condoning a situation you find unacceptable? After all, what good is all our moral outrage over the injustices in the world if we can’t even stand up to them when they are staring us in the face?

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the small personal struggles we all face everyday over right and wrong, just and unjust matter immensely. And in each one of them we all have the option to walk away, to dodge the situation, to not deal with it and to move on. And honestly, no one would blame you if you did. But maybe there’s something larger at stake here. Maybe what is important about fighting injustice is knowing you’ve given it your all and realizing it will require more of you than you’d like to give –and then finding the strength to give that.

Obama is not the savior of America and the world that we all sometimes like to think he is. He’s a human, like all of us. But his picture on my wall reminds me that every day mere human being stand up to injustices in this world. They are courageous. They are strong. They give more than they can. They make change happen.

GHC in the news!

Check out this interview with Dave Ryan, Executive Director of the Global Health Corps! Apparently we're kind of a big deal...:)

For the whole article visit: http://cgiu.clintonglobalinitiative.org/Page.aspx?pid=3814.

Every year, over one million people fall into poverty due to the catastrophic costs of health care. Meanwhile, both high- and low-income countries are seeing health care disparities grow. Dave Ryan, a Stanford University graduate and former CEO of FACEAIDS, proposed a commitment at the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative University Annual Meeting that will address both of these pressing issues.

He created Global Health Corps (GHC), an organization that allows recent college graduates from the U.S. and abroad to serve in paid, year-long fellowships to improve health care for poor and marginalized communities. This year, GHC placed 22 fellows in Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The teams of fellows will work with existing health organizations to address health inequity problems at the local level.

CGI U recently had the opportunity to interview Ryan to learn more about his commitment.

Q: Can you describe how the fellowship program works?

RYAN: GHC will recruit skilled cross-cultural fellowship teams, comprised of one American and one in-country fellow. We will train the fellows in language, culture, and basic epidemiology to enhance their technical skills, and then place teams with organizations to work for one year.

The year-long commitment allows organizations to offer fellows significant roles and responsibilities within their programs. Fellows must commit enough time to understand the organizations and environments where they are working, and then to achieve lasting and substantial outcomes. And it helps ensure that the fellowship experience is inspiring for the fellows, as they will see first-hand the impact they can make combating difficult challenges.

Furthermore, all fellows work within existing teams, on specific assignments which the fellows are specifically chosen to do. By following this process, Global Health Corps fellows are well-situated to make an effective contribution during their terms, and as a result to leave their terms inspired to do more.

Q. What need are these fellows filling in the field of international health?

RYAN: There is a need for skilled professionals who can provide the services necessary to build and implement effective health systems. The young leaders who participate in Global Health Corps have experience in a range of fields, including technology, supply chain management, monitoring and evaluation, and program consulting. We place them in organizations where they can implement innovative strategies to build effective health systems. We also nurture them so they can explore careers in the health care field that fit their skills.

And, by building cross-cultural fellowship teams, Global Health Corps is developing local skills and capacity. The in-country fellows can continue serving their communities throughout their lives.

Q: What happens once the fellows leave their site?

A: Once fellows finish their year-long placements, they re-convene for a post-field reflection, in which the community reports on lessons learned and perceived successes and failures. The fellows also meet with potential future employers and leaders in the health field. Then, fellows will enter the Global Health Corps Alumni network, and we will work to support all alumni in their efforts to continue contributing to global health throughout their careers.

The true power of the Global Health Corps will lie in this alumni network. As the Global Health Corps grows and its alumni network expands, it will compose a pipeline of young leaders for the global health equity movement, and play a central role in sustaining and consistently reinvigorating this movement for change.

In 10 and 20 years, in addition to seeing thousands of young people working in the Corps each year, we will see leaders throughout the world in the business, public service, and health communities who can draw upon their experience in the Global Health Corps to help push for better and more equitable health outcomes throughout the world.

Q: Do you foresee any challenges or difficulties?

A: We know the demand is incredibly strong among young people, in the United States and around the world, for opportunities to build careers fighting for global health equity. At the same time, we know that the demand is strong from organizations for outstanding young leaders to support their operations. If we can overcome the challenge of raising the necessary funds to support an increasing number of fellowships, we believe we can play a major role in helping to build this movement.

Also to come, GHC is being featured in the Feb 1 issue of Glamour. Why Glamour? Check out the slideshow...I think we're pretty glamorous.

Heart to Haiti

By now probably everyone has heard about and seen the devastation caused by the recent earthquake in Haiti. The images of bodies trapped in rubble, people bloodied and dazed walking down the street and the unbelievable destruction in this already fragile nation are everywhere. It’s an absolutely disastrous and gut-wrenching situation.

Thankfully, nearly everyone seems ready to respond and help. The UN, US government and countless NGOs are mobilizing people and resources to help; friends are donating their Facebook status and texting specific numbers to contribute to relief efforts; no doubt generous people everywhere are donating money, water, medicine and other supplies.

The outpouring of assistance and aid is encouraging, but it’s also daunting. Huge relief operations, like the one after the tsunami in 2004, have a tendency to grab the world’s attention, create a huge influx of money and supplies, but also random crap that is not actually needed (like neckties for fisherman who lost their homes in the tsunami. How many fishermen do you know that wear a tie to work?).

Living in Tanzania, I’ve had a chance to see first hand the positive and negative sides of foreign aid. Clearly money (lots of money) is needed to address poverty and injustice. But you also see how assistance creates entire initiatives that are completely determined by (and thus change with) the whims of donors and how aid dependency begins to develop.

Like many other developing nations, Haiti is a small country that’s struggled with big problems for nearly all of its existence. From its proud beginnings as the only nation to be founded by a successful slave revolt, its fallen into poverty and distress at the hands of disastrous dictators and its more powerful neighbors (read: the US). Today Haiti is the poorest country in the western Hemisphere and many of the few resources it had are now probably buried under a pile of concrete and rebar.

I am certainly not trying to suggest that mobilizing every available resource to respond to this tragedy is anything but the only appropriate response right now, but I do think the current situation in Haiti is a good opportunity to look at some of the challenges that the influx of aid from huge disasters creates. Right now every person and organization wants to help Haiti, and that’s wonderful, but how can all of that money and energy and attention be turned into something more than just a stop-gap measure for the current disaster?

Maybe it’s an overly optimistic perspective, but I think that perhaps the only silver-lining to this horrible disaster is that it might provide an opportunity for a sustained and long-term investment in Haiti. If the country’s poor healthcare, road or utilities infrastructures have been decimated, then now is an opportunity to rebuild them, or build them where they never existed in the first place.

I’ve never been to Haiti, but I’ve worked with an organization called Partners In Health that has worked there for years providing free healthcare and helping people transition out of poverty. From my time at PIH I learned nothing changes without a long-term investment, of not just your money, but yourself.

Haiti needs help right now; they need medical personnel, water, food and shelter. But after the last of the wreckage from the earthquake is cleared away and all of the foreign workers have gone home, Haiti will still need help. All of the incredible resources that are being flooding into Haiti right now need to be used to first address the current disaster, but there is also a chance to translate this influx of assistance into a long-term investment in Haiti. To make that happen will take coordination, and above all it will take commitment.

As much as the situation in Haiti represents an incredibly daunting challenge, it also represents an opportunity…to learn from past mistakes; to get it right; to actually help.

My heart goes out to the people of Haiti…in sorrow for their losses; in hope for their future. If you are interested in learning more about relief efforts in Haiti or donating to the cause, please visit www.pih.org.

Mini Has Arrived

On December 30th, 2009 around 8am Liam Keane Halliwell made his entrance into the world. Mini is here.

Throughout Brooke's pregnancy, she and I would jokingly refer to the baby as "Mini", since they were leaving the sex of the baby a surprise. Although Mini was not officially born yet, he/she still had a lot of personality...Brooke would text me to say Mini was kicking her liver; I'd text back to say Mini wanted a burrito for lunch.

So now we finally get to meet the real Mini! And it turns out Mini is an adorable 8 lb. 3 oz little boy with chubby cheeks and some fuzzy blonde hair. Both Mom and baby are doing great.

Meet my new nephew!

New Year: New Layout

In honor of the arrival of 2010 I thought I'd try a new blog template...hope you like it!