On Tuesday, January 12, 2010 a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake wholoped Haiti, just of its Port-au-Prince capital. An estimated 3 million people were affected by the quake, and the Haitian government reported that an estimated 316,000 people died, 300,000 were injured, and more than 1 million were suddenly homeless. Immediately, Anne Hastings (pictured on right, with Leigh Carter), CEO of Haiti’s Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor, Fonkoze, leapt into action.
As the largest microfinance institution in the country, serving more than 45,000 women borrowers — most of whom live and work in the countryside of Haiti — its network of 43 branches covers every region of the country.
“I realized the day after the earthquake the true impact were were making because almost all of the Fonkoze Central Office employees, despite having lost loved ones and their homes, showed up for work,” Hastings recalls. “They understood that if they did not, people all over the country would suffer. It was breathtaking.”
The making of an amazing woman
Back in 1996, Hastings was the co-owner, senior partner and managing director of Scanlon & Hastings, a management consulting company in Washington, D.C. For 15 years, she provided strategic management services to executives and helped new organizations achieve steady growth.
With a PhD from the University of Virginia, and an Honorary Doctorate in Business Leadership from Duquesne University, she completed research fellowships at the Brookings Institute and the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, both in Washington, D.C.
But at 40something, the mom and successful entrepreneur felt something was missing in her life.
So when her son was about to graduate from college, she signed up to join the Peace Corps. Upon meeting with the organization’s director of International Operations, though, her plans changed slightly.
“He asked me if I’d be interested in doing a tour in Haiti, and I said sure,” Hastings recalls, noting the Peace Corps was not working in Haiti at the time, but the director had another idea in mind. “He told me about a friend of his who was a priest in Haiti doing amazing work, and who needed someone with my skills.”
More than a mission
It didn’t take long for Hastings to connect with Fr. Joseph Philippe, a grassroots leader in Haiti. Within three days of receiving her impressive resume, Philippe asked her to be the director of a new bank called Fonkoze that he was setting up for the poor.
“We met, and in the first 15 minutes of our conversation, I knew that he had more vision than some of the top executives I had worked with in D.C.,” Hastings notes.
That day, when she committed to one year as a volunteer, she couldn’t have known that she had found her life’s work, which she would devote herself to for the next 15 years.
Empowering women
When Hastings arrived in Haiti, Fonkoze had one office, five unpaid employees, and 50 outstanding micro-loans.
Today, Fonkoze is Haiti’s largest micro-finance institution dedicated to the alleviation of poverty. It has 43 branches throughout rural Haiti, 840 employees, 45,000 outstanding micro-loans, 2,000 client centers, and more than 200,000 clients with savings accounts.
More than 95 percent of Fonkoze’s clients are women, and the organization is based on the understanding, “you can’t just hand a woman a loan and walk away.”
So Fonkoze has developed a suite of services that include:
Client education: literacy, business skills, and health training
Micro-insurance
Social Impact Monitoring
Full-service banking and distribution of remittances from abroad
Programs for ultra-poor women to prepare them for entrepreneurship
Health programs, including the fight against malnutrition and cholera
The institution also has initiatives such as Kore Fanmi Fonkoze, a program that was put into play in 2010. And, through Fonkoze’s Stairway Out of Poverty, the organization helps women who are catastrophically poor, those who are operating successful businesses in rural markets, and women ready to enter the formal sector and start a small- to medium-sized business.
Keep moving forward
While her journey hasn’t been easy, it has been incredibly rewarding, says Hastings, who in 2009 was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze (Fonkoze Financial Services).
Over the yeas, she has won dozens of awards for her work, including the 2005 Pioneer in Microfinance Award of the Grameen Foundation USA. In 2008, she was honored at the United Nations with an award from Women Together because of her commitment to the elimination of extreme poverty and hunger. Just last year she was honored, along with Fr. Philippe, as a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year for Latin America.
But there are some things for which one cannot prepare when working in a country like Haiti, Hastings admits. So in addition to becoming fluent in Haitian Creole and the Haitian culture, she continues to learn how to effectively help the people she serves.
Her goals for 2011 and beyond are to make Fonkoze a lasting institution that will endure long after she is gone. And, she hopes that it will continue to accompany and empower women as they struggle to bring their families out of poverty and will contribute to a stronger, more stable economy in Haiti.
Daily, she teaches others to become leaders by following these four principles:
1. Set your sights on what today looks to be the impossible.
2. Plan for continual crises beyond your control in the environment in which you are operating. View them as occasions for discovering new opportunities.
3. The best way to meet your financial goals is to do a better job, everyday, of providing the right mix of services to your clients. Their success automatically leads to your success.
4. Never underestimate the potential of an empowered woman.
This month we shine the spotlight on Kati Marton, an award-winning former NPR and ABC News correspondent, who is the author of several books, including her latest, “Enemies of the People,” and a New York Times bestseller, “Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History,” as well as “Wallenberg,” “The Polk Conspiracy,” “A Death in Jerusalem,” and a novel, “An American Woman.”
Read more about her work below.
But first, it is with sadness that we report the passing of her husband, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who died from complications of an aortic dissection on December 13. The 69-year-old diplomat helped bring peace to the Balkans as the chief architect of the Dayton accords. He was President Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and upon his death Obama called Holbrooke “a truly unique figure who will be remembered for his tireless diplomacy, love of country, and pursuit of peace.”
Theirs was a love story. A third marriage for both (Marton, 54, was previously married to ABC newscaster Peter Jennings, with whom she had two children), she once said to the press that she “didn’t realize such happiness was possible at our ripe age.”
Later, New York Magazine detailed the evening when Holbrooke presented Marton with a scribbled document after they began seeing each other seriously for several months.
Marton said: “Richard gave me a list of every time he’d seen me in nine years. He has a phenomenal memory. It included things like elevator sightings, large parties, small parties. I was so overwhelmed. Even if I wasn’t already half in love with him, that would have pushed me over, because of that sustained devotion and the fact that he never let on.”
Our thoughts are with her.
About “Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America”
We first met Marton in the fall of 2009 when our January Book Column profilees, Perry Pigeon Hooks and Loretta Yenson of Hooks Book Events, had brought the well-known Marton to DC to speak at several venues.
Audiences who met the elegant writer were intrigued by her true-life thriller, which tells the story of her parents, Hungarian journalists Ilona and Endre Marton — two journalists who during the 1950s wrote hundreds of articles for the U.S.-based Associated Press and United Press International about what was going on behind the Iron Curtain.
For decades, the details of their lives were buried in the files of the Hungarian Secret Police (known as the AVO). Marton worked tirelessly to uncover the fascinating and sometimes excruciating details of the controversial careers of her now-deceased parents, who not only shaped her career and life — they helped put an end to the Cold War.
Marton told gathered audiences that she was warned that she would be “opening a Pandora’s box,” as she researched her parents controversial lives.
She paid little attention. Marton explains today that she felt compelled to understand the intricacies and courage of her parents, who were enmeshed in a nail-biting game of cat and mouse with the AVO.
“Close friends-turned-informers relayed the Martons’ every move to the Secret Police, who were determined to arrest them,” she shares. “My parents only made it worse by spurring easy friendships within the American legation. But it afforded them an affluent lifestyle and consequently allied them with the ‘enemy,’ as they were considered by the AVO.”
They eventually were imprisoned for six years for espionage, as Marton explains in the introduction of her book.
“All my life, my parents’ defiance of the Communists, their stubborn courage as the last independent journalists until their arrest, trial, and conviction as CIA spies, has been at the core of our family identity. On Feb. 25, 1955, at 2 in the morning, following a game of bridge at the home of the U.S. military attaché, my father was abducted by six agents of the AVO. His arrest was front-page news in The New York Times. Four months later, they came for my mother.”
Before moving to America, Marton and her sister Juli were sent to live with a Hungarian family named Hellei. “Everything about them made me long for my parents and our old life,” Marton shares.
Indeed, this poignant memoir is at once a history lesson of the Cold War and a love letter to the people who shaped her life.
“No one played a bigger role in my life than my father, who was so sparing with praise,” Marton writes toward the end of the book. “I think I even chose my life partners with him in mind. In 1977, when I was hired as an ABC News foreign correspondent, Papa told me to observe and learn from Peter Jennings. ‘Now there is a man who has all the important qualities: intelligence, a sense of the world, great good looks — a man, Kati, who has it all.’
“So, I recall thinking at the time that this is the sort of man he would like as his son-in-law. Until the end of his life, though we had divorced, he considered Peter, the father of his grandchildren, as a son-in-law. And vice versa. After I married [Ambassador] Richard Holbrooke, then an assistant secretary of state, Richard and Papa would sit for hours reminiscing.”
In the epilogue, Marton admits she would not have written this book if her parents were still alive. “Most deaths bring both grief and relief. With my parents’ deaths the taboo of the past was lifted.”
It would be impossible not to be impressed by the sheer guts of Episcopal Bishop Katharine Schori.
In addition to having a Ph.D. in oceanography and being a semi-professional pilot, since November 2006 she has been the 26th Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church — the first woman to lead a national church in the 520-year history of Anglicanism.
She serves as chief pastor to the Episcopal Church’s 2.4 million members in 16 countries and 10 dioceses, as well as the American representative to the worldwide Anglican Communion, a body of 38 provinces and 77 million worshippers.
And like any truly amazing woman — she isn’t afraid to stand up for what she believes in. In fact, Schori took over just a few years after the General Convention of the Episcopal Church consecrated openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. After the affirmation was announced, 20 Episcopal bishops rose in protest.
“I will stand against the actions of the Convention with everything I have and everything I am,” declared Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh. “I have not left, and will not leave, the Episcopal Church…it is this 74th General Convention that has left us, betrayed us, undone us.”
Schori’s liberal ideas on homosexuality, same-sex partnerships, and other social issues have continued to frustrate some of the conservative members of the Episcopal Church. In her first national interview after being elected, she told CNN that she does not believe homosexuality is a sin:
“I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us. And some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender.”
Overcoming challenges
On December 3, 2008, theological conservatives from the Episcopal Church announced they were founding their own rival denomination. Schori told large crowds that had gathered at the NPC that she and like-minded colleagues “tried hard to negotiate for a long time. But finally, when we couldn’t come to a consensus, we asked the courts to act.”
Schori maintains that it is important for everyone be hopeful and fearless in his or her convictions.
“Perhaps the first role of religion in such times is to be a messenger, like one of those biblical angels, who starts out by saying, fear not,” Bishop Schori says. “Don’t be afraid; this whole thing is a lot bigger than you are. Yes, change is coming, and it will drive some people crazy, and at the same time not go far enough for others. In more secular language, we might say, don’t sweat the small stuff. And more of it is small stuff than you might expect. At the same time, the religious voice will remind you that how you deal with the small stuff does not affect you alone – your actions may have consequences beyond your wildest imagining.”
Schori shares that on two occasions last year, leaders in her own church were concerned that the church only makes the front page if it’s about schism or sex – and in the current era, preferably both.
“The reality experienced by most Episcopalians, and indeed most faithful people, is of their congregations gathering for weekly worship, saying their prayers, and serving their neighbors, nearby and far away,” she explains. “That service happens in remarkable and profound ways; building schools in Africa, clinics in Haiti, digging wells in the Philippines, as well as prodding our legislators to attend to issues of climate change, access to health care, and funding AIDS work in Africa. It is the rare few who are consumed by conflict, and they tend not to last, for intense and prolonged conflict is not life giving.”
Schori declared: “Help us tell the stories of transformation, of moving toward that hopeful future, for which the world hungers. Help us tell the world that fear is not the answer.”
Schori seeks allies overseas
In August, Schori embarked on a whirlwind tour of six Anglican provinces where she defended her church’s acceptance of gay bishops and same-sex unions, and its commitment to maintaining ties with other provinces.
Among her stops were Canada, Scotland, England, Australia, New Zealand and Wales, where she preached at cathedrals, participated on panels, and met with parishioners and archbishops to discuss the importance of the church embracing gays and lesbians.
“It is grounded in the gospel, and the Anglican Communion has always allowed local autonomy in its provinces,” she insisted.
What does Schori pray about privately?
When asked at a recent speaking engagement about her personal hopes and prayers, Schori said:
“I pray for people who consider me their enemy. I believe that whenever we face an obstacle in our lives, praying for those who challenge us is a necessary part of our journey.”
“I think we can, in our lifetime, win the battle against hunger because we now have the science, technology, know-how, and the logistics to be able to meet hunger where it comes,” says Josette Sheeran.
Sheeran’s perspective energizes her in her work as the 11th Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme. She took over the U.N. position in April 2007 after being appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Jacques Diouf in November 2006.
Since being founded in 1963, WFP has fed more than 1.6 billion of the world’s poorest people and invested nearly $42 billion in development and emergency relief. From the organization’s headquarters in Rome, Sheeran partners with nearly 3,000 non-government agencies to distribute food.
Sheeran is well suited for the post, having served since 2005 as the U.S. Undersecretary for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs in the State Department.
Rocket science?
“The solution to hunger is not quite rocket science,” Sheeran said on Sept. 29 at the National Press Club. “Many nations have defeated hunger, and it doesn’t require some great new scientific breakthrough like discovering a cure for cancer. It is, on one level, quite simple: People need access to an adequate amount of nutritious food.”
People who don’t have food have only have three options, she insists: They can migrate, revolt, or face starvation and death.
“We must be driven with a common purpose to solve the problem,” says Sheeran, who in an October 1 Huffington Post article offered 10 permanent solutions to ensuring all people throughout the world have enough nutritious food.
1. Humanitarian Action. We have the tools to respond with appropriate action in a humanitarian setting. When people are hit by disasters, we must save lives, providing food and work to get people back on their feet. In a place like Darfur, where there is no food, we bring in the food. In a place like Haiti, where some food markets have been restored, but people have no cash, we bring in vouchers.
2. The power of school meals. When you provide food in schools, attendance skyrockets. If girls stay in school, they marry later and have smaller families. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister of Cape Verde and I celebrated his government taking over feeding school children. He told me that 35 years ago, people considered Cape Verde virtually hopeless. After investing in its biggest asset — its people — it’s on track to meet every Millennium Development Goal.
3. Safety nets. When disaster strikes or a food crisis hits, 80 percent of the world has no backup plan or safety net. Brazil isn’t one of them. It links small farmers to schools. People get cash transfers if their children get good grades, go to health clinics, and get immunized. Brazil is beating hunger faster than any other nation on earth. And they estimate that this costs them less than 1 percent of their GDP.
4. Connecting farmers to markets. Connecting farmers to markets lifts them out of poverty. I was in Gulu, Uganda, the stronghold of the Lord’s Resistance Army, to see a new warehouse that WFP built. It’s a place that has been dependent on food aid for 20 years. Here, I saw a great business model. Small farmers bring in their corn — moist and dirty — that would normally bring them $100 a ton. It’s cleaned, dried, and stored, and they can sell it for $400 a ton. The farmers pay $40 a ton for the service and the warehouse is sustainable. WFP’s Purchase for Progress program leverages the power of our purchase by helping small farmers improve the quality of produce, connect to markets, and reduce post-harvest waste.
5. First 1,000 days. Science has irrefutably proven that when children under 2 don’t receive proper nutrition, they suffer permanent damage. When children are malnourished, their earning power later in life can decrease by as much as 50 percent and up to 11 percent of a nation’s GDP can be lost. The burden of knowledge compels us to act. WFP is working with private-sector partners and others to create special nutritional products geared to meet the needs of these children.
6. Empowering women. Feed a woman and you feed the world. Women produce 50 percent of the food in the world, yet they get little support. With training, yields can rise up to 22 percent. When food is put in the hands of women, children will eat. In refugee camps and elsewhere, we make sure women get vouchers. We are also working to ensure that women can safely cook, and that they don’t put themselves in harm’s way gathering firewood, by providing safe, efficient stoves and teaching women to create fuel briquettes made out of organic waste.
7. Technology revolution. Technology can revolutionize the battle against hunger. In Syria, refugees from Iraq who were previously seen as a burden to the local community now receive a WFP voucher on their cell phone that they can redeem in local shops. The storekeepers love it. It saves money, preserves beneficiaries’ dignity, and is fast and easy to use.
8. Building resiliency. The number of natural disasters is rising exponentially. WFP is working with communities to ensure food security by building resiliency through reclaiming land, planting trees, and providing irrigation. In Timbuktu in the early 1990s, WFP worked with the community to plant 40,000 trees, blocking the encroaching desert. I went there recently. The rice fields now protected by these trees are the only area not swallowed by the desert. The yield is so great that their only request was for a machine to pack and sell the rice.
9. Power of individuals and partners. I’m often asked, “Isn’t fighting hunger overwhelming?” My answer: “Not really. We just need to fill a cup and feed a hungry child, one cup and one child at a time.” Five days after the earthquake struck in Haiti, we had raised nearly $5 million from individuals and companies. Zynga, the biggest online social gaming company, helped us raise $1.5 million for Haiti and exposed our lifesaving work to millions of people by incorporating one of our nutritional products into their popular game, Farmville.
Free Rice is another online game — it’s raised enough money to feed 4.2 million people for a day. With these tools we are feeding one child, one cup at a time. WFP private-sector partnerships bring in vitally needed funds and critical expertise. TNT, a worldwide leader in shipping and logistics, has helped us get more efficiency in our warehousing and trucking operations. DSM, the great nutrition company, has helped us with fortification in our products. We’ve also linked up with Unilever, Kraft, and Heinz on Project Laser Beam in Bangladesh to provide special nutrition to the youngest and most vulnerable.
10. “Not on my watch.” Not until a nation’s leader says, “No child will starve to death under my watch. I will put the right policies in place to make sure we defeat hunger” will hunger be defeated. Twenty years ago, China was WFP’s biggest project. Today, they contribute to WFP, as does Brazil and other nations. When the Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika was sworn in as head of the African Union this year he reminded us that food security is possible in our lifetime and challenged “Africa to feed Africans.” That type of leadership is mobilizing Africa and changing the face of hunger in the world.
“Hunger numbers are going down,” she concludes. “But it’s still 925 million too many. We are at a critical point where we can harness the power of partnerships, technology, political will, and individual commitment to end hunger.”
For more on the World Food Programme, visit ww.wfp.org.
In celebration of what it truly means to inspire others, this month’s Truly Amazing Woman is Suzanne Carbone, a caregiver and advocate for research into the prevention and cure of Alzheimer’s disease.
On May 14, 2008, she testified before the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging on behalf of Bob Carbone, her husband of 40 years. Bob Carbone had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2000 and died from complications of the disease in July 2009. View that here.
Read more to learn why Suzanne Carbone says, “Caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s can be a reward in itself.”
Carbone’s testimony
Carbone (pictured here with her husband Bob Carbone and their grandchildren Tessa and Sophie Sontheimer) told the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging:
“In many ways, his story is a classic American success story,” she said. “He was born in Plentywood, Montana, where his immigrant father was a section foreman for the Great Northern Railroad and his mother was a homemaker. Relying on his sharp mind and love of learning, Bob earned a master’s degree from Emory University and PhD from the University of Chicago. He was the Special Assistant to President Fred Harrington at the University of Wisconsin, and before his diagnosis, was the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Maryland. Always interested in the political process, he ran for the Maryland State Legislature in 1982.
“In January 2007, my husband moved into assisted living, when caring for him at home was no longer an option. I am just one of millions of caregivers who are faced with such a difficult decision. Every day, I meet another caregiver who needs help and doesn’t know where to turn. Our country is not prepared for the emotional, physical, and financial impact of this disease.”
A love story
Carbone admits that her decision to move her husband into assisted living was one of the most difficult decisions she has ever made. She recalls the day, in the late 1960s, when she was studying to be a librarian at the University of Wisconsin and literally bumped into her future husband.
“It was pouring outside and we both happened to dash into the dry cleaners to get out of the rain and I bumped right into him,” she says. “I apologized and ran out, but he asked the owners what my name was. They gave him my number, and he called me every day until I agreed to go out on a date with him.”
The couple married in 1968. “It was a very memorable year, but also a time of great turmoil in the country. Bobby Kennedy was shot, and the Vietnam War was finally at an end. I feel that I was a product of that war. I had been dating a fighter pilot when I bumped in Bob, but I think our marriage was meant to be.”
In 1972, Carbone and Bob moved to Washington, DC, so he could take the deanship at the University of Maryland. Their first child, Angela, was born in December 1968, and their son, Chris, in 1972.
The odyssey
It was in the late 1990s that Bob started exhibiting signs of Alzheimer’s — although no one could pinpoint what the symptoms meant early on. “He had always been marvelous at giving speeches and never failed to tell the perfect joke. But one day he forgot the punch line. Other times he had difficulty finding the right words. Eventually, he couldn’t remember a neighbor’s name, and sometimes would pay the same bill twice.”
It was a dramatic contrast to the gregarious husband she’d loved for all those years, Carbone explains. “When he ran the education department at the University of Maryland, he could recite the resume of everyone on his faculty. He was fun loving and adored his children. He even ran for the state legislature in 1982. Bob was always an exciting person to be with. But these new lapses confused and frustrated Bob, and sometimes he’d lash out in anger.”
Initially, Carbone says she thought there was something wrong in her marriage. “He’d get so mad at me, but eventually I realized that he was really frustrated with himself and couldn’t figure out what was happening.”
Thanks to the insight, advice, and support her children provided, Carbone began to suspect her husband was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. So when the diagnosis finally came, she admits it was a relief for everyone. “One of the first things that Bob did was to tell all his friends and colleagues that he had it,” she says. “I think he was grateful to at last give the problem a name.”
Bob resigned his position as an educator and filled his days delivering food to the needy for Meals On Wheels. Within a few weeks, however, that also proved to be too difficult. “He had trouble finding the places to deliver the food, but it made it easier to tell people that what was happening was a problem going on inside his brain,” Carbone notes. Soon after that, she says, she began looking for the best assisted-living home she could find to care for her husband.
For years, Carbone visited Bob almost daily. Although his condition eventually deteriorated until he remembered little about their life together, in her heart Carbone knew that he never forgot how special she was to him. “He may not be able to say my name, but he smiles when he sees me. I sit down next to him on the sofa and especially after I’ve had a hard day, he’ll put his arm around me. Even though the details may have faded, I believe our love still lives on.”
Lessons learned
In addition to working as a librarian in Maryland, Carbone provides regular support for anyone who suspects a loved one is suffering through the beginning phases of Alzheimer’s disease. She always suggests the following:
Keep a journal. “This has been a very strange, spiritual journey, and I’m so glad that I started keeping a journal when Bob began exhibiting signs of Alzheimer’s. I looked at it last night, and what struck me most is how far we have all come. It is sometimes hard to remember just how terrible those early stages were, and I’m glad I have kept this journal because it helps me track my growth.”
Be resilient. “Gather your resources and develop circles of support. You’ll be inspired by others who managed what has happened to their lives, and in time you will become an inspiration for others, as well.”
Keep love at the center of everything you do. “People with Alzheimer’s live in the moment. And what’s so amazing is that when you really observe that, you realize it’s a beautiful way to be.”
For more information:
Learn more about Alzheimer’s disease, and please contribute to this worthwhile cause on the official website: www.alz.org.
Read Suzanne Carbone’s May 14, 2008, testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging here.
Last month marked the 36th anniversary of the resignation of President Richard Nixon (on Friday, August 9, 1974). Impeaching the president was a decision made by numerous legislators — but it was Congressman Peter Rodino, then the Chairman of the House Committee, who in July 1974 voted to impeach.
“Peter told me that the last thing he wanted to do was to impeach the president and hold him responsible for misdeeds that would have caused him to be removed from office,” says his wife Joy Rodino. “Peter venerated the office of the president and was determined to conduct the inquiry thoroughly, fairly, and impartially. Ultimately, the weight of the evidence and the bipartisan spirit that Congressman Rodino fostered led to the Judiciary Committee’s vote to impeach Nixon.”
Joy says that Peter was an inspiration to millions, and after his death at age 95, in May 2005, she decided to write a book that was “my way of saying thank you to him and paying tribute to his legacy. It is also my sincere hope that readers come away with a deeper appreciation and respect for the rights and liberties that we are privileged to enjoy.”
“Peter believed the Preamble is our country’s soul, not only projecting a vision of who we are as a people but also expressing the limitless possibilities of all we can be,” Joy explains. “In these troubled times, when nothing is certain, people are searching for meaning in their lives. These 52 words of the Preamble remind us of the importance of upholding our highest ideals and that there is security in the values and principles inherent in the foundation of our nation.”
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Eloquent and easy to read, the book recounts the inspiring story of her husband, the son of immigrants who grew up in a New Jersey tenement to rise to the post of chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He then went on to guide the United States through its gravest constitutional crisis: the 1974 Nixon impeachment inquiry, which affirmed the sanctity of the rule of law.
About Peter Rodino
During his 40 years in Congress, Peter played instrumental roles in the enactment of many historic pieces of legislation in the fields of civil rights, crime-control, anti-trust law, and immigration reform. He held many leadership positions, serving as chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and International Law, Subcommittee on Monopolies and Commercial Law, and, from 1972 to 1989, as chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. In 1973 and ’74, Peter presided over the first presidential impeachment inquiry in over 100 years.
In addition, Peter served as NATO Parliamentarian and was elected chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee on European Migration. He was also appointed to numerous presidential commissions on crime, immigration, and anti-trust law.
Peter’s name was placed in nomination for the democratic vice presidency in 1972, and President Carter seriously considered him as a vice-presidential candidate in 1976, which consideration he declined. In recognition of his distinguished career, Peter was honored with many national and international awards, including being named a Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy and Knight of Malta, and receiving Italy’s highest decoration, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy. He also received numerous honorary degrees.
Joy and Peter Rodino: A love story
After graduating from Smith College in 1963, Joy Rodino served for six years as the executive assistant in Peter Rodino’s Washington, D.C., office. She later attended Northeastern University School of Law and pursued a career as a public interest attorney, investigating consumer protection violations for the Federal Trade Commission, prosecuting child abuse and neglect cases as an assistant county attorney in upstate New York, serving as a law guardian for abused and neglected children in New Jersey, and representing a New Jersey county welfare agency in child support hearings.
In 1987, a former colleague asked her to speak to Peter about a legislative issue, and their destinies converged. They were married in 1989, just as Peter was retiring from 40 years of service in Congress and beginning his new career as a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law.
In addition to her legal career, Joy is a Reiki Master, Certified Cymatherapy Practitioner, and presents Stress Management/Optimal Performance trainings.
From the book
We married in 1989, just as Peter retired from Congress and began his new career as a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law. That was when I first heard Peter express his admiration for what five of our Founding Fathers were able to accomplish over the course of six short days: drafting the fifty-two words that would become the Preamble to the Constitution. To him, the Constitution was the heart of our nation, the mechanism that gave life to the system under which we live, a government of checks and balances, of rights and responsibilities. The Preamble was our country’s soul, not only projecting a vision of who we are as a people but also expressing the limitless possibilities of all that we can be.
There’s something magical about watching award-winning photographer Kathleen Jo Ryan at work.
Although she’s also won many awards for her books and videos, when there is a camera in her hand — and she is sitting stiller than still studying the landscape of the west, waiting for the perfect shot — there is a sense of peace and harmony that permeates the air. It engulfs everything in sight and absorbs those around her into the majesty of the landscape.
As her friend, and the film editor hired to work on her latest video, I can never get enough of it — or Kathleen. She is truly an inspiration.
I have no doubt that it is this magic that translates into the pages of her books. For more than two decades, she has intrigued nature lovers worldwide selling more than 125,000 books and videos — including Irish Traditions, Ranching Traditions: Living Legacy of the American West, and the companion video, Ranching with Charlie Daniels.
Other popular titles include:Writing Down the River: Into the Heart of the Grand Canyon, Deep in the Heart of Texas: Texas Ranchers in Their Own Words,
and Texas Cattle Barons: Their Families, Land, and Legacy.Click here to learn more.
“I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it,” she says. At the heart of her work, she is committed to showing that substance and truth are more powerful than myth.
Right to Risk
Kathleen is no stranger to risk. In fact, she takes creative and personal risks daily.
But to her, what she risks as an artist and businesswoman pales in comparison to the people for whom she has become an advocate for those who live with disabilities.
Back in 2006, she and her brother, John Ryan, produced the film, Right to Risk, which chronicles a 15-day, 225-mile white water rafting trip through the Grand Canyon.
The boats carried eight people with varying levels of physical disabilities — one was blind, another had Multiple Sclerosis, and there was a woman scientist who is quadriplegic and uses a wheelchair.
The film became a teaching tool and a film about overcoming the prejudice that restricts the life choices of the 54 million disabled people in our society.
“I didn’t know there were rules about what I could or couldn’t do and I believe that everyone should have the same opportunities to choose what they want to do with their life,” she shares. “My goal was simply to change common perceptions of disability. Most people consistently and dramatically underestimate virtually every measure of competence, productivity, and quality of life for those with disabilities. All that does is serve to reduce their opportunities. I wanted to change that.”
At the Film’s Core
It’s hard to miss the fact that this beautiful journey is about empowerment. As the adventurers ride along the serene landscape of Big Horn sheep, flowing waters, and ancient cliffs, you see them growing in confidence and comfort.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing, of course, and the perception of that reality is what Kathleen says she found most interesting about the audience’s reaction.
“The disabled crowd would cheer and the non-disabled would struggle with the day-to-day normalcy of the trip,” she says. “My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me. I wanted everyone to see these people as individuals. I think that we accomplished that mission.”
Kathleen’s work all seems to inspire others to go beyond what is comfortable and strive to be better.
In fact, Writing Down the River: Into the Heart of the Grand Canyon, inspired four women writers — veteran journalist Linda Ellerbee, novelist Denise Chávez, naturalist Ruth Kirk and writer and painter Barbara Thomas — to raft together down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. See info on that here.
“We met our fears head-on and renewed and re-examined our relationships with nature,” Ellerbee says, noting the program was inspired by Kathleen Jo Ryan’s award-winning book, Writing Down the River: Into the Heart of the Grand Canyon, a collection of Ryan’s photographs and essays by 15 distinguished female writers, including the four featured in this film.
Back to Basics: Embodying the Virtues of the 4-H Club — Head, Heart, Hands, and Health
Today, Kathleen lives on an island northwest of Seattle, WA, but as a young girl grew up on acres of land in Northern California. It was her avid involvement in the 4-H Club, however, that helped her develop life-skills, and also built her personal value system.
“The Junior Leadership 4-H program is exquisite because you are rewarded in direct proportion to your efforts,” says Kathleen, who took home honors as a 4-H Sacramento County All-Star, and second runner-up in the California State Citizenship program — prestigious accomplishments for the young woman who went on to hold executive positions, including years spent as the membership director for the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau.
While city life excited her, she was compelled to return to the landscape and people of the American West. “I knew I wanted to make a difference and take my art to the next level,” she says. “It wasn’t easy at first, because in photography and videography there is a tendency to get in your own way and try to control things too much. Eventually, though, I learned to become purely an interpreter.”
Next Up: The American Trilogy
Kathleen’s next endeavor is to tell the story of the American West.
She has told part of this story in her stunning pictorial books, Ranching Traditions, and the companion video Ranching with Charlie Daniels. Ditto for Texas Cattle Barons, and companion book Deep in the Heart of Texas.
This time around, Kathleen is producing a trilogy about the women and men who run the ranches and landscape.
“Ranching families have a commitment to improve life not only for themselves and their family, but also for their communities, local and global,” she says, pointing to
Renie Smith, who runs the Cottonwood Guest Ranch with her husband Horace.
A spry and graceful woman in her 80s, Renie arrived at the ranch as a bride over 60 years ago. Today she says: “In this type of life it would be too harsh without softness, that feminine softness. Women are nurturers, and women create beauty. Not that men don’t, but on a ranch most women try to surround their families with a sense of beauty. Because this is our spiritual home.”
“Our purpose isn’t just to be retired folks and go south. Our purpose is to make this a more beautiful spot. And that is just as much our purpose now as it was sixty years ago. We’re still building and still planning.”
Kathleen found those words to be the inspirational purpose of the film. “It will reflect the invincible spirit of these ranchers, reflect an enduring optimism for the future,” she says. “I think we can all use a little dose of that.”
Stay tuned for that film series and book in 2011.
About Susan Utell
Susan Utell has worked in all aspects of the broadcast industry — including editorial experience cutting news and programming for San Francisco network affiliates KPIX, KQED and KGO.
Her advertising agency editorial experience began with a four-year employment at the Bay Area’s first full-fledged post-production facility, One Pass Film & Video. There, Susan worked with advertising agencies; JWTNYC/Chicago; McCann-Erickson; Foot, Cone & Belding; Riney & Associates; Y & R; Goodby, Silverstein and Partners; and Goldberg, Moser, O’Neill.
During her decades long freelance career, Susan has worked on documentaries for the History Channel, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, and PBS. She has an offline editing suite and painting studio in Sausalito, California.
In fact, in November 2009 she received the fourth annual USATODAY Hollywood Hero award for her work with Population Services.
Today, the 42-year-old, who recently graduated from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Governance with a Master’s degree in Public Administration, is on a new mission: She wants to end mountaintop mining.
Learn more about that below. First, a little background on the actress/activist.
About Ashley Judd
Ashley Judd has led a star-studded life as the daughter and sister of the world-famous country western group, The Judds.
A success in her own right, Judd has been an actress for two decades, and has starred in blockbuster films including “Where the Heart Is,” “Someone Like You,” “Eye of the Beholder,” and “Kiss the Girls.” She is currently filming a comedy called Flypaper, co-starring Patrick Dempsey.
According to her official bio, actress Ashely Judd attended 12 schools in 13 years before entering college. She was a sister at the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Kentucky, where she majored in French and minored in cultural anthropology, art history, theater, and women’s studies. She left a few credits shy of graduating in 1990, when she decided to drive cross-country to pursue an acting career in Hollywood.
Since 2001, she has been married to to Scottish auto racer Dario Franchitt. They divide their time between a home in Scotland and their farm outside Franklin, Tennessee.
Ending the “Rape of Appalachia”
Today, however, Judd is determined to end mountaintop coal mining — a practice that has devastated her homeland of Eastern Kentucky for decades.
“I grew up in Kentucky, and like so many Appalachians, just seeing our beautiful mountains and valleys tells me I am home,” she said. “Our mountains are our heritage and our legacy to future generations. But big coal companies are using explosives to literally blow the tops off the mountains, extract the coal, and destroy Appalachia.”
Not only does this practice ruin entire watersheds and the water supplies of nearby communities, she explained, but according to the nonprofit group Mountain Justice, mountaintop removal coal mining can annihilate entire ecosystems and has already transformed some of the most biologically diverse temperate forests in the world into biologically barren moonscapes.
“Mountaintop mining would never happen in other mountains in the United States,” Judd insisted. “This would never happen in the Rockies. But in the last 30 years, 1,500 waterways in Appalachia have been lost. Every body of water is under advisement on contamination.”
Making a difference
Judd is working with several environmental organizations to raise awareness nationwide to stop the devastation. Among them is the Sierra Club.
“Ashley Judd brought great passion and intelligence to her National Press Club speech on the devastation that mountaintop removal coal mining causes in Appalachia,” says Sarah Hodgdon, director of conservation at the Sierra Club, who was on hand for the June 9 National Press Club event. “All of us fighting for clean energy are fortunate to have such a well-known and knowledgeable person working with us to bring more attention to and end such a destructive practice. Ashley clearly knows that we must stop the coal industry from destroying Appalachia.”
Earlier this year, the Sierra Club produced a video featuring Judd. (See that here.) And while these efforts are gaining traction, they have their work cut out for them. A panel of federal judges recently ruled in favor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a controversial legal case focused on mountaintop removal coal mining.
“The ruling threatens to open the floodgates on a new wave of mountaintop removal coal mines,” Hodgdon says. “This would allow coal mining companies to blow up mountains and bury neighboring streams with coal mining waste without acting to minimize stream destruction or conducting adequate environmental reviews.”
In fact, Appalachia could now be facing up to 100 new permits for mountaintop removal coal mining operations to bury streams, which would destroy huge swaths of the Appalachian Mountains.
For nearly three decades, most Washingtonians wouldn’t have recognized Washington Post restaurant critic Phyllis Richman, even if she was sitting at the next table at their favorite restaurant.
She kept a low profile, was rarely photographed, and often wore a silk scarf over the bottom of her face when she went out in public. Since retiring in 2000, the woman who could make or break a restaurant’s reputation is no longer hiding.
In May, she was awarded the 2010 Productive Aging Award from the Washington, DC Jewish Council for the Aging. She stood front and center before a ballroom packed with fans. Her daughter, film producer Libby Richman, created a documentary about her mother’s life for the event, where she interviewed some of DC’s most prestigious chefs — all who admitted to quaking in their boots at the mere appearance of Phyllis.
“Once the sous chef came running into the kitchen to tell us that she saw Phyllis driving by the restaurant,” said Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington. “I said, she’s here? The woman said, ‘well, I saw her elbow poking out of a car window. I think she’s definitely on her way.’”
Indeed, Phyllis’ reviews could make or break an establishment. But during a recent meal that I was honored to share with her, the famed critic told me a trade secret.
“If I said they were a bad restaurant, they probably were. It had nothing to do with me, because you can’t fake good food and good service. But if they were good, well, it was my privilege to tell the world.”
Read on to learn more.
Lunch with Phyllis
Phyllis Richman will have the sorrel soup, please. And the grilled squid. And, if possible, one perfect oyster. “Thank you, Madam,” says the gracious, white-shirted waiter at the elegant P Street seafood bistro, Johnny’s Half Shell. “Thank you,” replies Phyllis, with a grin that indicates she is happy to be ordering exactly what she wants for lunch—and not sampling the entire menu, as was her mission for two decades as the Washington Post’s award-winning restaurant critic.
Readers often awaited her opinion before trying a new dining spot. Indeed, the success of a restaurant sometimes depended on her opinion. It was a serious responsibility, she realizes. “I often said mine was the world’s most wonderful job,” Phyllis says today. “Still, every job has its drawbacks.”
Eating Out for a Living
On her list of the downsides to her job, were the years of evenings spent away from home, leaving her three children behind to try a new establishment for dinner after feeding them first. And, she admits, it wasn’t always easy to stay objective.
“You always have to be out, on, and alert,” Phyllis explains. “I constantly worried that I was getting into a rut. I wanted to be fair and impartial, and I felt the need to cover every new restaurant. It wasn’t always easy.”
But this, she admits, was just part of the job—one she never dreamed she’d have. Early in her career, in fact, her goal was to be a city planner. After earning a BA from Brandeis University, she started graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, but realized she’d rather study sociology and moved to Indiana to attend Purdue.
Just as she was about to start her master’s thesis, her thesis advisor invited her to a dinner party in Greenbelt, MD. Over hors d’oeuvres, she learned that his brother-in-law had taken over as publisher of the Baltimore Jewish Times and was in the market for a food critic. By dessert, Phyllis had landed the job.
In the next two years, due to the patience and support of her husband and three children, Phyllis travelled weekly to Baltimore to sample restaurants. She also wrote a cooking column, and began freelancing for Washingtonian magazine and the Washington Post.
“Being able to freelance while you are raising young children is the perfect balance,” Phyllis says, noting that in 1976, the year her daughter entered kindergarten, Phyllis was offered a full-time position at the Washington Post. “It was scary to go back to work because I wanted to be with my kids as much as possible. So I’d drive them to school in the morning and rush home to be with them after school. Then I’d dash out to do a restaurant review, but by the time I’d get home they were asleep. It was tough.”
In 1980, she added to her roster the job of food editor, while still writing her column. “I found out pretty quickly that I didn’t like managing others as much as I liked writing,” she admits, and for the next decade did what she loved best—reviewing new DC restaurants. By 1995, she was ready for another challenge.
The Butter Did It
Writing a book is a natural progression for most journalists, and the idea of being a novelist always appealed to Phyllis. In 1997, she debuted the first of three works of fiction published by Harper-Collins: The Butter Did It: A Gastronomic Tale of Love and Murder.
It received rave reviews from Publishers Weekly, which said: “Phyllis’s prose is as smooth and easy to swallow as premium ice cream. She brings a welcome angle and authenticity to the expanding menu of culinary mysteries.”
Her protagonist was Chas Wheatley, a restaurant reviewer herself. In The Butter Did It, Chas grows suspicious when a DC chef named Laurence Lavain collapses the night before he is to prepare the meal for a star-studded black-tie benefit dinner. Police and beat reporters blamed his death on years of indulging in foie gras. Chas, who had an affair years before with Levain, has her doubts and uses her experience in the food biz to uncover the truth.
In the sequel, Murder on the Gravy Train (1999), Chas discovers that something is rotten at Washington’s most popular new restaurant, when the head chef is discovered missing. When dead bodies start appearing around the nation’s capital, she sets out on the trail to find the killer.
In the third book of the trilogy, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Ham (2001), Phyllis introduces readers to her newsroom nemesis Ringo Laurenge. His propensity to steal story ideas from other reporters makes him less than popular, and when he turns up dead, Chas finds she has a new mystery to solve.
Of course, it’s clear to readers, as well as reviewers, that Chas bears a striking resemblance to Phyllis—something the Washington Times reviewer found to be a positive trait when he wrote: “A tip of the hat to Phyllis Richman, who has followed the cardinal rule to write what you know.”
Phyllis simply says: “Of course, Chas isn’t me and the events in the books aren’t real. But the books did grow out of my personal experiences, so while the events are fictionalized, everything is true in the sense that it did or could happen.”
On a Personal Note
The one thing that did ring true was Chas’ boyfriend, Dave, who is based on Phyllis’s real life love. She met him in 1985, two years after she divorced her first husband. “In the book, Dave can’t wait to marry Chas, but she is reluctant,” Phyllis shares. “The truth is that we were both happy to keep our commitment quiet for years.”
In 2000, however, Phyllis was ready to make a big decision public. In May, she officially retired from the Washington Post.
“I was ready to spend more time with my boyfriend, my children, read, and take long walks around the city,” she says. “I never believed retirees when they said they were busier now than when they were working—but it’s true. What has changed most, though, is that I’m multi-tasking less and enjoying my life more. I take my time, and it’s a pleasure.”
Of course, she does have another idea for new book. “I think maybe I’ll get to work on that next week,” she teases.
How does a girl from New Jersey grow up to become a rising star on the operatic stage?
That’s but one of the questions we asked Soprano Monica Yunus, the Juilliard School graduate who is the daughter of social worker Vera Forostenko and Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus — our Be Inkandescent Magazine Entrepreneur of the Month.
Behind the Scenes
Since she was a child, soprano Monica Yunus has performed extensively in concert, recital, and on the operatic stage. Engagements include performances at The Metropolitan Opera, Spoleto Festival USA, Glimmerglass Opera, the Al Bustan International Festival of Music and Arts in Beirut, Lebanon, as well as recitals in her native Bangladesh.
A social entrepreneur in her own right, Monica toured Bangladesh in 2004 with her father and saw first hand the work he was doing, giving poor rural women access to small loans so they could build businesses that supported their families and villages.
“It was a huge homecoming,” Monica says. “I got to see family members — including 25 cousins — that I had never met, and also learned about the part of my heritage that I didn’t know too much about.”
What was most amazing, she says, was to go to the villages and meet the women who are the Grameen Bank borrowers and who are really doing the work. “It’s one thing to get the loan — and another to turn it into a successful micro business. I got to look inside how their lives work, to travel around the country with my father, and to visit the hospital where I was born. It was a very overwhelming experience.”
Since then, Monica has traveled frequently with her father. “I like to joke with him that he lives on an airplane,” she says. “He has a relentless travel schedule, and it’s hard to keep up with where he goes. But I went with him to Russia, Spain, and France. It’s incredible to watch him in action.”
Sing for Hope
When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, Monica knew she had to do something to help. With her close friend from Juilliard, fellow soprano Camille Zamora, she organized fundraising concerts with their colleagues from The Metropolitan Opera to raise money and awareness.
Soon after, they established Sing for Hope, a nonprofit organization that mobilizes professional artists to bring their work into schools, hospitals, and communities in need. It also is a resource for artists who want to use their art for charitable outreach.
The Spotlight is on Monica Yunus
We recently spoke with the opera singer from her apartment in Manhattan, where she lives with her husband of nearly one year — fellow opera singer, tenor Brandon McReynolds.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: First, congratulations on your marriage in June 2009. How is life as a newlywed?
Monica Yunus: It’s good to be married to someone in the same business who understands the demands of being an opera singer. We are doing great.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: Tell us more about your childhood and how you got interested in becoming a professional singer.
Monica Yunus: I was born in Bangladesh, but when I was four months old my parents got divorced. That was in 1977, and my mother, Vera, brought me back to the U.S. to live with grandparents in Ewing, New Jersey.
My grandparents were Russian immigrants, so I went to Russian school on Saturdays and learned to speak and write Russian and other languages including Italian, German and French.
My grandmother, Nina Forostenko, had a beautiful singing voice, and she’d take me to church every Sunday to sing in the choir with her. So I grew up with the arts from a very early age, and always liked to sing.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: How did you get interested in opera?
Monica Yunus: It started when I was pretty little and my mom and I would sing in the car. One day when I was about 10 she said to me, “Wow, you are really good at this. You can hit high notes that I can’t reach. Is opera something you might want to pursue?” So we decided to give it a try.
She found a retired opera singer named Kira Baklanova, and when I was 11 my mom hired her to give me voice lessons. Her former husband, Igor Chichagov, was also a singing coach and conductor. Eventually I got good enough to audition for the Metropolitan Opera’s Children’s Chorus, and I landed a spot.
It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with the beauty and power of the orchestra. It was overwhelming to a child to be introduced to something so huge. From that point on, I knew it was what I wanted to do with my life.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: What were your next steps?
Monica Yunus: Eventually, I got too old to be in the children’s chorus so I started competing in singing competitions. If I placed well or not, it gave me more ammunition to keep going.
I continued voice lessons, and the summer I was 13 went to the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. I also spent several summers at the Aspen Music Festival.
I have to give a ton of credit to my mom, who would drive me everywhere I needed to go. It was no simple feat, for in addition to working full time, she’d have to take me from New Jersey to New York several times a week for rehearsals and performances. It was a huge commitment on her part, and I am forever grateful.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: As a child, were you determined to go to Juilliard?
Monica Yunus: I was, and after finishing my Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance, I got an MA in 2002.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: I understand you made your professional debut at the Palm Beach Opera in 1999, playing Countess Olga in Umberto Giordano’s Fedora, after you won the Florida Grand Opera Competition.
Monica Yunus: Yes, that was great. At the time, I was studying at Juilliard with Beverley Johnson, the woman who taught Renee Fleming. And, I was in school with a class of 10 singers and we all got along incredibly well.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: That’s where you met Camille Zamora, with whom you co-founded Sing for Hope.
Monica Yunus: That’s right. Back in 1995, Camille had done a benefit in Texas for a dear friend of hers who died of AIDS. It was called “An Evening of Art Songs and Arias,” and the money raised went to Houston’s Omega House AIDS where he had spent his final days. The fundraiser now happens every year and has become the largest annual AIDS benefit.
So after Katrina hit, I wanted to do something to help and didn’t know where to start. So I called Camille. We started Sing for Hope soon after.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: At your 2009 annual gala you honored your father, Muhammad Yunus, as well as Renee Fleming, Jane Fonda, and Lincoln Center president Reynold Levy. The money raised benefitted the 2000 students and 1500 hospital patients that your nonprofit now serves. Tell us more about the work your organization does.
Monica Yunus: We have three main programs including Art U!, which is a dynamic arts and leadership education program for underserved children in New York City. We provide classes with resident artists, and renowned guest artists also come in to perform and help at-risk youths learn to use the arts as a tool to renew and uplift their lives.
Our second program is Healing Arts, a hospital outreach program that provides performances at New York hospitals including St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, Mount Sinai Medical Center, the Children’s Hearing Institute, and others. Our artists also conduct workshops that complement the healing process.
And Community Arts is our third program that raises awareness and funds for humanitarian causes and projects that dismantle barriers to arts accessibility. So far, our programs have benefitted charities including the Children’s AIDS Society, New York Cares, Habitat for Humanity, and Heifer International.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: That’s amazing. Your work has been honored in many ways, including last November when you were given the 21st Century Leaders Award in Doha, Qatar (see photo).
Monica Yunus: Yes. And I got to wear a Georges Chakra dress, which was also very wonderful. That got a lot of attention, and it’s always fun to get dressed up like that in such a beautiful gown.
Be Inkandescent Magazine: What’s next for “Sing for Hope,” and for your career?
Monica Yunus: “Sing for Hope” made its debut at the International Women’s Festival in Santa Barbara in March, which featured Geeta Novotny of the Los Angeles Opera and Carnegie Hall. And on May 7 we’ll be joining forces with Yale University to present an evening of songs performed by alumni from Yale — including Tony Award winner Ted Sperling (South Pacific) and Tony Nominee Mike Errico, and hosted by acclaimed actor Richard Kind. Check our website for more great events.
Then, from June 21 to July 15, we’re also excited to be hosting an incredible project called Play Me, I’m Yours, which is an international project that has been touring since 2008.
It’s the brainchild of artist Luke Jerram, who has put street pianos in cities across the world — parks, squares, bus shelters and train stations, outside galleries, markets and on bridges and ferries. They are there for any member of the public to enjoy and make music. At the end of two weeks, the pianos will be donated to schools and community organizations.
This year, “Play Me, I’m Yours” will be presented in: New York City, London, Bath, Belfast, Pécs (Hungary), Burnley and Blackburn, Cincinnati, San Jose.
As for me, from May 29 to June 1, I’ll be performing in Philemon and Baucis at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC. And from June 18-20 I’ll be in L’elisir D’Amore
at the Opera East Texas.
Then I’ll be traveling to DC in September to perform with the Washington National Opera in Verdi’s Un Ballo In Maschera, from September 11 to 25. I’ll be singing the role of Oscar.
I am thrilled to be working with Salvatore Licitra, Frank Porretta, Luca Salsi, Timothy Mix, Tamara Wilson, Iréne Theorin, and Micaëla Oeste, with whom I will be alternating. It is being directed by James Robinson with Daniele Callegari conducting. I do hope everyone in DC comes!
Buy your tickets to the Washington National Opera here:www.dc-opera.org
On April 6, author and activist Lee Woodruff spoke at the CEO Chick Chat, a popular event hosted by the Northern VA networking group Success in the City and the DC-based book event company Hooks Book Events.
Woodruff discussed her new book, “Perfectly Imperfect: A life in progress,” and shared thoughts on what life has been like since her husband, ABC News reporter Bob Woodruff, sustained a brain injury in 2006 while covering the War in Iraq.
A contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America and a freelance writer, this is Lee’s second book. Her first, “In an Instant,” eloquently and honestly described the struggles they faced together as Bob recovered from his traumatic brain injury.
The book gave Woodruff the opportunity to share deeply personal and, at times, uproariously funny stories highlighting such universal topics as family, marriage, friends, and how life never seems to go as planned.
Lee writes about the things most women think about:
Raising teens: “Now with a boy and girl on the precipice of serious adolescence, the bathroom door is sealed tighter than a government nuclear testing ground.”
On her changing body: “Over the last ten years my own knees had begun to form those dreaded smiley faces, sagging underneath.”
On how she copes with tragedy: “Swimming surrounds me in the velvet wet of a bluish green world where I can dive deep down and sob with no trace.”
On life: “You can tell a woman’s whole life story from the possessions in her jewelry box. Like reading a palm, you can trace the points where her life has intersected with memorable events, people, places, and loves. You can speculate on the essence of her personality, all from what she has accumulated in that box.”
Giving Back
Lee is the co-founder and on the board of trustees for the Bob Woodruff Family Foundation Remind.org, a nonprofit organization that provides critical resources and support to our nation’s injured service members, veterans, and their families, especially those affected by the signature hidden injuries of war: traumatic brain injury and combat stress.
I first met Fran Drescher when I was hired by the National Press Club to cover a luncheon where she was the keynote speaker. That was last April and since then, the one-time TV diva has continued to evolve in her new role as an advocate for women’s health.
“I am not glad that I got cancer, but I am better for it,” the award-winning actress said when she came to D.C. to promote her new role as the U.S. State Department special envoy for women’s health, and her nonprofit organization Cancer Schmancer (which is also the title of her second New York Times best-selling book), www.cancerschmancer.org.
Writer, director, co-producer and star of the popular CBS television series The Nanny, Fran was diagnosed with uterine cancer in 2001. It had taken several years and eight doctors to find the tumor. Because it went undiagnosed for so long, the disease had metastasized to Stage Four — leaving Fran no alternative but to undergo a radical hysterectomy.
“I was devastated,” Fran admits. “I remember standing in my bathroom after the surgery, looking swollen and bruised, and feeling nothing like the Superwoman I had felt I was my whole life. I wished I could have been anyone but me in that moment.”
Not long after, she was having dinner with her cousin Susan when Susan began to choke on a piece of chicken. “I had seen someone choking before in a restaurant, and knew I had to do the Heimlich maneuver,” explains Fran, who said she stood behind her cousin and pushed on her chest until finally, the chicken chunk popped out. “I admit it, I saved her life. But really, she saved mine because at that moment, I felt like myself again.”
The experience gave Fran the idea to write her book. On the book tour, she talked to hundreds of other women who suffered through cancer and also experienced the drama of being misdiagnosed, allowing their cancers to reach the late stages.
“I knew that I had to do something more than write a book; I had to start a movement,” exclaimed Fran, who soon after founded her Reston, Va.–based organization. “Eleanor Roosevelt said ‘women are like tea bags. We don’t know how strong we are until we are dipped in hot water.’ It is so incredibly true. I realize now that I got famous, and I got cancer, so I could stand here today and try to change lives.”
Since then, Fran has been instrumental in winning passage of the first Gynecological Cancer Education and Awareness Act. Indeed, she believes that cancer diagnosed in stage one “is the cure,” and she’s doing everything in her power to encourage every woman to insist on getting all tests necessary to identify if disease is brewing.
“When you get that weird feeling that something inside you just isn’t right, go to the doctor and find out what’s up,” she said. “Find out what tests aren’t on the menu. Do research on the Internet. Ask your friends. You have to be your own medical advocate.”
Fran said she’s enjoying her new roles as activist and philanthropist. Although she is happy to take the occasional acting role, she’s considering the idea of running for political office. Her decision, she said, will be determined by where she feels she is most able to impact the future of women’s health issues.
“I want to be part of a movement that shifts the negative paradigm in the world, and make sure that this is the century of the woman.”
