Honey, I'm Home!

Oh, what a wonderful three days I had in Washington!

Leadership Day on Saturday afternoon was focused on diversity outreach. The presenter had a great model for diversity training. I gave my copy away to someone who didn't get to DC in time for the session. But I'm going to ask Michael Richardson (a Hunger Fellow who organized the event) to send me a copy so I can share it with all of you at our July meeting.

On Sunday afternoon there was a workshop I was asked to present at -- Sexy, Savvy and Effective Grassroots Innovation -- for two of the things we're doing in Cedar Rapids -- tv production and diversity outreach. (I decided to think of myself as savvy and effective...) I had 12 minutes to do diversity outreach and had my presentation written out, but spoke from the heart instead. It went very well. Several people asked me for my email address after the session.

Monday morning was the Faith in Action breakfast which featured a speaker from the UMC, a speaker from the ELCA, and three speakers from Islamic Relief. I would like us to talk some time about doing UMC and ELCA outreach. Jos also asked me to share the story of our success reaching out to the Muslim American Society.

Monday morning's workshops first focused on Education, and the policy guru for the Global Fund for Education was there to explain how it's possible to take the existing Education for All Fast Track Initiative and add more transparency, more competency reporting and have it run as successfully as the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. The goal with the GFE is to have members of the G8 commit to it when they meet next month.

Then Monday afternoon Jos and I went to Congressman Loebsack's office for a meeting with Meagan Linn, his global aide. The Congressman was back in Iowa Monday, but I was very happy to meet with Meagan as we met with her last year, and she is the one who recommended to the Congressman that he sign on to two microcredit letters.

I started out, of course, thanking Meagan for her help in getting signatures on those letters. I also asked her to thank the Congressman for his work on flood relief. Then I started my requests with the letters you all had written on the appropriations requests. I barely got the words out of my mouth and Meagan came back saying the Congressman was happy with the way the committee had marked up the bill. So I moved on.

Next think I did was talk about the Global Fund for Education and how we'd like the Congressman to contact the Administration urging the President to commit to the GFE at the G8 next month. She took an info sheet, but I clearly wasn't making any progress.

So I said there's one more thing. And this is something that won't cost the taxpayers a penny. And I asked her about the Congressman cosponsoring the bill to aware a Congressional Gold Medal to Muhammed Yunus. She wasn't aware of it. I put the info sheet in front of her and told her how Dr. Yunus started microcredit by lending a total of $27 to 43 women in Bangladesh and how they became financially stable as a result and how the Grameen Bank, a microcredit lending institution, started as a result of this. Then I said, "A reporter once asked Dr. Yunus what was the first thing a woman does with the proceeds of her microcredit loan, thinking she feeds her kids or sends them to school. Dr. Yunus said, no. The first thing she does is buy her children back." At that point I had Meagan's attention. She was now looking into my eyes as I told her the rest of the story. "When a child gets to be five or six years old and she can no longer afford to keep the child fed, she's forced to sell her child into indentured servitude in return for a handful of rice. So the first thing she does with the proceeds of her microcredit loan in to buy her children back and bring her family home."

You could see the wheels turning now. Jos said later that she was probably going to go and google Muhammed Yunus to check this out. I would like us in July to work on this some more -- I would like Meagan to see that all of us in Cedar Rapids RESULTS are in support of this.

Thank you for your financial support, for your encouragement, for your believing in me, and for your prayers. I can't wait until July to see you all!