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Alison (Lissa) Muscatine's Press Office Files
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Withdrawal/Redaction Sheet
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
AND TYPE
001. email
Michael Schwartz to the Mrs. Clinton re: personal (3 pages)
01/26/1999
b(6)
002. list
re: Speaker Profiles Panel I [partial] (1 page)
09/21/1993
b(6)
003. list
re: Speaker Profiles Panel II [partial, page 2 in full] (2 pages)
09/21/1993
b(6)
004. list
re: Speaker Profiles Panel I (1 page)
09/21/1993
b(6)
005. list
re: Speaker Profiles Panel II [partial] (1 page)
09/21/1993
b(6)
006. list
re: Speaker Profiles Panel I [partial] (1 page)
09/21/1993
b(6)
007. list
re: Speaker Profiles Panel Il [partial] (2 pages)
09/21/1993
b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
First Lady's Office
Lissa Muscatine
OA/Box Number: 21396
FOLDER TITLE:
Stories and Quotes
2015-0275-S
rc1922
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act |44 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - 15 U.S.C. 552(b)]
PI National Security Classified Information [(a)(1) of the PRA]
b(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA]
b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute |(a)(3) of the PRA]
an agency |(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information |(a)(4) of the PRA]
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
AUG-21-98 16:59 From:USIP JR PRGM
Suffering passes. Having suffered never passes.
- -CHARLES PÉGUY
(1873-1914)
T-537 P.07/07 Job-734
AUG-21-98 16:58 From:USIP JR PRGM
Sₐy Yes when nobody asked.
- LAO PROVERB
T-537 P.05/07 Job-734
AUG-21-98 16:58 From:USIP JR PRGM
You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance,
You have taken away my sorrow
And surrounded me with joy.
-PSALM 30:11
T-537 P.02/07 Job-734
AUG-21-98 16:58 From:USIP JR PRGM
you are being rooted and grounded in love.
- -EPHESIANS 3:17
T-537 P.03/07 Job-734
AUG-21-98 16:58 From:USIP JR PRGM
You shall go out with joy
and be led forth with peace.
- ISAIAH 55:12
T-537 P.04/07 Job-734
AUG-21-98 16:59 From:USIP JR PRGM
Above all, clothe yourselves with love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
- COLOSSIANS 3:14
T-537 P.06/07 Job-734
AUG-21-98 16:58 From:USIP JR PRGM
T-537 P.01 Job-734
UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE
JENNINGS RANDOLPH PROGRAM FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE
1550 M STREET NW SUITE 700
WASHINGTON, DC 20005-1708
FACSIMILE TRANSMISSION COVER PAGE
TO: LAURA SCHILLER
ORGANIZATION FIRST LADY's OFFICE
FAX NUMBER:
456 5709
PHONE NUMBER:
SENDER'S NAME: PAUL ARTHUR
SENDER'S PHONE:
FAX: (202) 833-1381
TOTAL NUMBER OF PAGES (INCLUDING COVER PAGE): 7
DATE: 21 AUG.
MESSAGE:
Laura,
This T is the best \ can came up with n
the short tem.
Paul
Clinton Presidential Records
Digital Records Marker
This is not a presidential record. This is used as an administrative
marker by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Staff.
This marker identifies the place of a tabbed divider. Given our
digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
STORIES
Divider Title:
STORIES INDEX
Art
1. African American Art in White House
2. America's contribution to art
3. White House Sculpture Garden
4. Artistic Expression can help children achieve
5. Art helps at-risk teen
6. Theatrics helps at risk student
7. Boy develops through art projects
8. Gallery 37 nurtures children's artistic ability
9. Guild uses art to help children see develop dreams
10. Dolley Madison saves George Washington's portrait
11. Poetry is being spread through America
12. Poetry slam at Junior High School
Child Care
1. Quality child care at Quantico
2. Florida business community helps with child care
3. Divorced mother has child care issues
4. Child care provider's low wages
Democracy
1. Democracy in Poland
2. Czech's celebrate liberation by waving American flags with 48 stars
Education
1. Women speaking out
2. Girls and Women's literacy programs in Senegal
3. Rebuilding of schools in Bangladesh
4. Government offers incentives to keep girls in school in Bangladesh
5. Universal Primary Education in Uganda
6. Scholarships offered to girls in Guatemala
7. Female enrollment increases in Malawi school
8. Community Schools Program in Egypt
9. Mother asks for closer secondary school for girls in Pakistan
10. South African schools use tape recording to alleviate overcrowding
11. Mrs. Clinton's education in diversity through her church youth group
12. HRC's memories of Sputnik and urge to do well in science
13. Difficulty of schooling girls
Endowment Fund
1. Young boy contributes to fund
Foster Care
1. Teenager finds adoptive parents
2. High costs of adoption
3. Red tape involved with adoption
4. Successful adoption story
5. Businesses cooperate with adoption
6. Woman adopts 5 children
7. Valentine's by children who want to be adopted
8. Boy spends entire life in foster care
9. Dave Thomas (Wendy's) advocates adoption
10. Couple adopts 11 children
11. HRC's experience with legal difficulties of adoption
12. HRC's experience with legal difficulties of adoption
Health
1. Ending of female circumcision in Senegal
2. Prenatal checkups in Bolivia
3. Safe home-delivery kits distributed in Nepal
4. Hospital in Phillippines is model for post-natal care
5. Tribute to Elizabeth Gleaser (AIDS activist)
6. Romanian woman brings changes to reproductive health services
7. Brazilian women's hospital teaches reproductive information
8. In Sri Lanka women's rights have led to better health care
9. Bangladesh health worker educates women on contraception
Inspirational
1. Bosnian women give HRC statue symbolizing their struggle
2. Romanian woman's struggles relating to communism and her courage
Micro-Enterprise and Women in Business
1. Thriving economy in Northern Italy due to micro-enterprise
2. Woman starts salsa business
3. President Clinton and President Museveny visit micro-credit project
4. Woman runs a used car company
5. Woman starts officer service business
6. Woman starts banner business
7. Mi Casa in Denver builds women's self respect and self sufficiency
8. Hindu and Moslem women cooperate
9. Community bank has payback rate of 100%
10. HRC's first experience with microcredit
11. Microcredit has worldwide impact
12. Women's bank lends to poorest women in India
13. Land O' Lakes helps Albanian women care for cows
14. Milk Product business in Macedonia run by successful woman
15. Woman opens family planning clinic in Romania
16. Women form business organization in Southern Europe
17. Women in Albania begin credit unions
18. Woman in Bangladesh uses cell phone to make a living
Religion
1. Mrs. Clinton's Sunday school experience
Women making a difference
1. Women build community in South Africa
2. Women cross Secretarian lines in Ireland
3. Several women commit to do good
4. Women must work together
5. Pakistani-American women establish scholarship
6. Croatian woman helps with peace process
Roosevelt, Eleanor
HRC B POTUS on Eleanor Roosevelt
1. E.R is a constant presence
2. ER and South america
3. E.R is a remarkable person
4.
Clinton Presidential Records
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marker by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Staff.
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digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
ART
Divider Title:
STORIES: ART
1. Column, 10/29/96
An educator from New York visited Washington a few years ago and decided to go on a
your of the White House. He waited in line with thousands of others, eager for the opportunity to
see America's most famous residence.
But as he walked through the public rooms and corridors, taking in all of the beautiful art
on the walls, he was immediately struck that something was wrong. There were no depictions of
black faces in any of the paintings, not even a portrait of the legendary abolitionist Frederick
Douglass. In fact, there wasn't a single work by an African American artist not Edward
Bannister, or Jacob Lawrence, or William Johnson, or any of the fine black painters our country
has produced.
As an African American man, Edward D. Bell was saddened to discover this historical
omission. So, he decided to do something about it. He wrote to the President to suggest a more
representative White House collection that would offer a truer picture of American history -- one
that would make all children who visit the White House feel a connection to our country's past.
The President read Bell's letter and directed White House Curator Rex Scouten to look for a
work by a leading African American artist to hang in one the public rooms. Two leading experts
on African American art the late Sylvia Williams, former director of the Museum of African
Art at the Smithsonian Institution, and scholar David Driskell helped locate a magnificent
landscape by one of our nation's finest painters, Henry Ossawa Tanner.
Titled "Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City," the painting was purchased by the White
House Endowment Fund earlier this year from Tanner's grandniece, Dr. Rai Alexander-Minter.
This week at the White House, the President and I presented the painting at a special ceremony
that included Dr. Rae Alexander Minter, Tanner's grandson, Jacques and Edward Bell. It was a
fitting tribute to Tanner and a homecoming of sorts for an artist whose work was far more
appreciated overseas than here in the United States, largely because of racism during his time.
2. Column 2/25/97
Last summer I toured Prague with Czech President Vaclav Havel.
As we walked across the Charles Bridge, we fell into a discussion about American culture, about
how our greatest and world-transforming exports have been not only our ideals on democracy
and the free market but our art, our jazz, our rock and roll. We didn't have to look too far for
proof of this idea the young people perched on the bridge's balustrades were singing American
folk songs and listening to heavy metal music as they read American books and magazines.
3. Column 10/2/97
The power of our arts to connect us to our heritage is also apparent in a new exhibition in
the White House Sculpture Garden of works by Native American sculptors. Each piece, in its
own way, represents the seamless fusion between ancient roots and modern spirit, the ties
between past cultures and present-day creativity. It's an extraordinary collection, the sixth to
showcase American sculpture since we inaugurated the garden in 1994 -- and it's there for
anyone who visits the White House to see.
4. Remarks at Arts and Humanities for At-Risk Youth Event, 4/26/96
I was in a school in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and a young boy in seventh grade said,
"You know, Mrs. Clinton, All we hear about are the bad kids; nobody really pays attention to us,
must be like when an airplane crashes; everybody pays attention, and people forget about the
thousands that land safely everyday." And I told him that I would do my part, as each of you is
doing, that in every corner of America there are examples of children - who might otherwise
have been written of discovering joy, and fulfillment, and discipline and confidence. And
often the way they are doing that is through artistic and intellectual expression.
5. Remarks at Arts and Humanities for At-Risk Youth Event, 4/26/96
One teenager, at risk of dropping out of high school, became involved with an artist-in-
training program sponsored by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Now she has a full time
scholarship to college and is in her second year studying voice.
6. Remarks at Arts and Humanities for At-Risk Youth Event, 4/26/96
A sixth grader growing up in a low-income area of Philadelphia joined The People's
Light and Theater Company, which works with students after school on a year-round basis. The
students wrote, improvised and performed plays, including works of Shakespeare. Today, the
girl is one of the top students in the 12th grade and is hoping to become a lawyer. Her 19
classmates in the program will al graduate from high school this spring.
7. Remarks at Arts and Humanities for At-Risk Youth Event, 4/26/98
A four-year-old boy came to pre-school every day but never talked. One day, as part of
an early childhood arts program the boy drew a picture in class, and began to tell his classmates
the story behind the picture. Since then, his development has flourished through arts projects.
8. Los Angeles County Art Museum, 9/11/96; The President's Committee on the Arts and
Humanities, 2/25/97
I am reminded of how the opportunity to explore and develop creative potentials through
singing, painting, sculpting, dancing, writing, or acting can give children reasons to believe in
themselves and in their futures each time I see a pair of brightly painted park benches in my
office in Washington. They are the gifts of the students of Gallery 37, an organization in
Chicago that nurtures the artistic and creative talents of children of all backgrounds. Through
paid apprenticeships in such fields as architecture, jewelry-making, bookbinding, and painting,
the children have blossomed in so many ways. One child literally found his voice at Gallery 37.
When he first joined the program, he refused to speak to either students or instructors. But in
time, the eagerness to talk about his art not only moved him to speak, it also spurred him to
critique the work of his peers.
9. Los Angeles Art Museum, 9/11/96; The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities,
2/25/97
I had an experience this spring, when I visited the Manchester Craftmen's Guild in
Pittsburgh, an organization supported by both the NEA and private donations. At the Guild,
which is located in one of Pittsburgh's most troubled neighborhoods, I met inner-city school
children whose lives had been transformed by their participation in the Guild's ceramic, art and
photography courses. When they spoke of their experiences at the Guild and of their newly
discovered love for the arts, it wasn't difficult to hear the excitement in their voices or see the
hope in their eyes. The Guild had given these children, whom many school had labeled "at risk,"
much more than the skills to shape clay or develop pictures. It gave them the confidence to
finish school, to go to college, and to pursue their dreams.
10. White House Millennium Evening, 2/11/98; National First Ladies' Library Website Event,
2/23/98; Remarks at Montpelier, Virginia, 7/9/98
The portrait of one of our greatest presidents, George Washington, hangs behind me.
But, as I often point out, that's only because of what Dolley Madison did to save it. When her
husband sent word that the British were approaching during the War of 1812, she had little time
to flee, but she still managed to take Gilbert Stuart's famous painting.
11. Poetry Millennium Evening, 4/22/98
Poet Laureate Joseph Brodsky wanted that "an anthology of American poetry should be
found in the drawer in every room in every motel in the land." Seven years later, we see his
dream being fulfilled in truck stops, supermarkets, and train stations where thousands of copies
of "101 Great Poems" are being handed out by his American Poetry and Literacy Project every
April.
12. Poetry Millennium Evening, 4/22/98; Chicago Public Schools Principals' Luncheon,
6/3/98
We saw this dream (see previous quote) being fulfilled in the confident young people we
met at Johnson Junior High School in Southeast Washington. I wish you could have seen these
students. They were rehearsing for a poetry slam taking place tonight. For those of you who
have never seen a slam, it's not to be missed. It's a high speed, high spirit competition where
students face off against each other by reading their own poems and receiving scores by a group
of judges. Sort of like a cross between Olympic gymnastics and old Vaudeville.
Using their voice as an instrument and their soul as a library, the students read poems
about the beauty of their names, the plight of a homeless man, the contributions of Duke
Ellington, their pride and pain. And they talked about how the poetry had helped them put their
anger "on paper instead of acting it out." How it had opened up thoughts they never knew
existed. How it had given them confidence. Every child in America should have that
opportunity. In a poem one boy read, he said, "I'm so musical that when I write a song, you sing
it for the rest of your life."
Clinton Presidential Records
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CHILD CARE
Divider Title:
STORIES: CHILD CARE
1. The University of Maryland, 10/3/97
Our very bright spot is the military's child care system. Our Defense Department runs
the largest child care system in the world, taking care of the children of the parents who are in the
front lines of America. I was privileged just two days ago at Quantico Marine Base to be able to
see firsthand what is being provided for the children of our Armed Forces and I have to say I saw
what every parent would want for her child a beautiful facility, well-trained workers, high
standards, unannounced inspections both in the center and in the family day care settings, a toll-
free number for the parents to call with their concerns, mandatory training for everyone that
comes into contact with and works with a child, and, most importantly, good wages and solid
benefits and respect for staff. Now, that has resulted in lower turnover and more experienced
care-givers.
Now that wasn't always the case, and I learned in a very open discussion that the
military's child care was not always what we would hold up as an example. In fact, even the
center that I visited at Quantico is brand-new because the previous one had to be shut down
because it didn't make the grade a few years ago. But, the leadership of our military knows the
readiness depends upon mothers and fathers being able to do their work without worrying about
who's caring for their children. So the military made a commitment to turning its child care
system around and Quantico is now a shining example of what can be done.
I want to tell two stories that I heard. The first, from one of the commanders that shows
what happened before there was good child care in the military. I heard about a mother and a
father who were both called to duty on an emergency basis at the same time. I believe they were
both pilots. They had to be in the air at the same time. When that happened, they had to bring
their two infants in bassinets to the office of their commander leave those bassinets in their
commander's office with instructions for care and feeding. Now, that beats any story about child
care challenges that I've ever heard.
The second story is about what happens now that there is quality care available, no matter
what the occasion. I met a staff sergeant, a single dad raising two little girls. He said that when
he took his daughters to day care the first day they cried when he dropped them off, but the
second day they cried when he came to pick them up. I was especially impressed by this very
tough Marine, who's obviously put in his time at the weight training facility, talking with great
pride about how he mastered pigtails and ponytails for his daughters. But I think part of the
reason his confidence is so high about embarking on the rather daunting task of being a single
dad of two little girls is because he's gotten a lot of support from the child-care facility and the
care-givers who have been there, helping him along, encouraging him, giving him advice,
helping to create that village.
2. The University of Maryland, 10/3/97
I was in Miami at Baptist Hospital, a place that has also made a commitment to child
care. I saw another first class facility. I learned about how they had adjusted the hours because,
just like the military, they have 24-hour work days in a hospital. And I heard a lot of detail from
the chief executive officer about why it is good economic sense to provide this service.
I met at the hospital with the Board of Directors of something called Florida's Child Care
Executive Partnership, a group of business executives appointed by Governor Lawton Chiles to
address child care issues. In creating this partnership, Florida put aside $2 million the first year
to match dollar for dollar corporate contributions for child care. And the board was charged with
engaging the private sector in this effort.
Once asked, the Florida business community responded quickly and generously, and this
year the legislature and the business community are doubling their commitment so that we're
taking both public dollars and private-sector dollars and pooling them to create more affordable
quality child care. And because of this effort, thousands of more working families in Florida
now have access to the kind of care I saw at Quantico, I saw at Baptist Hospital, and I saw here at
the university.
3. White House Conference on Child Care, 10/23/97
A question I was asked about child care sums up very well the dilemma that we face
today. It (the question) was asked by a divorced mother who works full-time at the University of
Maryland. To send her 4-year-old son to the center I had visited, she told me, would cost $6000
a year, a quarter of her income, and she just couldn't do it. She had to do some real juggling to
get the situation that she told me about. She was able to get her son to another less expensive
center because she qualified for a scholarship, and she moved back in with her parents.
Otherwise, she said, "I would have to quit my job and go on welfare and then I would have to
worry about who would watch my child as I looked for a job."
4. The University of Maryland, 10/3/97
I've been to a lot of child care centers and I've met many, many terrific people running
and working in them. But their salaries are woefully low, and many leave the profession because
it's not one that enables them to support themselves and their own families. I remember one
provider who told me with tears in her eyes that with the birth of her second child, she had to
leave taking care of children, which is what she loved to do more than anything, and go to work
in an office because she needed to make more income.
Clinton Presidential Records
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digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
DEMOCRACY
Divider Title:
STORIES: DEMOCRACY
1. Remarks at City Hall (Poland), 7/2/96
I met with a courageous editor of one of Poland's most important journals, Jerzy
Turowicz, who kept ideas alive when ideas were dangerous to hold. Without, the bold efforts of
people like him, there might have been no public discourse, no vocabulary for independent
thought during the dark years of communism. I met with a Nobel-prize winning poet Czeslaw
Milosz who spoke for captive nations and peoples in an era of totalitarian rule, ensuring that the
story of their lives would never go untold.
2. Radio Free Europe, 4/4/96
Secretary (then Ambassador) Albright has told me the story of how in 1995, during the
50th anniversary celebration of the end of World War II, she visited the lands of western
Bohemia, lands that were liberated by American troops in 1945. In every town and village she
visited, the Czech people were waving American flags -- flags with 48 stars. The American
troops had passed out the flags a half a century ago, when America had only 48 states. And these
men and women in the Czech countryside had preserved those flags, held on to them year after
year of Soviet domination.
Clinton Presidential Records
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marker by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Staff.
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digitization capabilities, we are sometimes unable to adequately
scan such dividers. The title from the original document is
indicated below.
EDUCATION
Divider Title:
STORIES: EDUCATION
1.USAID Girls' Education Conference, 5/7/98; Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
A young woman from New Delhi who gave me a poem she had written about why it
(education) was so important, that she being the first young woman in her family ever to go on to
college, had that opportunity. It was one of the most moving descriptions of what we mean when
we talk about women's voices. Here is what she wrote:
"Too many women in too many countries, speak the same language of
silence. There must be freedom if we are to speak and there must be power if we
are to be heard. Those of us who have freedom and power must give voice to
those who cannot speak, for as long as women are valued less, fed last, over
worked, underpaid, non schooled, subjected to violence, the potential of all of us
to be God's children, to contribute to a peaceful and prosperous world will not be
realized."
2. USAID Girls' Education Conference, 5/7/98
In Senegal, I visited a small village, where education for girls and women's adult literacy
programs, have been the first steps in helping the village understand how it could work together
to create more prosperity. How it could take five pectars of barren land and turn it into an oasis
of green growing crops that could not only support the village, but be sold in the marketplace.
3. USAID Girls Education Conference, 5/7/98
In Bangladesh, I visited a school run by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee,
an NGO that believes that education -- especially girls' education -- is a precondition for
economic development. Because of that belief, some of the BRAC schools have burned by
extremist groups. But the schools keep being rebuilt. And the families keep sending their
children to attend.
4. USAID Girls Education Conference, 5/7/98; Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
In Bangladesh, I saw where the government is attempting to provide incentives for
families to keep their daughters in school. The families get food each week if they send their
children, particularly their girls, to school. And, to help give girls the chance to go to secondary
school, the government actually deposits a small amount of money in a family bank account, as
long as the daughters attend school.
5. USAID Girls Education Conference, 5/7/98; Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
I have seen the results of President Museveni's promise of Universal Primary Education
in Uganda. I have been in classrooms that are absolutely filled with children; 70, 75, 80 third
graders. A very big challenge to any teacher. But instead of feeling frustrated the teachers I have
met have been proud. Proud because children are coming to school, and everyone is working
very hard to create the materials and train the additional teachers to meet this challenge, but the
overwhelming pride that is felt because for the first time, more girls than boys are attending
school.
6. USAID Girls' Education Conference, 5/7/98
In Guatemala, the government and the Foundation for Sugar Producers teamed up to offer
small scholarships to girls in rural schools. Because they do that, among the first and second
grades, the drop out rate for girls in those schools was only one percent compared to 30 percent
nationwide. In another Guatemalan program, afternoon school sessions have been introduced to
accommodate girls who must carry out domestic and agricultural work in the mornings.
7. USAID Girls' Education Conference, 5/7/98
In Malawi, the villagers were not only asked why girls aren't attending school
they
were asked to come up with solutions. And they performed plays and skits, they waived school
fees, they took responsibility for enrolling girls in school, and as a result the enrollment increased
from 50 to 83 percent.
8. USAID Girls' Education Conference, 5/7/98
In the Community Schools Program in Egypt, the number of girls enrolled in school
increased from 2,000 to 35,000 because schools were located closer to homes, making them safer
and more accessible. The curriculum was designed so that it was culturally appropriate and
approved by village leaders. And girls were trained to be sure that they were understanding of
how important this gift of education was, and parents were asked to become actively involved as
well.
9. USAID Girls' Education Conference, 5/7/98; Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
I remember so well being in a small village, about 40 minutes outside Labor, Pakistan.
Where I visited a school that had been built, to give the girls in that area primary education. I sat
out in the courtyard in front of the school, and talked with mothers of children who attended.
One mother told me about her 10 children 5 girls and 5 boys. Her worry was that she had sent
her children to school, to primary school, and when her boys graduated form primary school they
had gone on. They had gone to the nearest secondary school continuing their education. But
when her daughters finished the village school, there were no secondary schools nearby for girls.
And she was not willing to send her daughters off alone to attend a school far away. So she
asked me, and she asked all the officials who were with me, if they could please have a
secondary school built for girls in their village.
10. USAID Girls' Education Conference, 5/7/98
In South Africa I visited a school in Soeto, where there were not enough teachers, where
there were many children, now coming back into the schools with the end of apartheid, and
where they were attempting to teach as many children as possible English. So they were using
tape recordings that the teacher could monitor, but individual students could work with.
11. Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
I am particularly grateful that I had a youth minister in those long ago years who took it
as part of his mission to tell this group of white suburban kids from a middle class suburb that
there was a bigger world outside, one that they may not see on a day to day basis but would
surely effect how they lived their lives in the future. He even arranged for us to go down to
Chicago and have youth exchanges with children in African American churches and Hispanic
churches. We discussed civil rights and other controversial issues and one of the highlights of
my early teenage years was being taken by that minister along with members of our youth group
to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak in Chicago. He was constantly challenging us and
telling us that we had to stretch, that if we were going to be Christians we had to understand what
that meant in the fullest possible meaning. I certainly remember clearly the challenges that I
faced in trying to put that into action.
12. Remarks at Salzburg Seminar, 7/14/97
It became clear to us, starting as early as the late 1950's, that education was never a
finished enterprise. I remember very well when I was in grade school when the Soviet Union
launched Sputnik, before most of you were born. And when Sputnik went into the skies, our
government decided we were not doing a very good job preparing our children for math and
science education. And I remember very well my teacher telling us as young students we had to
study harder because our President needed us to. Now, I was not particularly interested in math
and science at the age of ten, but because it kept being told to me that this was something I could
do for my country and my President, I tried my best. And through the years, I have seen over
and over again how there comes a point in our country's history that we have to pull together and
take a hard look at education. That what worked for earlier generations of Americans is no
longer adequate for our children and certainly for the children that will come after.
13. Council on Foreign Relation 3/19/96
When I was in Bangladesh, I visited a school run by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Committee, a non-governmental organization that acts on the theory that education is a
precondition for economic development. Some of the BRAC schools, which primarily serve
girls, have been burned by extremist groups protesting the role of NGOs promoting change.
In some rural areas, there simply are no schools nearby and parents are understandably
reluctant to send their daughters far from home. I visited a village outside of Lahore, Pakistan,
that had recently built a primary school. But as one mother told me, her five daughters had no
hopes of schooling beyond the primary level because the only secondary school was too far
away. There was no question, however, that her sons would attend.
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ENDOWMENT FUND
Divider Title:
STORIES: ENDOWMENT FUND
1. White House Endowment Fund Dinner, 1/21/98
One of these citizens was a young boy named Nathaniel from Virginia. It was Christmas
time in 1992. And this little boy had heard during his studies that Mrs. Bush was interested in
raising money for the White House to keep it for future generations. He wanted to do his part.
So he donated $3 to the Fund. I tell this story because behind every single contribution that
helped us reach our goal is a private citizen or organization -- who regardless of political party,
age, or income wanted to do the exact same thing that little boy did: preserve the White House
for future generations.
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FOSTER CARE
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STORIES: FOSTER CARE
1. Adoption Bill Signing, 11/19/97; It Takes a Village
It was here in this room two years ago that a young woman named Deanna - a child
waiting to be adopted in foster care stood up and read a poem about what she wanted in life, and
it wasn't real complicated. It is what all of us want. The poem read, "I would have a place that I
would call home. I would have a room that I would call my room. I would have a family that I
could love and would love me back." I'm happy that because of that event here in the East
Room, she was able to meet a family who did adopt her. And I saw her last year at an event in
Kansas City and almost didn't recognize her from a shy, withdrawn 13-year-old, she had
blossomed into a cheerful, outgoing, confident teenager with a brilliant smile.
2. It Takes a Village
Public adoptions can take years, and private adoptions may be too costly to afford. One
woman wrote to tell me how she and her husband, both musicians, had spent thousands of dollars
adopting a little boy who is "the joy of our life." When her cousin's teenage daughter recently
became pregnant and could not afford to keep her child, the same couple volunteered to adopt
again. As simple as this case should have been - the parents and the baby being members of the
extended family and all parties agreeing to the adoption - it still cost upward of $4000 because of
legal fees and paperwork.
3. Column, 10/28/95
I heard from lots of people who said they were eager to adopt children but they had
become overwhelmed by the long wait, red tape and high cost involved. A Florida woman,
frustrated by a lack of communication among adoption agencies and government social workers,
summed up the feelings of many prospective adoptive parents: "I know there is a little girl in this
country somewhere waiting for my home." One couple from Oregon, trying to adopt through a
county agency, was told that it might take several years before a child was available. Their
alternative, to adopt through a private agency, could cost $16,000 or more.
4. Column, 5/14/96
The woman visited her new daughter in the hospital every day, reaching into the
incubator to stroke her foot. The receiving blanket seemed heavier that the baby, who was being
fed by a tube in her stomach. The woman is not the baby's birth mother, but she is her mother in
every way that matters. She and her husband already had a 3-year old adopted son when they
heard about a premature 1-pound baby whose birth parents could not take care of her. The
couple decided to adopt the tiny baby. Her start was rocky, but now the child is a healthy 3-year
old. "She was just like a little flower that blossomed," the mother says. "She is a burst of
energy."
Now the couple, who are African-American, are in the process of adopting a 12-year-old
girl who was abused. They also are encouraging more African-American families to open up
their homes to children in need.
5. Column, 5/14/96
Margaret Fitzgerald, who participated in our gathering, said her employer, AT&T, gave
her six weeks of unpaid leave when she and her husband adopted a son four years ago. The
company also reimbursed her legal fees.
6. Column, 5/24/96
Julie Stinger is a teacher with five adopted children four biracial and one white --
several of whom have health problems. She told us how, as a white woman, she had to fight to
adopt her first two black children, even though the birth parents agreed to the adoption and she
had cared for them as a foster parent for 18 months. "I fought tooth and nail," she said.
Later, she had similar trouble when she wanted to adopt her fifth child, who is white. Authorities
were concerned about placing a white boy with four non-white brothers and sisters. "Even
though we went through some traumas in the adoptions, I would do it again, I would do it ten
times over," she said, "Adopting a child is the most gratifying thing that has ever happened to
me."
After Julie recounted her story, I asked her oldest son, Joey, if he had anything to add.
He nodded. "I just want to thank my mother," he said.
7. Presentation of Adoption 2002 Report, 2/14/97; Column, 11/18/97
Decorating the Oval Office today are Valentine's created by some of the 600 children
waiting in Iowa in foster care. Each valentine, sponsored by the Iowa Citizens Foster Care
Review Board, tells the story of a child waiting to be adopted. The paper hearts list the age the
child came into the foster care system, the age the child became free for adoption, and the
number of days they have been waiting for a family. Every year these valentines are placed on
trees at the Iowa State Capitol. This Valentine's Day, the children decided to send their
valentines to the White House, as well. Some of them sent letters to accompany their valentines
-- letters such as this one: "Dear President, my name is Rollie. I am 12. I live in Iowa. I like to
play football and basketball. I've been waiting eight years for an adoptive family. I'm hoping
for a family with pets, a brother and a sister and nice parents."
8. National Adoption Month Event, 11/13/95
I recently met with Shane Salter, a young man who grew up in foster care without ever
being placed in a permanent family. He described what that meant to him. He talked about his
continued longing for parents who would not only care for him but who could be grandparents to
his own children. Adoption can change lives, no only of those in the immediate family, but
through generations.
9. National Adoption Month Event, 11/13/9
Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, started speaking out about adoption in 1990 when
he became the national spokesperson for the White House Initiative on Adoption. As an adopted
child himself, he says he would not have become the successful father, husband and businessman
he is today, had he not been able to grow up in a supportive family.
10. Column, 11/18/97
Bernell and Della Neal have adopted 11 children, many with severe physical and
emotional needs. Though the Neals have faced tough challenges, they have shown that nothing
is impossible. Their family motto is, "There's always room for one more."
11. University of California at Berkeley, 10/24/97
Twenty-five years ago, when I was a law student, I was assigned to do an internship in
the Legal Services Office in New Haven, Connecticut, and I was assigned to a young lawyer.
Among his cases was one representing a foster mother who had come to seek his assistance
because she wanted to adopt the little girl that had lived with her for three years. This woman
was not well educated. She wasn't wealthy. She was an older black woman who had taken in
foster children for many years, but she had a reputation for being a loving, effective parent for all
of the children who were lucky enough to come into her home. And, as sometimes happens, she
fell in love with on little girl who was of mixed racial background - black and white.
Well, it seemed to me, as a law student who, at the time, was not only going to law
school, but studying at the Yale Child Studies Center, that this should be an open and closed
case. It was before I knew very much about our foster care system.
You know, this child had been in one place for three years. There were no criticisms of
the care she had received. She was flourishing in every respect, if you looked at her
developmentally. I couldn't understand what the problem was, and I figured that all we needed
to do was pick up the phone and talk to somebody in authority in the child welfare system and
begin the process. Well, that began for me, instead, a very long and difficult education, the likes
of which many of you in this room have gone through as well.
First, we were told that foster parents were not permitted to adopt children. They signed
a contract which said that they couldn't adopt children. So it didn't matter what was in the
child's best interests; the contract was the contract, it governed the relationship, and there should
be no further discussion.
When we pushed, the response came back, "Well, but she's not really - not on the list to
be an adoptive parent, and there are many people who are on the list ahead of her, so it doesn't
matter that she has spent three years being the parent of this child and that the child sees her as
the only mother she's ever had, because she wasn't on the list." So we had the contract and we
had a list as our main obstacles.
When we pushed even further, the response came back, "Well, you know, she's old." In
those days, I thought she was old too. She was about 50. Now I realize she was quite young.
But you know, not only was she old, and therefore might not be able to keep up with a young
child, but she was widowed, so she was alone, and she had a few minor health problems, and she
wasn't very well off.
They were just convinced, in the child welfare system, that this little girl would be better
off being taken from that home and being given to parents who hadn't signed a contract saying
that they wouldn't do it, whose name had been on a list, and who were affluent and were able to
give the child more of the material things that people sometimes want for children.
We took that case, and we argued it all the up to the Supreme Court, where we lost. And
we lost on all these grounds. The courts, at every step, said, "Well, if the standard is the best
interests of the child, then we have no doubt that this child would be better off being with this
white family in the suburbs, who can give her all of these material advantages.
12. University of California at Berkeley, 10/24/97
I got a chance to try another case when I was living in Arkansas, when a man came to me.
He and his wife were foster parents. They had, once again, fallen in love with their child and
wanted to adopt. They had the little boy for about three-and-a-half years. He was then about
four-and-a-half, and they wanted to give this child a permanent home.
Even though it was some years later from my experience as a law student, we met the
same arguments. They had signed a contract. It was a different state, but it didn't matter. This
was what the standard of practice happened to be. And the contract forbade them to do anything
to try to make permanent a foster relationship. They were not on a list, which would mean they
would be given an opportunity to adopt over people who had been on the list.
Now the third set of arguments didn't apply to them, because they were of the same race
as they child they wanted to adopt, and they were well off, and they had all of the material
advantages. But the state fought it just as hard. And the biological mother showed back up, after
having been missing for about three years and asserted her rights to the little boy.
So we went to trial, I representing the foster parents, the state representing their interests,
and a private lawyer representing the biological mother, and we tried the case before a judge.
I put on a lot of testimony -- this was, back in probably '77 -- about what it meant to be a parent,
and what the relationship of parenting really entailed.
The case went on for a number of days, and eventually we were successful, with the
judge terminating the parental rights of the biological parent, abrogating the contract, with the
argument that the best interests of the child took precedence, and awarding a guardianship
leading to adoption of the little boy.
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HEALTH
Divider Title:
STORIES: HEALTH
1. Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98; World Health Assembly 5/14/98; World Health Day, The
World Bank, 4/7/98
In Senegal, I met in 1997 with women and men who were learning about democracy and
the role that one's voice plays in democracy. And I went out to a village and sat and talked with
these, primarily women, but with some supportive men, about what they were doing with their
new found sense of empowerment. And they told me they were creating health services for their
families, and they were trying to get a closer school so their children could attend more easily
and cheaply. And they told me also that they were concerned about the ancient practice known
as female genital mutilation or female circumcision. Although it affects less than 20% of the
women in Senegal, in many villages it was considered a right of passage.
During the year since I was in Africa the first time, I began getting correspondence from
women in some of the villages who were talking to me about what they could do about this
ancient practice. And I remember telling them, and writing them, that they should think of it as a
health issue, that it would damage, and they knew it would, their daughter's lives, perhaps even
kill them.
And SO when I went back this time, again with my husband, to Senegal, I learned that one
village had actually voted, with women's voices leading the way, to end the practice. And that
men who had supported the women in the village, who were freer to travel than the women, had
traveled from village to village. Among the things they took was a letter I had written them on
White House stationary commending them for their study of this issue and they went from
village to village and they performed skits and they talked about why they should stop this
practice. So that by the end of 1997 there were about 13 villages that had voted to stop the
practice and in February the President of Senegal said that he would advocate a law banning it.
When I went back, I met with women from the village where it had all started. They
showed me a skit they had used to educate their religious leaders, their neighbors, and their
husbands. And one sixty-six year old man who had been one of those who traveled from place to
place proudly stood up and said he had studied the Koran and there was nothing in it about this
practice. And he felt very empowered to go from village to village telling them they had to stop
it in order to save the lives and the futures of their girls.
2. World Health Assembly, 5/14/98
In Bolivia, I visited with expectant mothers at a primary health center run by an NGO
with support from the government. They had created a safe place for very poor women to come
and get health care. The women with their ruddy faces and bowler hats -- were receiving
prenatal checkups and having their infant immunized on the day that I visited. They were also
learning about family planning and how to space births so they could more likely have their
children survive, and themselves.
3. World Health Assembly, 5/14/98; World Health Day, The World Bank, 4/7/98
At a small clinic in Nepal, I saw a safe home-delivery kit that is given to expectant
mothers. Inside is a bar of soap, twine, wax, a plastic sheet, and a razor blade. Its purpose is to
reduce the two major causes of maternal and neonatal death -- tetanus and sepsis -- by promoting
the "three cleans" principle -- clean hands, clean surfaces, clean umbilical care. These kits are
made locally by a micro enterprise owned by women. And these kits, as well as the entire Safe
Motherhood Initiative, teach us about the importance of investing in prevention.
4. Remarks to Women of the Phillippines, 11/24/96
I have seen for myself the pioneering work being done to improve conditions for women
in the Phillippines. I had the chance when I was here before to tour the Fabella hospital, where
innovative, low-cost techniques are used to help new mothers bond with and breast-feed their
infants. When it comes to giving women and children the right start in life, the hospital is a
model for the world.
5. First Ladies Symposium, 12/10/94
My friend, Elizabeth Gleaser, died last weekend after losing a long battle with AIDS.
Elizabeth contacted HIV through a blood transfusion while hemorrhaging during the delivery of
her first child Ariel. Unbeknownst to her, her daughter, and then a son born later, also contracted
the virus. When Elizabeth learned that she and her children had been infected with HIV, she
dedicated herself to raising awareness about AIDS. From a small office in Los Angeles, she
created the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, which has raised over $30 million since its founding in
1988. Elizabeth often said she was motivated and strengthened by the memory of her daughter,
who died four years ago at the age of seven. Her son, now 10, lives with HIV every day. If
Elizabeth could continue to contribute so much on behalf of her children throughout her own
illness, I know we can make our own contributions too.
6. Czech Republic/Bulgaria Trip Info.
Diana Szijarto, a nurse at a planning clinic in Timisoara in Romania participated in a
Reproductive Health Training Program at the Center for International Community Health Studies
at the University of Connecticut. Since her return, Ms. Szijarto has been hard at work meeting
with officials and making impressive changes to the available services in reproductive health in
Tinisoara. She has joined efforts with the local health department to plan a training course for
nurses, like herself, in family planning. She brought a copy of the book "Our Bodies, Our
Selves" back with her from her training program and plans to use it as a supplement in the
training course. The first sessions of the course are currently being offered.
7. Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/96
In Salvador Da Bahia in Brazil, I visited a maternity hospital that also cares for women
who have tried to induce abortions themselves, a tragically common occurrence there. I saw
classrooms throughout the hospital displaying charts and diagrams of the most basic reproductive
information. The hospital also provides family planning services. The Minister of Health told
me that he hoped to extend this USAID supported program to rural areas in the region. Even
here, in a predominantly Catholic country, there is a growing recognition that family planning
saves lives.
8. Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/96
In Sri Lanka, women have had the right to vote for the better part of this century and
enjoy greater access to education than their counterparts elsewhere in South Asia. Not
surprisingly, Sri Lanka also has the region's best health care system and lower maternal mortality
rates than many wealthier nations.
9. National Geographic, 10/98
To help improve health care, BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) has
founded clinics throughout the country. "Many more women want contraceptives now, " said
Mergine Khatun, a village health worker in Mymensingh district. "They see that if a mother has
fewer children, she can give them better care. And her health will be better." What if a
conservative Muslim leader tells Mergina that contraception is against the will of God? "I say
that God also told us to be responsible for our families."
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INSPIRATIONAL
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STORIES: INSPIRATIONAL
1. Women of the 21st Century (Bulgaria), 10/11/98
A few months ago in Bosnia I met a group of women who live in the aftermath of that
war had come together to rebuild their lives, their families and their communities. One of them
gave me a sculpture of a woman. It's about this tall. And like many women she is standing very
proudly. But embedded in her knee are pieces of shrapnel. Real shrapnel that had been collected
off the streets and out of the fields of that conflict. They are tangible symbols of the war and the
pain she has endured. But on her heart is her hand. And on her face is a confident smile. And I
look at that woman with that smile and I think if she could talk, if that small statue could just
have a voice, she would say something like "Despite the past, I will dream and work for my
children to live in peace." I keep that sculpture in my office. I look at it whenever I want to be
reminded of the great price SO many women have paid to bring justice, peace, freedom and
democracy to themselves, their families and to all of us. And I look at that woman whenever I
want to be inspired. Inspired as I am today, But what women can accomplish when we have the
courage to put aside our differences, the differences that history has given us, not that we have
made ourselves.
2. Czech Republic/Bulgaria Trip Information
Lena Constante is a Romanian woman in her late 80s who was a victim of a Stalinist-era
trial. She spent eight eyars in solitary confinement, followed by another three and one-half in a
cell with fouteen women. She spends much of her time now focusing on the arts, working in a
puppet theater, produced extraordinary tapestries using embroidered blouses, and designed
children's books. After the fall of the regime, her memoir was published in France, then in
Romania and then in the US. Her memoir of the period of solitary confinement, she describes
having eventually learned the "language of the walls," the system of tapping that enabled her to
communicate with inmates outside of solitary confinement. She writes of the incredible
solidarity among women inmates. On the final page of the book, she notes: "I cannot end this
story without paying homage today to all these unknown women who very soon became my
friends. All of them know that in one of the cells of their penitentiary lived, for years, a woman
even more miserable than they. Moreover, I had spoke with some of them at the wall. They took
me in with great friendship and helped me, with all their might, to adjust to this new environment
[when she was moved to the communal cell after eight years] My three and one half years of
communal life are really a whole other story. Despite outrageous privations of every kind, the
lack of basic hygiene, the confinement, illness, the barbarous punishments, or perhaps because of
all this, it is a fine story of human solidarity, of feminine solidarity in suffering."
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MICRO-ENTERPRISE
Divider Title:
STORIES: MICRO-ENTERPRISE and WOMEN IN BUSINESS
1. Enterprise Opportunity Conference, 4/24/98
About ten years ago, Bill and I went to Northern Italy; I don't know if any of you have
had a chance to visit some of the enterprise that have been organized there. Northern Italy has
one of the most thriving economies in the entire world. It is doing far better financially then the
southern part of its country and in large measure because they had a tradition of guilds and
organized networks that were established by the church or by political parties. But they began to
understand a couple of decades ago that for small businesses to flourish they needed modern
resources and tools. They needed to know how to market, they needed to keep their books right,
they needed a way to communicate effectively with trade opportunities and export mechanisms
around the world.
And it was impossible for an individual banker, or textile manufacturer, or other small
entrepreneur to be able to do that on his or her own. So they began banding together, creating
associations among small businesses, primarily businesses that had the same kind of needs and
produced similar products. As a result, they shared costs, so that they hired one bookkeeper who
took care of the books of 10, 20, 30, or 100 organizations. They hired one person to market all of
their goods, so they only had to pay and share the expenses to send one person to a trade fair in
Rome, or in Munich, or in the United States. So they really created the opportunity to leverage
their resources and to share the costs.
2. Enterprise Opportunity Conference, 4/24/98
I heard a story about a woman living in a poor, rural area who was producing salsa in her
home. She didn't have the money to move her operation out of her kitchen to expand her
business, but it was a good business. So people in the community recognized her potential and
donated an old building with commercial equipment and leased it to her and gave her support and
the technical assistance to make the leap to larger scale production. Now, she's not only
producing more salsa which happens to be one of my favorite foods in the world -- she's also
attracted other entrepreneurs, who are now making jars and related products, who are pooling
their common efforts to produce services and products that enhance economic opportunity far
beyond the woman with her salsa.
3. Enterprise Opportunity Conference, 4/24/98
During our visit to Africa, I was able to take both my husband and President Museveny to
a village far out in the countryside, about a 45 minute helicopter ride from Kampala to visit a
micro-credit project, a FINCA borrowing group. And I think it probably, I may be wrong and I'd
love to hear from someone later, I think it probably was the first time one head of state, let alone
two heads of state visited a micro-credit project on the ground in a country where it is actually
working to change lives.
4. Enterprise Opportunity Conference, 4/24/98
Sonja Thornsberry, from Swords Creek, Virginia has fulfilled her dreams because of her
involvement with micro-enterprise. Sonja's husband was injured in a mining accident and she
was suddenly faced with supporting her family. She's now running Family Motors, a used car
company thanks to the skills and support she received from a micro-enterprise program.
5. Enterprise Opportunity Conference, 4/24/98
Janice Anderson, from Baltimore Maryland couldn't work a regular 8 to 4, 9 to 5 job
because of her health, but she knew she always wanted to be self employed. She borrowed $500
from her parents to purchase a computer, she received training from a women's entrepreneur
group and a small loan and now runs a small profitable office service business out of her
home. She has a plaque in her office that reads, "Lord help me to remember that nothing is
going to happen to me today that you and I together can't handle." Next month Janice will
receive the SBA's "1998 Welfare to Work Business Owner of the Year" from Maryland's
Governor Glendening.
6. Enterprise Opportunity Conference, 4/24/98
Carol Willoughby, an entrepreneur from Duluth Minnesota began working out of her
home making church and wedding banners when her husband was virtually unemployed. In
1991, AEO began providing her the tools to expand her business. Today, she's hired her
husband, and provided part-time employment for her neighbors. In 1991, her gross sales were
$6,000, today they are $60,000.
7. Women's Economic Empowerment Panel (China), 9/6/95
I will never forget a woman I met in my own country at a program called Mi Casa in
Denver that is modeled after these programs you will hear about this evening. It is a program
designed not only to provide credit, but to do something even more fundamental; to help build
self-respect and self-sufficiency. The women who came to this program were on welfare, but
they saw a better future for themselves and their children. And they just needed a little help -- a
jump start to realize their own potential. But often that jump start is hard to come by.
As this one woman told me: "Many great ideas die in the bank parking lot -- because
women get only so far, they don't even get in the door, in many cases, before they are turned
away." That kind of discouragement has killed the dreams of millions and millions of women.
8. NGO Forum (China)
I think of the women in the village in Bangladesh, a village of untouchables, I think of
how these women who were Hindus invited to their village for my visit women from the
neighboring village who were Moslems. I think of how those women sat together under a lean-
to. Hindus and Moslems together in one of the poorest countries of the world, but so many of
those women telling me what their lives had been changed to because they had become
borrowers that were now part of the Grameen Bank micro-enterprise effort. I think particularly
Of the play that their children put on for me to see, a play in which the children acted out the
refusal by a family to let a girl child go to school. And then further down the road from the
village, I stood and watched families coming to receive food supplements in return for keeping
their girl children in school.
9. Nicaraguan Institute of Women, 10/12/95
I visited a community bank here in Managua. That bank is controlled by 34 women who
borrow modest amounts of money to invest in their own businesses. They also make sure that
everybody pays back what is owed. And, in stark contrast to the payback rates in my own
country, all these women have paid their loans back, their repayment rate is 100 percent, which
should be the envy of any commercial bank.
10. Microenterprise Summit (Barbados), 5/10/97
My first experience with microcredit came via Mohammed Yunus. In 1986, he came to
Little Rock to help my husband and me understand how the lessons of the Grameen Bank in
Bangladesh could be applied to development in Arkansas. With his guidance, we started the
Good Faith Fund, which is still improving the lives of some of the poorest people in one of the
poorest states in my country.
11. Microenterprise Summit (Barbados), 5/10/97
I will always remember a group of women I met at a FINCA bank in Managua. After
these women described the businesses they had started, I asked them if they had any questions.
One woman stood up and asked me to tell here about women I had met at a microcredit
organization in India. She wanted to know what her counterparts a world away were spending
money on and what businesses they were starting. At that moment, I knew that microcredit was
transforming lives around the globe.
12. Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/96
In Ahmedabad, a textile center in western India there is a woman's bank on the edge of
town founded by a disciple of Ghandi named Ela Bhatt. The bank had one room. The teller's
counter was an old kitchen table. Bank clerks recorded all transaction by hand, on yellow sheets
of paper bound in volumes that looked like worn-out telephone books. I was there for only a few
hours. But in that time I saw women who walked 12 to 15 hours from remote villages to take out
loans - some as small as $1 to invest in dairy cows, plows, or goods they could sell at market.
Women run the bank. Only women are allowed to make deposits and borrow money.
Today this bank has assets of more than $3 million. Its loan repayment rate -- nearly 100 percent
-- would be the envy of most commercial banks. It has nearly 60,000 members - all women,
many of them among the poorest, least educated and most ostracized in India.
Against enormous political, social and economic odds, these women have joined together
in a trade union and cooperative called the Self-Employed Women's Trade Association, or
SEWA (say-wah), that provides them with job training, microcredit and mutual support. One
after another these women have told me how to access to credit has given them confidence in
themselves and their futures. Through SEWA they have been able to increase their earning
power and transform their lives, as well as the lives of their families and communities. Local
government, police and commerce all have felt SEWA's influence.
13. Bulgaria/Czech Republic Trip Information
Dairy farming remains the major source of income for a large percentage of rural
Albanian families. The women, as the caretakers of the cows, therefore play an important role in
the economic stability of their families. By helping the women to produce more and better cow's
milk and by engaging them as effective partners within the dairy industry, they not only enjoy
higher incomes but also higher status. Many project women have proudly told how other village
women now consult them rather than the veterinarian when their cows have problems; and there
are numerous stories of Land O' Lakes women saving either their cow or a neighbor's cow by
applying something they learned in the program
The Land O'Lakes message, "Organize to solve your own problems rather than waiting
for others to solve them," has been taken to heart by the Albanian women. The women's groups
have enabled women to attack larger problems such as portable water and sewage They have
also given rural women a voice to government: several key leaders form the Land O'Lakes
project formed an NGO called Law and Women Rights, which was instrumental in protecting
women's interests when new legislation regarding women's land ownership and sale was
enacted.
14. Bulgaria/Czech Republic Trip Info.
OLMI Milk Products is a small dairy plant located in Kumannovo, Macedonia which
operates out of the family home of the owner, Ms. Olivera Spasic. The business began in 1993,
when Olivera graduated form the University of Skopje with a degree in social sciences. Because
of her father's previous involvement in dairy processing (he's a retired yoghurt and cheese
maker) and her instinct that there was a good market for dairy products, Olivera chose to start a
business making curdled milk. Since then, she has added yoghurt and cheese to her product line.
15. Bulgaria/Czech Republic Trip Info.
Ms. Szijarto also began a project to open a Family Planning Center on the campus of the
University of Timisoara in Romania to meet the needs of the many students, both men and
women. She has also identified a need of some programs for abused women, which she often
sees among the women she treats at her clinic. Ms. Szijarto has also begun to research the
activities of non-profit organizations, because she believes that she may not be able to realize her
goals at the clinic where she currently works. A non-profit will give her the organizational
framework to implement some of the innovative services she would like.
16. Czech Republic/Bulgaria Trip Info.
Founders of the new women's business organization in Southern Europe are stepping out
into the business sphere in response to the call to action issued at CIPE's conference entitled
Organizing for Success: Strengthening Women's Business Organizations to get out into the
community and initiate programs and organizations where women are the priority. This call was
initiated in response to the fact that economic fluctuations within Central and Eastern Europe and
the rest of the world have hit women particularly hard. The public sector before the fall of
communism had been a large employer of women; thus the effects of government downsizing,
increased unemployment and poverty have disproportionately affected women.
An outgrowth of this conference was a network Marta Turk, a Slovenian woman came to
DC last year for the conference, along with a few other women established for Central and
Eastern Europe called the International Women's Academy which will work towards
strengthening women through training and education programs furthered by private business
initiatives. While they haven't actually done anything yet (they are very new) they will
ultimately work to develop a network. The impression is that the NGO world is pretty under
developed in Slovenia and this woman's involvement is viewed as pretty progressive.
17. Czech Republic/Bulgaria Trip Info.
In Albania during times of extreme economic hardships, when families could not afford
to buy a washing machine, a TV set, a refrigerator, and there were no credit systems in place,
women developed structures that today are recognized as credit-unions and have spread all
around the world as a told for the economic empowerment of women. The groups were
organized on a neighborhood or friendship basis. Each member of the group would contribute a
monthly sum to the common fund. The savings would be used by members to buy household
equipment.
18. National Geographic, 10/98
Anowara Begum, a woman from Chamurkhan, a village in Bangladesh, has the only
phone in the village. It's a Nokia cellular phone. She bought it with a loan from the Grameen
Bank and she makes money with it. Instead of selling milk or eggs, as many of her neighbors do,
she sells telephone calls at 4.6 taka (about ten cents) per minute. At this rate, she can pay the
phone bill and weekly loan installment and keep some profit too.
"Every week I make 300 taka ($6.50) from the phone, " she says, "and I repay 160 taka.
In three years the loan will be repaid. In some parts of Bangladesh an illiterate widow with
several children could be destined to beg or even turn to prostitution. But once the loan is paid
off, Anowara Begum stands to net an average of $2 a day more than $700 a year- in a country
with an average annual per capita of about $250.
Sharifa Akhtar Shikha, Anowara's 20-year-old daughter) studies Islamic history at
Dhaka's Jagannath University. "If my mother hadn't gotten the loan, " Shikha says, "it would
have been impossible for me to go to the university. But she wanted me to have a higher
education."
Why? Anowara smiles. "For the future," she answers. "She will be independent and
have more income. And she'll be happy also."
Clinton Presidential Records
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RELIGION
Divider Title:
STORIES: RELIGION
1. Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
My mother taught Sunday school and my brothers and I were there as soon as the church
doors opened not only for services but for all of the activities that were available to young people
growing up in the 50's and early 60's in a suburb of Chicago. My mother of course later
confessed one of the reasons she taught Sunday school was to keep an eye on my brothers, so
they actually showed up after they were dropped off at church.
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WOMEN MAKING A DIFF.
Divider Title:
STORIES: WOMEN MAKING A DIFFERENCE
1. Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
I have seen it (revolution in the world about the roles and voices of women) in Santiago,
Chile where I visited a religious institution and listened as a woman told me that when she got
her small loan to buy a new high speed sewing machine she felt like a caged bird set free. I have
seen it in the faces and activities of women at a housing project outside Cape Town, South
Africa. Women who had lived in shanties and shacks as homeless squatters who decided they
would take a stand for their own futures, their dignity, and build their own houses and again with
the help of a religious institution bought some very scruffy land and began to build.
When I first visited them in 1997 they had 18 homes built and a lot of dreams. But I
asked the group of women before me how many thought they would eventually have their own
home and every hand was raised. When I took my husband back on our recent trip to Africa
there were 140 homes and they had bought the property across the railroad tracks to build 400
more. They had a community center, a day care center and a store and they were letting their
voices be heard.
2. Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
We are seeing women transform from someone who did not believe she had worth, to
someone who understands the contribution she could make to her own life, her family and even
in her community. In Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant women are working side by side
to address the root causes of Secretarian violence. I met with the two women leaders of the
Women's party in Northern Ireland that actually won a place at the table for peace negotiations.
And they recited to me chapter and verse the extraordinary abuse they were subjected to. They
had no right to be there as women, they had no contribution to make and yet day after day they
showed up and they held their ground and they talked about the issues that were on the minds of
women and I remembered very well that when I first went to Belfast meeting with women who
told me how they were crossing those Secretarian lines, because they were tired of seeing their
husbands, and their fathers, and their sons and their nephews gunned down. And as one woman
memorably said, "You cannot fry flags in a pan". And to her that meant all of this violence, all
of this prejudice and discrimination were standing in the way of a better life, for her and her
family.
3. Vital Voices Speech, 7/11/97
On my visits to Central and Eastern Europe, I have heard the sounds of those voices. I
have heard women from many countries articulating their dreams for the world and their lives
after communism. Despite the differences between them, everyone seemed to speak the same
mother tongue - the language of freedom and hope. I heard women's voices in Estonia when I
visited a clinic that is the first in that country to offer a broad range of health services for women.
I heard them in Romania when I met with teachers who are developing a new pedagogy that
emphasizes civic participation and democratic values. I hear them in Ukraine when I met with
nurses who had just started their own professional organization. I heard them in Hungary when I
visited a center that is helping the minority overcome barriers to education, employment and full
participation in Hungarian society. I heard them in the Czech Republic when I met with leaders
of non-governmental organizations who are involved in local projects to protect the rights or
children and to safeguard the environment. I heard them in Belarus when I spoke with women
health professionals struggling to bring quality health care to the critically ill children of
Chernobyl. I hear them in Russia when I talked over the radio with listeners throughout the
country on a women-owned radio station. I heard the voices of women asking "what do we do
now? We are educated; how do we use that education to be part of democracy?" And I heard
them in Poland when I sat around a table with women representing different political points of
view and participated in one of the most important democratic acts, disagreeing with one another
respectfully, as we debated the issues that were important to us. And I heard women's vital
voices in Bosnia where I was told by a teacher how she kept trying to keep her students learning
despite a horrific war. How I was told by health professionals the struggles they faced treating
the wounded and how they were all committed to rebuilding their lives.
4. Vital Voices Speech, 7/11/97
When I am privileged to travel as I do, I always meet with groups of women for informal
discussions. Whether I am in Bangladesh, Romania, Poland, Nicaragua, or Chile, I find that
women have much more in common that might appear on the surface. And yet I also find that
even in those cities where I am meeting with women who represent the academia or the
professions or business or politics, they often do not speak to one another. They sometimes do
not even know one another. They are surprised to learn what the woman down the street is doing
to assist them in their work. We cannot build strong civil societies without working together and
creating associations that enable us to make progress on the issues we care about.
5. Lahore Institute of Management Sciences (Pakistan), 3/27/95
A few weeks ago I met with a group of Pakistani-Americans in Washington who wanted
to make a concrete contribution to promote the education of girls in this, their homeland. They
have decided to endow a scholarship at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. They
have secured the funding for the first year of the scholarship and are in the precess of establishing
an endowment to ensure that every year a woman student, whose family does not have the
resources to finance an education here at LUMS, Pakistan will need in the 21st century.
6. Bulgaria/Czech Republic Trip Info.
Ms. Gordana Stojanovic is the President of the Association for Peace in Baranja, Croatia
an organization which encourages tolerance and aims to decrease regional tensions. She has
spent over three years bringing families back together who were separated by the war. She also
acts as a mediator between former colleagues who are trying to reestablish business ties. The
association has been able to make a genuine impact on the lives of many Croatians. It has
provided legal help and advice to more than 800 people in the region.
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QUOTES
Divider Title:
QUOTES
1. The Arts
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and
philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy in order to give their children
a right to study painting, poetry, music..." President John Adams, NY Times Column, 6/21/95
"If children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can't
imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its
lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America's alienated and disparate
neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart and
then to discover that one is not alone in one's feelings. Once hope and self-esteem have been
engendered, the work of redefining the future can begin." Rita Dove, Poet Laureate, Arts and
Humanities For At Risk Youth, 4/26/96
"It is far too often forgotten that art and life have an inextricable entwined rootage." Robert Penn
Warren, Remarks for Heritage Awards, 9/23/97
"You know a child can be in a gang, or a gang of singers." Choir Director in Oakland,
California, Chicago Public Schools Principals' Luncheon, 6/3/98
"Be a Columbus to whole new continents and world within you; opening up new channels not of
trade, but of thought." Henry David Thoreau, Opening of Thoreau Institute at Walden Pond,
6/4/98
2. Democracy
"For everyday life revolution consists much more of the small things, of sounds, of looks and
images." Croatian writer, Vital Voices Speech, 7/11/97
"Many of us who in recent years strove to speak the truth in spite of everything, were able to
maintain an inner perspective, a willingness to endure, a sense of proportion, an ability to
understand and forgive others and a light heart, only because we were speaking the truth,
otherwise we might have perished with despair." Austrian President Havel, Vital Voices Speech,
7/11/97
"Of course, I will fight with the word; the word is my tool and my weapon. With the word,
which in a fellow human seeks a word, a dialogue, and a discussion, through with truth, not the
Truth, eventually evolves" Spomenka Hribar, Slovenian philosopher, social scientist, and
member of Sloven parliament from 1990-1994.
3. Health
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., World Health Day-World Bank, 4/7/98; World Health Assembly,
5/14/98
"Statistics are people with the tears wiped off." Health care worker, World Health Day-
TheWorld Bank, 4/7/98
"Maternal mortality is not about statistics It's about women who have names, women who
have faces, faces which we have seen in the throws of agony, distress and despair." Dr.
Mahmoud Fathalla, World Health Day-The World Bank, 4/7/98
4. Human Rights
"All people are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, Yale Divinity School, 4/30/98
5. Inspirational
"Shout out! Do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet!" Isaiah 58, Yale Divinity
School, 4/30/98
"Lord help me to remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that you I and together
can't handle." Plaque in office of Janice Anderson, woman affected by micro-enterprise,
Association for Enterprise Opportunity Conference, 4/24/98
6. Women's Rights
"Too many women in too many countries, speak the same language of silence. There must be
freedom if we are to speak and there must be power if we are to be heard. Those of us who have
freedom and power must give voice to those who cannot speak, for as long as women are valued
less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, non schooled, subjected to violence, the potential of all of
us to be God's children, to contribute to a peaceful and prosperous world will not be realized."
Excerpt from a poem written by a college student, USAID Girls Education, 5/7/98
"There are so many poets among women in my land. The mute whose speech is suddently
restored will rend the air with a moan or a shout-- centuries of silence crying to come out."- ?
COMM/RESEARCH
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7:07 No.009 P.03
And what was Dr. Barrinson's reward for his honesty and his
professionalism? He was placed on the insurance company's
"special exceptions" list. You know, that's a list of
troublesome doctors who make the insurance company wait a few
days or a few weeks to determine the bottom line on a particular
patient.
From that point on, the insurance company called Dr.
Barrinson six times in two weeks. Each time he had to be
summoned away from the patient to take the call. Each time he
spoke to a different insurance company representative. Each time
he repeated the same story. Each time he repeated the same
story. Each time his role as the physician was subverted. And
each time the treatment of the patient was impeded.
Dr. Barrinson and you. know that medicine, the art of
healing, doesn't work like that. There is no master checklist
that can be administered by some faceless bureaucrat that can
tell you what need to do on an hourly basis to take care of your
patients; and, frankly, I wouldn't want to be one of your
patients if there were."
(Remarks to the AMA, 6/13/93)
"One nurse told me that she entered the profession because
she wanted to care for people. She said that if she had wanted
to be an accountant, she would have gone to work for an
accounting company instead. But she, like many other nurses, and
as you know so well, many of the people in your offices now, are
required to be bookkeepers and accounts, not clinicians, not
caregivers."
(Remarks to the AMA, 6/13/93)
"I can remember so well sitting in the St. Vincent's waiting
area and talking with a friend of mine who's a physician there
who told me that every day he discharges somebody from the
hospital who needs continuing prescription medication to
stabilize a condition. And every day there is at least one
patient who he knows cannot afford the drug he prescribes. And
so what often happens is that patient decides not to take those
prescription drugs, or to self-medicate. Instead of the four a
day required, maybe only one to stretch them a little further.
And, sure enough, it's not too long before the patient ends up
back in the hospital, costing all of us more."
(Remarks to the Catholic Health Association, 6/9/93)
"Most of you know Monsignor Charles Fahey. Monsignor Fahey
served on our working group on ethics, the group charged with
making sure that the system we develop is driven by fundamental
NUV NOV-09-1998 19:12
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sulless
Stones
Statement of
The Honorable Mark L. Schneider
Assistant Administrator
For Latin America and the Caribbean
U.S. Agency for International Development
before the
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs
Committee on International Relations
U.S. House of Representatives
June 25, 1997
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
It is a pleasure to appear before you this afternoon to
discuss developments in Central America, especially as this
hearing comes so soon after the successful visit of the President
and the First Lady to San Jose. The President met in Costa Rica
with six heads of state, including the Prime Minister of Belize
and the President of the Dominican Republic and reaffirmed our
shared commitment to a common vision for the hemisphere.
That vision, first outlined and agreed to by all 34 elected
leaders of the hemisphere at the historic Miami Summit in 1994,
calls for preserving and strengthening a hemisphere-wide
community of democratic nations, favoring economic integration
and free trade, eradicating poverty and discrimination and
guaranteeing sustainable development and environmental protection
for future generations.
The importance of U.S. interests in Central America is
reflected in the first U.S. Presidential summit meeting in the
region with all of the Central American presidents. The
commitments undertaken by our elected leaders at the San Jose
meeting advance our common goals and promote a new partnership
with Central America and the Caribbean. Developments anywhere in
the Caribbean basin are quickly felt here and actions here have
immense impact on the economies and people of Central America.
The U.S. Government has a strong interest in seeing that the
democratic process in Central America continues its present
course. Today, all the leaders of the region came to power in
free and fair elections. In Nicaragua last fall, for the first
time in that country's history, one elected civilian president
succeeded another. This consensus on the democratic rules of the
game has ended "winner-take-all" politics. In Central America
today, opposition political movements are represented by legal
political parties with representation at the national and local
levels. Armed conflict stemming from ideological divisions has
been replaced by peaceful debate over the competing visions these
leaders have for their countries' futures. Polarization too
often continues to promote zero-sum political strategies but
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compromise is gaining acceptance as an acceptable mechanism to
resolve political controversy.
In the words of the San Jose declaration, the presidents
reaffirmed "the remarkable democratic transformation in Central
America. Central America is now a region of peace, liberty, and
democracy, profoundly committed to a process of integration, in
which a spirit of harmony, cooperation, pluralism and respect for
human rights prevails. This spirit marks an unprecedented era of
stability in Central America."
Stability in Central America also promotes U.S. interests
through the fostering of strong trade relations.. U.S. exports
to the region now exceed $7.5 billion, growing at a rate of 14%
from 1990 to 1995. The exports to these seven small Central
American countries exceed the combined total of U.S. exports to
all of Eastern Europe ($2.2 billion) and the New Independent
States of the former Soviet Union ($3.8 billion).
A more important and telling fact is that these Central
American countries import almost 50% of their goods and services
from the United States. With nearly half their population now
living in poverty, bringing these people into the national
economy will generate even greater demand for goods and services,
resulting in rapid expansion of U.S. exports and the jobs
associated with those exports.
Prosperity and stability in Central America also will
decrease immigration pressures. As a direct result of the
civil war in El Salvador, between the years 1980 and 1990, 12.7
percent of the 1985 Salvadoran population --some 600,000 people -
- entered the United States. During the same time, only 19,000-
-about 0.7 percent of population--came from Costa Rica.
USAID'S ROLE
The U.S. Agency for International Development plays a
critical role in supporting U.S. foreign policy interests through
its programs of sustainable development assistance. In Central
America, those interests are clustered around three complementary
themes: completing the transition from war to peace, promoting
sustainable development and advancing regional integration. All
three of these themes were at play at the San Jose Summit and the
final declaration once again demonstrated the political will of
the region's leaders to work together to carry out the ambitious
vision for a prosperous, democratic region.
A.
CONSOLIDATING THE PEACE PROCESS
Mr. Chairman, last month I witnessed the final end of the
Cold War in Central America.
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I had the honor of accompanying Secretary Albright to the
Guatemalan demobilization camp at Tululche where the last of
nearly 3,000 former combatants of the Guatemalan civil war were
making plans to rejoin civilian society. With the December 29,
1996 signing of the final peace accords in Guatemala which
formally ended over three decades of war, the last of the
region's civil conflicts has been brought to an end.
Now, the challenge will be implementing the ambitious
social, economic and political goals outlined in the accords,
encompassing hundreds of government commitments. This can be
done only through the collective efforts of the Guatemalan people
and the international donor community, including the United
States.
I led the U.S. delegation to the January Consultative Group
meeting at which the U.S. Government pledged $260 million over
four years to assist Guatemala in turning the vision outlined in
the accords into a reality. Our early and significant commitment
was important in generating donor support that resulted in total
pledges of $1.9 billion from the international community in
support of the Guatemalan plan to implement the Peace Accords.
All of us who have followed Guatemala recognize that these
accords represent the best opportunity ever to address the
underlying economic and social impediments to Guatemala's growth
and integration into the region's and the world's economy.
The first task was to ensure the success of the
demobilization and reintegration program. Mr. Chairman, I am
pleased to report that USAID, working closely with the UN
Development Programme (UNDP), the European Union, the OAS and
PAHO helped in the successful demobilization of the 2877 ex-
combatants. These former guerrillas were in eight camps where
they spent approximately 60 days receiving food, medical
treatment, basic literacy and civic education. Surveys were
conducted to determine the educational and skill level of each
ex-combatant as well as their vocational preference and intended
destination after they left the camps.
The majority of the ex-combatants have now left the camps
after turning in their remaining weapons and receiving
citizenship documents and have been placed in communities. Each
departing ex-combatant has been given a stipend for three months
and will receive follow-up assistance (vocational education,
scholarships, agricultural extension and microcredit) to help
them reintegrate into the productive life of the country. All
but one of the camps have been dismantled, but it is now a
halfway house for demobilized ex-combatants who have not yet been
resettled. These ex-combatants are receiving vocational
education until they are finally resettled. The construction
materials from the dismantled camps have been provided to
surrounding communities for local development projects.
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202 216 3012 P.07
When I was in the camps, I had the opportunity to talk with
the last few ex-combatants preparing to leave. They spoke of
their hopes of returning to their homes, or becoming farmers or
auto mechanics or opening a small business.
USAID, in close collaboration with other donors, will be
supporting vocational education, agriculture training,
scholarships and other programs to help the ex-combatants
reintegrate into productive civilian society. USAID will
continue to track their progress over the next year to ensure
their successful reincorporation into civilian life.
USAID has reoriented its ongoing development program to
focus on geographic areas most affected by the conflict and areas
with the most severe poverty. Programs include judicial reform
and strengthening democratic institutions and processes, family
health, sustainable natural resources management and poverty
alleviation through economic growth.
This integrated package of development assistance programs,
combined with the additional resources made available to support
the peace process, represents the best opportunity in a
generation to attack the fundamental problems in Guatemala. I am
particularly interested in having USAID and other donors address
child and adult literacy, particularly in the indigenous
community. With nearly half of the Guatemalan population of
indigenous origin, Guatemala's future success depends on their
successful incorporation into the political and economic life of
the country.
In El Salvador, the transition from war to peace is
approaching a successful
conclusion. Since the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords
in January of 1992, the U.S. Government has dedicated its
resources to ensuring their successful implementation through the
National Reconstruction Program. Today, some 35,000
beneficiaries of the Land Transfer Program have received title to
their land and the majority are farming it productively.
Approximately 101,000 (71% men and 29% women) received vocational
and technical training, or high school or university-level
education. Over 94,000 beneficiaries were given agricultural or
microenterprise credit. Credit was channeled through some 50
NGOs and the Agricultural Development Bank.
As a result of microenterprise training and credit, many
fledgling entrepreneurs were able either to launch new businesses
or expand existing enterprises. After receiving credit and
technical assistance, an estimated 73% of male and 71% of female
beneficiaries were able to earn greater incomes. As a result,
the overall household incomes of beneficiary families grew by
an average of 35%.
4
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202 216 3012 P.08
Approximately 136 NGOs (125 Salvadoran and 11 international)
have participated in the NRP, channeling about $100 million to
beneficiaries.
Nearly 11,000 ex-FMLN, 11,000 ex-government troops, and over
4,000 demobilized members of the National Police force have
received benefits from the NRP, including credit, starter kits
(tools and household furnishings), medical care, land, shelter,
vocational training, counseling, and academic scholarships.
Nearly a quarter of the 10,000 kilometers of roads damaged
in the former conflictive zones were improved, thereby benefiting
every resident of the NRP zone.
An estimated 365 open municipal town meetings have been held
in the 115 NRP municipalities, and 89% of the 871 cantones
participated in these meetings. That shows an increase in
turnout of 15% from 1994 to 1995.
A recent survey of more than 1,000 USAID-assisted ex-
combatants found 4 out of 5 ex-combatants consider themselves to
be fully reintegrated into productive civilian life as a result
of all of the aforementioned transition to development
activities.
Over the past five years, we have also supported the
Salvadorans in achieving major goals called for in the Accords:
--
the creation of a new civilian police force, which is
carrying out its duties in a much more professional,
apolitical manner.
:
passage of key judicial reforms called for by the Truth
Commission, including a new Criminal Procedures Code
(which sets forth the process by which an individual
will be tried); a Criminal Code (which stipulates
penalties for crimes) and a Sentencing Law. In
addition, Truth Commission-mandated Constitutional
reforms were passed which included protection of the
right of habeas corpus and a reduction in the duration
of administrative detention.
:
And four key electoral reforms needed to broaden
citizen participation and modernize electoral systems
(creation of a national registry and single voter
identification card; professionalization of the Supreme
Electoral Tribunal; proportional representation on
municipal councils and residential voting) have yet to
be fully implemented. We view these as key electoral
reforms essential to fully realize the goals of the
Peace Accords.
5
NOV-09-1998 19:14
USAID/AA/LAC
202
Mr. Chairman, last month I met with Hector Silva, the newly-
elected mayor of San Salvador. He spoke of the successful
electoral coalition that he forged from across the political
spectrum. The acceptance of the transition of power in the
capital city by the ARENA party, complete with customary calls of
congratulation, concession speeches and the usual day-after post-
mortems by party leaders and political commentators took place in
El Salvador. For anyone who has followed that country for the
last 15 years, these free and fair local and parliamentary
elections, accepted as legitimate by winner and loser, represent
a major advance in consolidating democracy.
Earlier this year, I testified before the Subcommittee on
the three transitions unfolding in Nicaragua: from war to peace;
from dictatorship to democracy and from centralized, command
economy to a market-driven economy. Within the last five years,
Nicaragua has made significant progress, with our help.
Nicaragua today is at peace, enjoys political stability, and is
rapidly becoming an open, market economy. Nicaragua's economic
situation has improved markedly since 1990.
USAID assistance has contributed to the following
accomplishments:
The holding of free and fair elections in 1996, with a
76% participation rate resulting in the first transfer
of power between two democratically elected presidents
in over 100 years;
A reduction in inflation from 13,000% in 1990 to 10.8%
in 1996 and an increase in GDP growth rate from 0.0% in
1990 to 4.2% in 1995 and 5.5% in 1996 due to a
successful economic stabilization program;
Reform of a banking system which in 1990 was a state
monopoly. In 1996, the private banks handled 70% of
the deposits and loans in the financial sector;
-
In 1990, private capital was flowing out of Nicaragua
at the rate of about $200 million a year. Since 1994,
private capital has been flowing into Nicaragua at over
$150 million each year;
-
U.S. exports to Nicaragua have grown from $2 million in
1989 to $260 million in 1996;
-
Nicaragua's non-traditional agricultural exports have
risen from almost nothing in 1991 to more than $85
million in 1996;
Grade repetition has dropped from 41% to 26% of first
graders; and more students are completing sixth grade
6
9
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of these products to the U.S. reached a level of $333 million in 1995, rising
from just $85 million in 1985. More important, small producers benefitted
from the majority of these exports.
*
MICROENTERPRISE. In El Salvador last year, USAID-financed activities
reached over 30,000 borrowers and nearly 10,000 depositors. In Guatemala,
USAID assistance to Guatemalan credit unions and a private NGO
microenterprise lender ("Genesis Empresarial") has permitted the sustained
provision of savings and loan services to over 200,000 low income clients using
locally mobilized resources. In Honduras, USAID-assisted NGOs have nearly
40,000 borrowers which represents about 21% of all micreonterprises in the
country. The NGO network in Honduras currently has 1150 village banks and
nearly 1200 solidarity groups. ACORDE, a Costa Rican umbrella organization,
established with USAID support in the early 1990s, provided $4.9 million to
some 40 NGOs benefitting 22,000 individual microenterprises. In Nicaragua,
USAID support for ACCION, Catholic Relief Services, Opportunity
International, FINCA and Pro Mujer will result in the provision of financial
services for 51,000 clients of whom 80 percent are women.
In El Salvador, a woman named Hortensia Contreras Linares was selling small
cakes on the side of the road and barely making enough to feed herself. With
the help of a small loan $46 dollars -- she began to sell soda and ice along
with the cakes and bought better baskets and equipment for her roadside
market. Three weeks later, she was robbed. She lost everything. But that
didn't stop her. Hortensia re-sestablished her shop inside her home. She was
able to expand her business and she plowed her profits into improving her
business and her home. In five years, these improvements have totalled $8000
dollars. She has purchased two real beds, added a second room, paid for an
electric hook-up, a cement patio for cooking, two refrigerators for the store, a
television and a new stereo. Hortensia, who is nearly illiterate, was recently
elected to serve as the president of her village bank group. She is a leader and
a role model.
EDUCATION: In Honduras more than 70 percent of 14 year olds graduated
from the sixth grade in 1996 compared with 50 percent in 1985 and more than
40,000 adults had completed the ninth grade through the alternative basic
education program compared with only 5,000 in 1994. In Nicaragua, over five
million modern primary school textbooks purchased by USAID have benefitted
over 750,000 children in improved quality education. In Guatemala, our Girls'
Education program is increasing opportunities for rural indigenous girls to
8
$
10
NOV-09-1998 19:15
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202
216
ELECTIONS:
With respect to the historic elections in Nicaragua, I want
to highlight The nonpartisan Ethics and Transparency (ET), Nicaragua's first
domestic election monitoring organization, which fielded 4,200 volunteer
election observers and conducted a parallel vote tabulation of actual election
results. The Washington Post commented that the USAID-supported ET
played a crucial role during the election and will be important to Nicaragua's
development into a pluralistic rather than polarized society. In El Salvador,
USAID programmed $1.5 million to assist the Supreme Electoral Tribunal
(TSE) make improvements to the electoral process in 1997 and finance NGO
civic and voter education activities, facilitating delivery of voter identification
cards, printing of posters and other materials to assist voters understand voting
day procedures.
RULE OF LAW: In Honduras for the first time in history corrupt judges are
being investigated and prosecuted and the number of these cases pursued by the
Public Ministry increasing from 73 in 1995 to 136 in 1996. In December
1996, the first trial in Guatemala to employ all aspects of the new criminal
procedures code successfully took place with USAID/MINUGUA trained judge,
prosecutor, and defense attorney, as well as a translator, demonstrating that rule
of law and due process have finally become possible for Guatemalan citizens.
Working with a reform-minded Supreme Court and Attorney-General, USAID
is helping Nicaragua modernize its judicial sector. USAID has provided
assistance in reforming antiquated laws dating from the previous century,
including the Organic Law, and we are currently assisting in drafting
Nicaragua's first Administrative Procedures Code. In addition to code reform,
prosecutorial services are being improved through assistance to the Attorney
General's Office. A public defenders program will be launched later this year.
10
NOV-09-1998 19:15
USAID/AA/LAC
Health and Population
USAID assistance in the health sector is improving health status of children
under five and their mothers through a variety of interventions: vaccination programs,
oral rehydration therapy, maternal health care, family planning, nutrition interventions
and the development and construction of rural water and sanitation systems. In
Honduras, rural water/sanitation programs have helped drop diarrheal diseases from
the first to the third leading cause of death among children. With USAID help,
Honduras has achieved a 95% vaccination coverage for polio, tuberculosis and DPT
(diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus). In Guatemala the infant mortality rate declined
from 73 per 1000 in 1987 to 51 per 1000 in 1995, a reduction of 30%. In Nicaragua
the number of couples using modern contraceptives exceeded 224,000 in 1996, more
than 2 1/2 times the level of usage in 1992.
Environment
In Panama, USAID focuses on promoting sustainable protection of the Panama
Canal Watershed in order to ensure the long-term viability of canal operations.
USAID is working with the Government of Panama and non-governmental
organizations to monitor changes in forest cover, water quality, erosion and siltation
rates, and biodiversity, and to develop a management plan for the watershed. This
plan includes demarcating boundaries of national parks and strengthening an ecological
trust fund that provides a self-sustaining funding source for NGO-run environmental
activities and park protection.
On a regional basis, the Parks in Peril program, a partnership between USAID.
The Nature Conservancy, and local conservation NGOs, has greatly improved
protection of six Central American parks, covering approximately 2.5 million acres.
Critical accomplishments include: (a) enabling four of these parks to persist without
additional USAID funding: (b) adding over 120,000 acres of critical wildlands under
legally protected status; (c) eliminating 90% of the illegal incursions into Sierra de las
Minas Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala, by improving guard training and community
relations; and (d) improving the economic well-being of indigenous people in Belize,
Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama. Five of these park sites form part of the Paseo
Pantera, an important biological corridor whose protection will greatly enhance the
biodiversity of the region. An additional Parks in Peril site in the Honduran
Mosquitia, cofinanced by PROARCA, our regional environment program run out of
Guatemala, is expected to begin implementation this year.
11
12
NOV-09-1998 19:15
USAID/HH/LAC
among bilateral donors: Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Germany and
Canada, which have significant assistance programs throughout the region
The results of the coordination are impressive. In Honduras and El Salvador,
and now beginning in Guatemala, the bureau has worked with the World Bank and the
Inter-American Development Bank to develop significant and innovative judicial
reform activities that expand upon USAID's pioneering work. In El Salvador,
USAID's health and education programs served as a catalyst for comprehensive health
and primary education reforms financed by the two banks. Bilateral cooperation is
pursued through our Common Agenda with the Japanese and the Transatlantic Agenda
with the European Union. Collaboration includes work with the Japanese on civil
society strengthening in El Salvador and a joint study with the European Union on
where Central America will be in the year 2020.
Bureau representatives actively participate in the regularly scheduled country
consultative group meetings for each of the Central American countries hosted by the
Inter American Development Bank. Participation includes the collaborative
preparation of an analytical agenda for the meetings and a thorough discussion of
recent trends affecting the economic and social development of the country. To insure
continuity and compliance with the recommendations of the consultative groups,
USAID has assigned staff representatives to each of the U.S. executive directors'
offices at the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.
Threats to the Region
While we are able to document solid progress across the board in our
sustainable development, it is clear that this progress could be put in jeopardy by the
threats that still exist to the peaceful, democratic development of the region. Chief
among these threats is poverty. While nominal growth rates are satisfactory, they
mask the fact that nearly half the region's people live in poverty. Too many children
go to bed hungry, too many men and women lack the opportunity for work and for
the means to make a better life for themselves and their families.
Our challenge is to broaden the gains of economic growth and expanded trade
through policies that reach down to the local village level. It means increased
expenditures on health and education as the long-term key to economic growth and
success. It means relieving the barriers to women that prevent them from holding
property or gaining credit to start small businesses and microenterprises. It means
promoting labor standards that protect workers and seeing that these labor codes are
enforced to ensure that the benefits of increased trade are shared throughout the
economy. Finally, it means developing strong local governments where people have a
14
13
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P.14
NOV-09-1998 19:16
USAID/AA/LAC
greater say in the decisions that affect their every day life. It is my view that the
greatest protection against a return to authoritarian solutions of the past is having
efficient, transparent and participatory local governments operating with the
confidence of the people they govern.
Promoting respect for the rule of law is paramount if we are to assist these
countries in responding to the growing problem of international crime, including drug
trafficking, illegal immigration, stolen cars, money-laundering as well as a host of
their domestic crime problems. Geography and a long history of weak institutions
make the region vulnerable to the operations of international criminal organizations.
At the same time, the region's grinding poverty provide ample incentive for people to
pursue illegal forms of enrichment at a tremendous cost to the country's development
and social fabric. Finally, a strengthened rule of law promotes predictability and
accountability which is needed to draw the levels of private investment needed to spur
the region's economic and technological growth into the next century. Without it, the
region will suffer as investors choose other options in the region and outside of it.
Finally, there are a number of threats to our shared environment. The
continuing degradation of Central America's natural resource base is reducing its
overall productivity and potential for future broad-based economic growth. Further
deterioration is likely to affect the stability of fragile democracies by limiting the
opportunities for poverty alleviation and the maintenance of adequate water supplies.
Our challenge is to assist these nations in responding to three major threats:
(1) Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss: Central America is losing
1.6% of its tropical forests every year one of the highest rates anywhere.
Two thirds of this loss has occurred in the last forty years. Currently, less than
40% of the region's original forest remains. Deforestation is the primary threat
to the region's biodiversity, which represents 6% of the world's total, and
damages watersheds essential to provide adequate water supplies to
communities and hydroelectric utilities.
(2) Environmentally unsustainable agricultural practices: Although
improved agricultural practices exist which are both environmentally and
economically sustainable, most Central American farmers use agricultural
techniques which lead to profound deforestation, soil erosion, and especially the
dangerous overuse of pesticides. Central America has the world's highest per
capita usage of pesticides, with 75% of them banned in the U.S. Although
ecological affects of pesticide overuse are poorly documented, they have likely
affected local water quality, and led to the evolution of pesticide resistance by
15
14
NOV-09-1998 19:16
USAID/AA/LAC
agricultural pests.
3) Urban and Industrial Pollution: Of the seven countries in Central America
the average population growth between 1985-1990 for urban areas was double
that of the rural areas, placing a great stress on city services. The combination
of chemical residues and toxic waste from industrial development, unsanitary
water, and motor vehicle emissions pose a major health hazard, particularly for
the poor, the elderly, children, and pregnant women. Disposal of raw sewage
in ocean outfalls is also the norm. Ninety percent (90%) of all Central
American sewage is untreated, thereby leading to health problems (e.g., of the
over 30 million people in the region, only 63% have access to potable water
supplies), and negatively impacting coastal ecosystems.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, the San Jose Declaration opens a new relationship between the
United States and the countries of Central America, a relationship based on shared
principles - -- democracy and open markets and a common approach to the problems
that plague the region. The answers to illegal immigration, drug trafficking, crime,
poverty, pollution in the long-term are addressed through sustainable development:
economic and social growth that will allow all the people the region to enjoy
democratic freedoms and economic opportunity in a way that is sensitive to the needs
of the environment.
We do face many challenges in the coming decade. Dealing with these threats
will call on the economic, diplomatic and political resources of all of our nations. But
I think it is safe to say that the U.S. Government, the governments of the countries of
Central America, the private sector, non-governmental organizations here and in the
region are all united like never behind a vision of a common destination. While there
are liable to be twists and turns in the road, the forces of history, geography and
above all, our common interest in seeing a secure and prosperous region, will ensure
that we reach that destination together.
16
15
TOTAL P.15
From [email protected] Wed Jun 3 12:42:24 1998
W
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 12:41:02 -0400
From: "Maxwell J. Barrington" <[email protected]>
Subject: Inbound-White_House_WWW_MAIL => FIRST_LADY
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PERSONAL-NAME: Maxwell J. Barrington
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ORGANIZATION:
RELATIONSHIP:
STREET-ADDRESS: 2926 South Outer Drive
CITY:
Saginaw
STATE-PROVINCE: MI
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48601
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[Message]
Dear Mrs Clinton,
I am very thankful to have this opportunity to send you a
letter over the Internet. Please don't think that my letter
is "corny" but I am 43 years old, and I am not
well versed in political protocol. Nonetheless, I'll
get right to the point. As an African American, I want to say
that I am so very proud of you and Mr Clinton. When your
husband was named President I almost cried. Ever since you
and Mr Clinton have been in the White House, you have
consistantly demonstrated that we can live together,
regardless of race, creed, or religion. I have never seen a
First Lady or President take so many pictures with minorities,
or even take the time to do something like hold an African
American child in your lap, and have the whole world see this
in the news paper; or travel to Asia and other underdeveloped
countries and try to help. I know these things are small in
terms of your enormous responsibilities, but for me, I have to
say that I am deeply touched. You and Mr Clinton are doing a
wonderful job, and I can honestly say that in my heart, I
strongly feel that I am speaking for nearly all minorities in
America when I say that you are the most beautiful, gracious,
and intelligent First Lady that we have ever had, and that Mr
Clinton, in spite of all of the opposition from his
adversaries, is, and will always be, out greatest President.
May God be with you both.
Maxwell J. Barrington
2926 South Outer Drive
Saginaw, MI 48601
THE WHITE HOUSE
Christy / bourn- -
of thrught their might
be of intent if you und
speed matured on
women and social
security.
area
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Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
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AND TYPE
001. email
Michael Schwartz to the Mrs. Clinton re: personal (3 pages)
01/26/1999
b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
First Lady's Office
Lissa Muscatine
OA/Box Number: 21396
FOLDER TITLE:
Stories and Quotes
2015-0275-S
re1922
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - 144 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - 15 U.S.C. 552(b)]
P1 National Security Classified Information [(a)(1) of the PRA]
b(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA]
b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute |(a)(3) of the PRA
an agency [(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information [(a)(4) of the PRAJ
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
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information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
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personal privacy |(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
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PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
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2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
COMM/RESEARCH
2024562239
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SEP 21'93
7:05 No .009 P.01
FIRST LADY HEALTH CARE ANECDOTES
"I went to a forum, a community college, and there were a
humber of excellent presenters. But the one who sticks in my
mind was a practicing physician who came with his stack of forms,
he pulled out and he said, I want to show you this form. It's
the government form for me to get reimbursement if I take care of
Forms
a patient that can be paid for by government money. It's on 8
1/2" by 11" paper, and it's in red ink. It says HIFCA Form 1500
on top of it. Now, let me show you a form from a private
Insurance company. It is on the same size paper and the same
color ink, but it has the name of the insurer on top. I cannot
send the HIFCA 1500 form to the insurer, I have to fill out a
whole second form. And, he said, that is just the top of the
iceberg.
(Interview with Ron Fournier, AP, 3/8/93)
"So it is in our interest to reach universal coverage as
soon as possible. I mean, I had another example of that in New
Orleans the woman who told me she didn't have insurance and,
yet, she tries to take care of herself so she goes for a yearly
checkup every year, so she saves and affords that, well, she had
a mammogram which found a mass in her chest and she was referred
to a surgeon, the surgeon said, well, I would do a biopsy, but
since you don't have insurance, we'll just watch it.
Do you know how much cheaper a biopsy is than a mastectomy?
So it makes no sense."
(Interview with Ron Fournier, AP, 3/8/93)
"or to listen to a veteran in that same group (working
people from New Orleans) who had worked in that same business for
many years but who wasn't eligible for VA benefits because he
didn't have a service-connected disability and he was working and
wasn't poor enough to access the VA system. So, again, without
insurance the emergency room was his physician. And he talked
about how he hated to go to the emergency room because it was
always so expensive. He tried no to go, but the times that he
did have to go often he couldn't pay the bill he was presented.
And he felt bad about that as well."
(Remarks at Health Care Briefing, Lincoln, NE 4/16/93)
"Many of the farmers and ranchers in this state are like the
ones that I met in Iowa when I sat for over an hour and listened
to four farm families talk to me about how they could not afford
insurance. And these were people who put literally the food on
our table. And what they did was despite the fact it made no
COMM/RESEARCH
ID:2024562239
SEP 21'93
7:06 No.009 P.02
sense by any accounting measure, they just squeezed every dollar
out of everything else so that they paid for those very expensive
single-family policies that they were able to access.
or they even went through their local farm bureau; but
because it wasn't a very big policy or they had a preexisting
condition, they were still paying more and more every year with
the cost continuing to escalate.
And I sat there in the living room of this farmhouse
thinking to myself: Why on Earth would we want, literally, to
drive out of business, which is what we are doing, farm families
and ranch families who are still among the most productive
workers in our entire country? Why would we want our government
to look at their balance sheet when they come in for some kind of
loan from some government-supported program and have the
government representative say, you know, you're not really in a
good position to borrow as much money as you want because your
assets are obviously highly mortgaged. You can't really afford
much but if you cut out your monthly health insurance, we think
we can make this work for you? Why are we doing that to
ourselves, why are we doing that to the people who work for us?"
(Remarks at Health Care Briefing, Lincoln, NE, 4/16/93)
"One man who owns a small family bowling alley has one
employee. That one employee had a son with a serious illness and
the illness was one that was difficult to continue to insure for
and the costs continued to go up. And the owner looked at me
with tears in his eyes and he said, 'Look at the choice I'm asked
to make. This man has worked with me like a member of my family,
And now I'm either going to have to make a decision to just cut
him and his family off of health insurance or to tell him to see
if there's any other place he can go to work where he might get
in, but I've checked for him and I don't think that's possible.
or to continue to try to pay the insurance when we don't make all
that much money. What am I supposed to do?'"
(Remarks at Health Care Briefing, Lincoln, NE 4/16/93)
"Dr. Bob Barrinson, one of the practicing physicians who
spent hours and hours working with us while also maintaining his
practice, told us recently of an experience that he had as one of
many. He admitted an emergency room patient named Jeff. Jeff
suffered form cirrhosis of the liver and ---, Dr. Barrinson put
him in the hospital and within 24 hours received a call from
Jeff's insurance company. The insurance company wanted to k ow
exactly how many days Jeff would be in the hospital and why. Dr.
Barrinson replied that he couldn't predict the precise length of
the stay. A few days later the insurance company called back and
questioned whether Jeff would need surgery. Again, Dr. Barrinson
said he wasn't sure.
COMM/RESEARCH
:2024562239
SEP 21'93
7:07 No.009 P.04
values, shared responsibilities, social justice. Monsignor Fahey
has confronted the fragmentation and backward incentives of our
long-term care system first hand. He took a month off this year
to care for both his parents, seriously ill, in order to keep
then out of a hospital or a nursing home. As he struggled to
nurse his parents back to health in ways that met their needs and
maintained their dignity, he took on a system that looked at the
moving parts but never at the whole system. As the Monsignor put
it, 'We've got a system that cares for the eye or the foot or the
nose, but never for Charlie or Elizabeth.'"
(Remarks to the CHA, 6/9/93)
"Another example from my visit to St. Agnes: That hospital,
as many of yours do, runs an adult day care center. And what
they found is that they couldn't get reimbursed on even a sliding
scale to help keep their patients and their families from the
neighborhood at home. And so what often happened is that,
although nursing home care is so much more expensive, the $35 a
day for adult day care in a hospital setting was beyond the
financial reach of so many families that they went ahead, met the
Medicaid requirements and, very regretfully, put their relatives
in a nursing home."
(Remarks to the CHA, 6/9/93)
"I am especially proud that one work of the Catholic Health
Care providers in Arkansas was recognized this year, and I'm
speaking about the wonderful work in caring for the needy by the
St. Elizabeth Health Center in Gould, Arkansas, which serves a
community that other health care providers have abandoned.
For the 1,500 residents of a community like Gould out in the
country, the nearest doctor was out of reach. Many people didn't
have transportation and couldn't reach even the facilities 18
miles away, But about three years ago St. Elizabeth's set itself
up in an old police station and it's been filling the critical
health void in that community ever since."
(Remarks to the CHA, 6/9/93)
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information |(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
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personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
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Des Moines
IOWA
SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL I: CONTROLLING COSTS
C002] Coo
(b)(6)
Paul Nannis. Commissioner. Health for the City of Milwaukee.
Mr. Nannis, the Commissioner of Health for the City of Milwaukee, knows the cost
benefits of prevention well. A measles outbreak in 1989 cost the city $5 million. Had at-risk
populations been immunized for about $300,000, such an extensive and expensive outbreak could
have been avoided; 4.7 million additional dollars would have been available for community
health care needs. Mr. Nannis is a long-time Wisconsin resident active in numerous local and
national professional organizations.
Tom Child, President, Des Moines Stamp Co.
Mr. Child, President of the Des Moines Stamp Company, recently had to reduce his
company's contribution to family insurance coverage. Soaring insurance rates forced him to
change a longstanding company policy, reducing the company's contribution from 100 to 50
percent. The company employs 41 people. The rise in insurance rates, due in part to health
problems of five members of Mr. Child's group, has also forced cuts in health benefits offered
employees. Employee pre-existing conditions prevent Mr. Child from switching to another
carrier.
Gerard Stanley, M.D.
Dr. Stanley is a family practitioner at a rural health clinic in Iowa. He is concerned
about the effect managed care will have on rural health clinics. He is a member of the
Legislative Committee, Iowa Academy of Family Practitioners. Dr. Stanley was formerly
Associate Clinical Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado and Medical
Director of a PPD in Colorado from 1987 - 1989.
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information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
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P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy |(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRAJ
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes |(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
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SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL II: PEACE OF MIND
[003]
(b)(6)
Russ Sporer, Insurance Agent
Mr. Sporer, an independent insurance agent, serves small businesses, groups of up to 200
people and individual policy holders. Among problems he has encountered and tried to help
address are people once identified "high-risk" who become uninsurable, job loss leading to loss
of insurance, and cost shifting from people who are uninsured to those who have insurance.
Vivian Lynn, R.N. Dickinson Public Health Nursing Service
For Vivian Lynn, Nurse Administrator for Dickinson Public Health Nursing Service, the
shortage of primary care physicians is all too familiar. Recently designated a medically
underserved area, Dickinson County serves a rural population; over one quarter of its residents
are elderly. The county lost one physician last year due to retirement and faces the retirement
of another physician soon. Despite the expected addition of 8 new physician in 1994, Dickinson
County is likely to continue to have an inadequate number of physicians.
Vivian Lynn is an RN who has 26 years of experience providing public and preventive
health services in a rural setting.
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SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL III: RURAL HEALTH
Glee Christ, R.N. Holy Family Hospital
Ms. Christ was forced to travel over 140 miles roundtrip from her home in Lakota to
Mason City for routine prenatal care and for the delivery of her baby. Two hospitals are located
between Lakota and Mason City. One no longer provides obstetrical care because the surgeon
on staff left; the other hospital closed and provides only clinic services. She continues to travel
to Mason City for her child's health care as her community has no pediatricians. Ms. Glee is
frustrated by the fact that people in rural areas pay the same amount for insurance premiums as
people in more populated areas who have better access to health care.
Ms. Christ is a nurse at Holy Family Hospital in Estherville, IA.
Donna Sloan, Mayor, Ogden, Iowa
Over the past year Ogden Mayor Donna Sloan has tried aggressively - and without
success to recruit a physician for her town of 2,000 residents. For many years, the
community had two physicians. One was lost recently to retirement, and the remaining
physician is approaching retirement age. Ogden is part of Boone County; local analysts estimate
on a per capita basis the County needs at least five additional doctors to assure residents
minimum levels of needed care.
Mayor Sloan is a native Iowan who serves both as Ogden's Mayor and as a clerk in the
Ogden Post Office.
Craig Thompson. D.O. Strawberry Point Medical Center
Dr. Craig Thompson is in his 14th year of family practice in Strawberry Point, IA. The
community has approximately 1,400 residents but the population served is larger. Provider
burn-out is a familiar theme; the imbalance of community health needs and limited medical
resources requires him to schedule patients as late as 10:00 p.m. Among his many professional
and public activities, Dr. Thompson is President of the Clayton County Medical Society and
Medical Director for the Northeast Iowa Emergency Medical Services Council.
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Edward R. Maahs. CEO, Stewart Memorial Hospital
Edward Maahs is Chief Executive Officer of Stewart Memorial Hospital and
Administrator of the adjacent McCrary Rost Clinic. Through what Mr. Maahs terms "managed
cooperation," these two institutions have demonstrated how to meet rural health care needs
effectively through integration of services. The arrangement results in considerable cost savings
because it eliminates duplication of services. Mr. Maahs is also the Chairman of the Iowa
Hospital Association and has served on the Governor's Rural Health Task Force.
Fritz Wenzel, Executive Director, Marshfield Clinic
Fritz Wenzel, Executive Director of the Marshfield Clinic, has overseen the development
and growth of one of the largest rural group practice HMO networks in the country. Under
Wenzel's direction, the Marshfield Clinic, a 400-physician multispecialty group practice with
a 60,000 member HMO, serves central and northern Wisconsin through its center in Marshfield.
23 rural primary and primary/secondary care rural health clinics are also served through
Marshfield.
Mr. Wenzel has been Marshfield's Executive Director for the past 16 years. He is
President of the American College of Medical Group Administrators and Chairman of the Health
Care Economics Committee of the American Group Practice Association.
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Deeroorn
MICHIGAN
SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL I: CONTROLLING COSTS
Andrea Hayosh-Welborn, Dental Hygienist, Warren, Michigan
Andrea Hayosh-Welborn graduated from dental hygiene school ten years ago and
has worked at the same office ever since. Her insurance costs are not fully covered by
her employer, and her husband, a small business owner, has a policy which covers only
him. As a result, she purchases insurance for herself and her 6-year old son. She has
seen her premiums rise an average of twelve to fifteen percent every six months, and in
an effort to limit her costs, she was recently forced to change carriers and is continuing
to look for more affordable insurance.
Dr. Federico Mariona, Chairman, Department of OB/GYN, Providence Hospital
Y
Dr. Federico Mariona was recently named Chairman of Department of Obstetrics
and Gynecology at Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan. He was previously a
professor of OB/GYN at Wayne State University, in Detroit. Mariona has received many
grants to study a variety of issues, ranging from preterm birth prevention to attempting
to identify mothers who are likely to give birth to premature infants.
A native of Argentina, Dr. Mariona has been in the Detroit area since 1968. He
will address the issues and costs that face physicians in the practice of defensive
medicine.
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P3 Release would violate a Federal statute [(a)(3) of the PRA]
an agency [(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information [(a)(4) of the PRA]
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
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P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA]
b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
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an agency [(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information [(a)(4) of the PRA]
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes |(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
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SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL II: PEACE OF MIND
Lisa Brown, Iron River, Michigan
As a resident of a small rural community, Lisa Brown has experienced difficulty
obtaining basic primary and pediatric care for herself and her family. The mother of two
children, one with special health care needs, Brown often has to drive at least 90 miles
to receive needed medical care. The only realistic alternative for Brown and other
community residents when they need basic care is the local emergency room since, with
only three doctors in town, residents often confront significant backlog when attempting
regular office visits.
Brown lives in the small town of Iron River on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
with her two children, one of whom requires specialized eye care.
[0.5]
(b)(6)
Jannet Edison, RN, Detroit Receiving
Jannet Edison has been an Emergency Room nurse at Detroit Receiving Hospital
since she completed her nursing school studies in 1989. Ms. Edison will detail the costs
and consequences of treating the numerous patients forced to use emergency rooms as
their only source for primary care. Detrolt Receiving treats patients with and without
insurance, serving all income levels.
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Panel Two Biographies, Page Two
Giles G. Bole, M.D., Dean, University of Michigan Medical School
Dr. Giles Bole has been the Dean of the University of Michigan Medical School
since 1990. He has been a professor of Internal Medicine as well as Chief of the
Rheumatology Division and held a variety of other administrative posts at the Medical
School. He has been affiliated with the University for over forty years, attending as an
undergraduate and medical student and subsequently joining the faculty in 1959. Dr.
Bole has served on many national and state boards and professional societies,
particularly relating to rheumatism and arthritis.
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SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL III: CHALLENGES FACING
INDUSTRIAL REGIONS
Peter Pestillo, Executive Vice President, Corporate Relations, Ford Motor Company
As Executive Vice President of Ford, Peter J. Pestillo supervises Employee
Relations, Governmental Affairs and the Dealer Policy Board. Mr. Pestillo joined Ford in
1980 and has held a variety of positions with the Corporation including Vice President for
Labor Relations and for Employee and External Affairs. Before coming to Ford, he was
vice president for employee relations at B.F. Goodrich and held industrial relations
positions with General Electric.
William Hoffman, Ph.D., Director, Social Security Department, UAW
William Hoffman is the Director of the UAW Social Security Department. He is
responsible for health care, retirement, disability and layoff income protection issues, both
in the public policy and collective bargaining arenas. He has eighteen years of
negotiating and program design and administration experience within the automobile,
aerospace and agricultural implement industries and with numerous other companies
across the U.S. and Canada. He is a director of two social research foundations, is an
Adjunct Progressor of Sociology at Wayne State University and represents the UAW on
several private and governmental boards and committees.
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Panel Three Biographies, Page Two
Bonnie Dellinger, Office Manager, R & R Management
Small business office manager Bonnie Dellinger deals with the difficulties of finding
affordable insurance for a 55-person property management firm. She has been with
R & R Management, which manages 3000 apartments in the Detroit metro area, for 32
years. R & R Management has found success in buying group rates with Blue
Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan, but faces a continuous struggle with increasing costs.
They cannot afford to offer family coverage for their employees.
Cynthia Taueg, Director/Health Officer, Wayne County Health Director
Cynthia Taueg has been the Director/Health Officer of the Wayne County Health
Department since 1990. She is responsible for policy making, administration, and the
operation of a local health program serving 1.1 million people, with a budget of $27
million. The programs and services that the Health Department oversees include:
immunizations, communicable disease control, AIDS counseling and testing, school
hearing and vision centers, family planning, WIC, prenatal care, pediatrics, air pollution
control, emergency medical service coordination, and environmental protection.
Before joining Wayne County's Department of Public Health, Taueg worked at the
Detroit Health Department's Public Health Center in administrative roles and as a public
health nurse. She has served on several task forces, covering issues ranging from infant
mortality to child abuse and neglect.
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FLORIDA
SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL I: PEACE OF MIND
Frances Hightower
Frances Hightower is a 59-year-old resident of Tallahassee facing many dilemmas
common to Americans taking care of elderly parents. Over the past decade, her family's
medical problems have had a dramatic effect on her life, as she has had to give up her
career, move, and mortgage her, her brother's, and her family's homes.
Her 85 year-old mother suffers from Alzheimer's disease and other related
disorders. She is incontinent and unable to bathe, eat, or transfer without assistance.
Her 86-year old father was attacked in his home last year by an intruder, suffering a
concussion from which he has never fully recovered. The resulting, persistent vision
problems, dizziness, vertigo and other physical ailments leave him ill-equipped to care for
himself or his wife. Ms. Hightower's 62-year old brother, a diabetic who suffers from
mental retardation, also lives with her parents.
The financial strains of caring for her mother have been immense. Her mother's
condition does not meet the criteria to qualify for Medicare "skilled" nursing home care,
and her monthly income of $1337, from state retirement and social security, puts her over
the income bracket to qualify for Medicaid by just a few dollars.
In 1992, Ms. Hightower's hopes were raised when the State of Florida's Eldercare
program began providing 35 hours a week of personal assistance for her mother a week
through a Nursing Home Diversion Program. However, the number of hours of care was
reduced to 20 in September due to budget cuts, and, soon, because the program is being
moved under Medicaid, she will no longer be eligible for care through this program at all.
Last year, Ms. Hightower spent more than $20,000 on caregivers for her family,
including someone to live with her parents. The money she collected from mortgaging
the family's homes can only be stretched for a few more months, yet while her funds are
diminishing, her family's needs will only continue to grow. She cannot afford to place
them in nursing homes, but she will not be able to keep them in their own home for much
longer.
As devastating to Ms. Hightower as the cost is the amount of time and energy she
has had to devote to her parents' care. In 1983, she left her job in Washington as Staff
Director at the National Academy of Sciences and now works as a public information
specialist at the Department of Professional Regulation in Florida. Currently, her life
revolves around caring for them or paying for their care. She spends 20 to 30 hours a
week engaged in such tasks as, paper work, arranging or accompanying her parents on
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doctor's visits, dealing with insurance or health care providers, or monitoring her parent's
medication. It is a constant job, and yet, according to Ms. Hightower, she still always
feels like her efforts are inadequate.
As she faces the future, Ms. Hightower is very concerned, not only about her
plight, but that of thousands of other caregivers who share similar emotional and financial
burdens.
Jeffrey A. Heath, President, Management Recruiters
>
Jeffrey A. Heath is President of Management Recruiters, a Manhattan-based
executive search firm. He has owned the business for twelve years, employing seven
full-time and two part-time employees. The firm specializes in filling middle and upper
level management positions.
The firm has always provided insurance for its employees, even though its
premiums have risen 500 percent since 1981. However, in the face of New York State's
community rating law, Mr. Heath's insurance carrier has notified him several weeks ago
that they are terminating coverage effective April 1st. Since that time, Mr. Heath has
been exploring possible alternative insurance coverage and has found that his family
rates could cost $11,500 per year (up from $3500 under the current policy) and individual
rates may rise as much as $2,400. Given these costs, the company is still uncertain how
to provide coverage after April 1st.
Mr. Heath will discuss how, prior to five or six weeks ago, he shared a certain
sense of complacency concerning his and his company's health insurance situation. As
with many Americans, he took for granted many aspects of his health care situation,
including the availability of insurance coverage. The termination notice, however, has
forced him to spend enormous energy and time researching possible alternative coverage
and has awaken him to the precarious insurance situation that many Americans face.
Mr. Heath is particularly concerned with the impact that the new community rating
law in New York state will have on small businesses. As Mr. Heath points out, the only
sector of the economy that has shown the ability to generate jobs recently is small
business, and it is important to ensure that the burden of paying for health care reform
does not fall disproportionately on their shoulders.
Mr. Heath is also concerned with the speed with which New York state's law went
into effect and the limited amount of time that it allowed companies and insurance carriers
to prepare for the changes it entailed. He is hopeful that any national reform will allow
adequate time for businesses and Individuals to plan and adjust their coverage.
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SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL II: DELIVERY SYSTEM REALITIES
Joseph Von Thron, M.D.
Joseph Von Thron is a 65 year old family practitioner from Cocoa Beach, Florida.
He has practiced medicine for 35 years in Cocoa Beach where he was the first doctor to
open a permanent practice. He has always been a family doctor, with an office open
seven days a week, and he has practiced in partnership with his medical school
roommate for the last twenty-five years.
Dr. Von Thron is past president of the Florida Medical Association and past
president of the Florida Academy of Family Physicians. In 1980, he was Family Doctor
of the Year and was one of Good Housekeeping Magazine's top ten family doctors in the
United States that year. He is currently chairman of the Florida delegation to American
Medical Association. He speaks today in his personal capacity as a family doctor,
concerned about the future of medical practice in this country.
Dr. Von Thron describes himself as proud to be a family doctor and proud that his
two sons and a daughter-in-law are doctors as well. He feels lucky to be a doctor, and
more importantly, to be a doctor in the United States.
In addition to pride in his profession, Dr. Von Thron expresses fear and concern
about the direction in which medicine is heading. He says, for instance, that he no longer
offers polio immunizations to children in his care. He pays $10.40 per dose for the
vaccine, while the Health Department pays $1.04 per dose. So he suggests that families
go to the Health Department where they can get the vaccine for free. Of course. this
works to the detriment of the family, which has to make yet another appointment,
sometimes across town and sometimes in neighborhoods that are not particularly safe.
Other aspects of health care today concern him as well, all of which drive up its
costs:
First, the difficult question of providing care to terminal patients in their last days
of life and its accompanying costs and benefits;
0
Second, the expectations of patients who demand entire batteries of tests and
procedures because insurance or the government will pay;
Third, lawyers and the impact of the threat of litigation on the growing practice of
defensive medicine;
Fourth, the burden of paperwork, which can take over half of a doctor's time; and,
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Finally, the doctors themselves who knowingly do extra, sometimes unnecessary,
tests in order to provide themselves the economic return to cover ever-increasing
overhead.
These are some of the issues which Dr. Von Thron will raise in his testimony and
which he hopes can be addressed by national health care reform. Dr. Von Thron remains
optimistic about the future and hopeful that family doctors can be a part of the solution,
as the country tackles the difficult problems of national health care reform.
Frederick J. Wenzel, Executive Director, Marshfield Clinic
Frederick "Fritz" Wenzel has overseen the development and growth of one of the
largest rural group practice HMO networks in the country. Under Wenzel's direction, the
Marshfield clinic, a 400-physician multispecialty group practice with a 60,000 member
HMO, serves central and northern Wisconsin through its center in Marshfield. Mr. Wenzel
has been Marshfield's Executive Director for the past 16 years. He is President of the
American College of Medical Group Administrators and Chairman of the Health Care
Economics Committee of the American Group Practice Association.
Wenzel will discuss how the service delivery system at the Marshfield clinic can
be successfully adapted as a model for reforming the national system of health care
delivery. Marshfield provides a seamless system of care from primary through tertiary
services through physician providers and affiliation with rural hospitals. Wenzel will
discuss how this form of service delivery can work in inner cities as well as rural areas.
Wenzel sees many benefits to the HMO model of service delivery:
o Captures integrated information on enrolled members, allowing for identification
of needed preventive services, facilities, and the targeting of populations in need
o Encourages integration with hospital systems and the establishment of primary
health care networks
O Provide cost-efficient, competitively priced services
Wenzel is particularly hopeful about the benefits that will emerge from integration
among providers. This has already happened at Marshfield whose physicians work
closely with affiliated rural hospitals. Consultants are sent to rural hospitals and
physicians' offices to provide services as close to the patient as possible. Through this
arrangement ancillary services such as clinical and anatomic pathology,
echocardiography, and cerebral vascular studies are provided throughout the state.
Wenzel will also discuss the barriers to developing integrated systems. They
include antitrust questions of physician ownership and referral, tax issues related to the
corporate practice of medicine, state health planning and Certificate of Need laws,
existing federal legislation, and lastly, the legal status of health systems.
COMM/RESEARCH
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7:16 No.009 P.20
SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL III: CONTROLLING COSTS
Richard F. O'Brien, Vice President, General Motors
Richard O'Brien was appointed vice president of General Motors Corporate
Personnel in June of 1992. Prior to this, he was vice president of the Industrial Relations
Staff and of Personnel Administration and Development. He is responsible for developing
policies and administering GM's compensation planning and personnel departments,
which includes responsibility for the corporation's health benefits policy.
Mr. O'Brien will be discussing the impact of the rising cost of health care on
General Motors' finances and operations. GM is the largest single provider of health care
in the private sector in this country, responsible for nearly 1.8 million employees, retirees
and their family members. GM shares the concern of the country's large businesses that
the increasing share of GNP taken up by health care is crowding out sales, investment
and jobs in the non-health care sectors of the economy. They are also particularly
worried about the discriminatory effect that health care costs have on companies with
older workers and large numbers of retirees.
O'Brien will discuss how companies particularly feel the effects of these rising costs
when competing in the international arena. For instance, when BMW opens a plant in
Spartansburg, South Carolina, it has an automatic competitive advantage because of the
differences in the health care structure between Germany and the United States. GM has
no such advantage when it operates abroad. As an additional illustration of this
competitive disadvantage, at its transmission plant in the Detroit area, health care costs
exceed $5.00 per hour. Across the border at its transmission plant in Windsor, Canada,
they are only $1.50 per hour -- or a difference of $7000 annually per employee. Health
costs add $1400 per car to the cost of each automobile GM produces, as calculated
under new accounting procedures effective this year.
The projected continued upward spiral of health costs is of utmost concern to G.M.
If changes are not made in the health system, O'Brien projects that auto production in this
country could decline by 800 to 900,000 units, costing as many as 120,000 jobs. The
$300 billion (5 percent of GNP) projected increase in national health expenditures by the
turn of the century is larger than the value of the annual contribution to GNP by the entire
U.S. automobile industry.
These facts and figures demonstrate, according to O'Brien and numerous other
representatives of corporate America, the need for immediate reform to preserve the
ability of America's corporations to compete in today's global economy.
COMM/RESEARCH
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SEP 21'93
7:16 No.009 P.21
Thomas W. Chapman, President/CEO, Greater Southeast Healthcare System
Thomas Chapman has been president of the Greater Southeast Healthcare System
(GSHS) since 1981. He was previously President of the Greater Southeast Community
Hospital, a 450-bed urban hospital under the auspices of GSHS. His board memberships
include the D.C. Hospital Association, of which he is immediate past chair; the Group
Health Foundation Minority Training Program, where he is current chair; and The
Healthcare Forum.
GSHS is the parent company for a network of hospitals, nursing homes, home care
services, pharmacies, medical office buildings and community outreach programs in the
Washington D.C. area. He has seen first hand the structural incentives to increase costs
that are inherent in hospitals and other health delivery systems and he has direct
experience with the difficulties involved in managing large, complex organizations.
Chapman believes there should be three primary focuses for reducing health care
costs:
o
Reducing preventable and avoidable hospital admissions
O
Reducing extensive hospital-based speciality and high tech care
o Refocusing existing and new resources on social and health care services
stressing prevention
To achieve these goals, Chapman will discuss GSHS's philosophy that reform must
take a long-term rather than the short-term view of health care and must effectively
involve communities and citizens as partners. GSHS has implemented several
community based programs that embody these principles effectively: (1) The Breast
Cancer Screening Community Project which involves community based education, referral
and mammography screening; (2) The Neighborhood Blood Pressure Screening and
Education Project which for eight years has used 400 volunteers in churches,
barbershops and other community organizations to screen community residents and refer
those with high blood pressure for treatment; (3) The Serving Spoons Project, a
volunteer-based program that provides nutrition and socialization to hospitalized frail
elderly who would otherwise be in nursing homes.
Chapman believes that health reform must be community based and that strategies
must be designed to reach beyond traditional health institutions to respond directly to the
problems of the people who ultimately end up in the health care delivery system as
expensive and difficult problems.
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FOLDER TITLE:
Stories and Quotes
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P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRAJ
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an agency [(b)(2) of the FOIA]
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b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information [(a)(4) of the PRA]
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
COMM/RESEARCH
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SEP 21'93
7:17 No.009 P.22
D.C.
SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL I: CONTROLLING COSTS
Loob
(b)(6)
Dr. Arturo Perez, Private Practioner, Winter Haven Hospital
Dr. Arturo Perez has been in private practice of internal medicine, geriatrics, at
Winter Haven Hospital since 1972. He Is the chairman of the Polk County Blue Ribbon
Commission, a body organized under the auspices of the County Commission and the
Governor of Florida to study the health care needs of Polk County. As a private practice
physician, he has been active in meeting the needs of the underpriviledged and elderly.
Cindy Nagel, Owner, Fantastic Sam's
Cindy Nagel, and her husband Fred, own three Fantastic Sam's franchised hair
salons in Tampa with over forty employees. She also works parttime for the Florida
Perinatal Association. She has been an active spokesperson on behalf of small business
owners on the issue of health care. She moved from Texas with her husband and
children to Florida nine years ago to become small business owners. She has testified
and spoken publicly on the issue in an effort to raise national awareness of the problems
facing small businesses.
COMM/RESEARCH
ID:2024562239
SEP 21'93 7:18 No.009 P.23
Speaker Profiles
Rindy Rudy, Director of Prospective Payment, Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems
Rindy Rudy is the director of prospective payment, in which she heads up the cost-
savings program at the Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems. They have embarked on
an ambitious and creative program of cost cutting through outcome review, and has been
a leader in establishing information systems to compare regional, state and national
norms on cost-effectivesness and quality. To assure goals are met, ORHS developed
a process to analyze the system data, identify trends and make recommendations to
improve the cost and quality of care.
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007. list
re: Speaker Profiles Panel II [partial] (2 pages)
09/21/1993
b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
First Lady's Office
Lissa Muscatine
OA/Box Number: 21396
FOLDER TITLE:
Stories and Quotes
2015-0275-S
rc1922
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - 144 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - 15 U.S.C. 552(b)]
PI National Security Classified Information [(a)(1) of the PRA]
b(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA]
b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute [(a)(3) of the PRA]
an agency [(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information |(a)(4) of the PRA]
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information |(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy 1(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions |(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
COMM/RESEARCH
ID:2024562239
SEP 21'93
7:18 No.009 P.24
SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL II: PEACE OF MIND
[009]
(b)(6)
Dr. Marcos Lorenzo, Medical Director, Family Care Medical Center
Dr. Marcos Lorenzo is Medical Director of the Family Care Medical Center at
Tampa General Hospital has experienced and witnessed the extreme lengths physicians
must go to in order to justify preventive procedures in a manner insurance companies will
approve for coverage. Among such preventive medical procedures are immunizations
and mammograms.
Dr. Lorenzo is the Medical Director of the Family Care Medical Center at Tampa
General. This is the ambulatory care/primary care clinic at the local public hospital in
Tampa. He is a strong advocate of universal coverage and preventive medicine. His
clinic is one of those funded under the Hillsborough County half-cent sales tax initiative
to provide coverage to uninsured county residents.
COMM/RESEARCH
ID:2024562239
SEP 21'93
7:19 No.009 P.25
Speaker Profiles
Anne Scupholme, Chief Nurse Midwife, Jackson Memorial Hospital
Anne Scupholme is the chief nurse midwife in the obstetric unit at Jackson
Memorial Hospital in Miami, the second largest public hospital in the country. The
hospital's obstretric unit serves twelve hundred women each month. All are poor, some
are medicaid eligible, others have no health coverage. Most patients have no easy
access to routine primary care.
Ms. Scupholme believes health care consumers should have guaranteed
government access to a system that provides primary care at insurance or government
cost, provides for identification of a primary care provider and system quality assurance
measures. Until basic system issues are addressed, these problems will continue.
Anne Scupholme, CNM, MPH is the Chief Nurse-Midwife at Jackson Memorial
Hospital, in Miami and an adjunct Associate Professor, University of Miami, School of
Medicine. After obtaining her basic training, she has worked in hospitals, homes, and
birth centers in England, Jamaica, and the United States. She is currently a board
member of the Division of Research, American College of Nurse-Midwifes and project
manager for a research project, entitled Nurse-Midwifery Care to Vulnerable Populations,
which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
(b)(6)
COMM/RESEARCH
ID:2024562239
SEP 21'93 7:19 No.009 P.26
SPEAKER PROFILES
PANEL III: OLDER AMERICANS
Speaker 1
We are still searching for an elderly couple whose drug costs are uncovered.
Bob Bobo, Owner, Davis Island Pharmacy
Mr. Bobo has owned the Davis Island Pharmacy since 1984. Prior to that, he
worked as a pharmacist for Walgreen's. The Davis Island Pharmacy is community based,
and, as the owner, Mr. Bobo has become increasingly concerned with the rising costs
pharmaceuticals incurred by the current system. In particular, he notes that for insurance
purposes some of his elderly customers are directed to pharmacies that are too far away,
or they are forced to use mail order supply houses to get their medications. Mr. Bobo is
also a member of the Hillsborough County Pharmaceutical Association, the National
Association of Retail Druggists, and the American and Florida Pharmaceutical
Associations.
Frances Hightower
Frances Hightower is a Tallahassee resident who has been frustrated in her efforts
to find and afford care for her ill, elderly parents. Her 85 year old mother is disabled by
Alzheimer's Disease; her 86 year old father is unable to care for himself or to help care
for Ms. Hightower's mother or her 62 year old retarded, diabetic brother who lives at
home with them.
Neither Medicaid nor Medicare is available to cover the care Ms. Hightower's
mother requires. In fact, because of $1396 monthly income from State retirement and
social security, Medicaid benefits were denied.
The Alzheimer's program of Eldercare pays a caregiver 8 hours a week. Ms.
Hightower's mother requires 24-hour care, 7 days a week. Last year, over $20,000 was
paid to caregivers.
COMM/RESEARCH
ID:2024562239
SEP 21'93
7:20 No.009 P.27
She has been forced to mortgage her family's home her home and her brother's
home. Most of that money has been spent and, at the current rate, the balance will be
gone within the next 3-6 months. Her family has no other resources and cannot afford
the $2,000 monthly fee for nursing home care her mother requires.
COMM/RESEARCH
ID:2024562239
SEP 21'93 7:20 No.009 P.28
Speaker Profiles
Patricia Pier, Continuing Case Management Nurse, University of Miami/Jackson Medical
Center, Family Practice Services, Foresee Programs
Patricia Pier's background as a public health nurse, a continuing care specialist,
a clinical nurse and as a utilization review specialist brought her to the Foresee Program
a year and a half ago. On a daily basis, Pier deals with patients who have had such
fragmented care that they have seen no result despite thousands of dollars worth of
medical treatment.
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.
-- "My Day" Newspaper Column, October 15, 1947
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never,
for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Catholic Digest August 1960, p. 102
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
One thing life taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for
new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one
thing, it will always lead to something else.
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
This I know. This I believe with all my heart. If we want a free and peaceful
world, if we want to make the deserts bloom and man grow to greater dignity as
a human being-we can do it!
-- Tomorrow Is Now 1963
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up
wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special
value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.
-- Speech, United Nations December 1952
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
We cannot exist as a little island of well-being in a world where two-thirds
of the people go to bed hungry every night.
-- Speech, Democratic Fund-Raising Dinner December 8, 1959
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
We must be willing to learn the lesson that cooperation may imply compromise,
but if it brings a world advance it is a gain for each individual nation.
-- "My Day" Newspaper Column, January 21, 1946
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
They Israelis are still dreamers, but they make their dreams come true
-- Quoted by Ruth G. Michaels in Hadassah December 1962
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to
home-so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.
Yet they are the world of the individual persons; the neighborhood he lives
in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he
works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal
justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these
rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without
concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain
for progress in the larger world.
-- Speech, "The Great Question," " United Nations 1958
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you
really stop to look fear in the face.
- - "You Learn by Living" 1960
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
1884-1962
American. First Lady, Social Reformer
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience
in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
-- "You Learn by Living" 1960
Born: October 11, 1884 in New York, NY. Died: November 7, 1962 in New York,
NY.
Career Highlights: Married Franklin D Roosevelt, 1905; US representative to
UN, 1945, 1947-52, 1961; often chosen in polls as world's "most influential
woman."
Also known as: Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt; The First Lady of the World
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-- "You Learn by Living" 1960
1
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Gale's Quotations
Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
1884-1962
American. First Lady, Social Reformer
You seem to think that everyone can save money if they have
the character to do it. As a matter of fact, there are
innumerable people who have a wide choice between saving and
giving their children the best possible opportunities. The
decision is usually in favor of the children.
-- Letter to Franklin Roosevelt III, January 15, 1962
Born: October 11, 1884 in New York, NY. Died: November 7, 1962 in New York,
NY.
Career Highlights: Married Franklin D Roosevelt, 1905; US representative to
UN, 1945, 1947-52, 1961; often chosen in polls as world's "most influential
woman."
Also known as: Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt; The First Lady of the World
1
Copyright (c) 1995 Gale Research Inc.
THE COLUMBIA
WORLD OF QUOTATIONS
Search Results for: Roosevelt, Eleanor
all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through
many compromises.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), U.S. First Lady, author, and speaker. As
quoted in Eleanor and Franklin, ch. 27, by Joseph P. Lash (1971).
Stated in 1925.
Copyright 1996 by Columbia University Press All Rights Reserved.
THE COLUMBIA
WORLD OF QUOTATIONS
Search Results for: Roosevelt, Eleanor
As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and
work broadened and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade
an issue. When I found I had something to do-I just did it.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), U.S. First Lady, author, and speaker. As
quoted in Eleanor and Franklin, ch. 35, by Joseph P. Lash (1971).
In a Washington Herald interview in 1933, her first year as First Lady.
She had been asked how she overcame her youthful shyness to become an
influential political personage.
Copyright 1996 by Columbia University Press All Rights Reserved.
THE COLUMBIA
WORLD OF QUOTATIONS
Search Results for: Roosevelt, Eleanor
As with all children, the feeling that I was useful was perhaps the greatest joy I
experienced.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), First Lady of the United States, author,
speaker, and diplomat. This Is My Story, ch. 1 (1937).
Copyright 1996 by Columbia University Press All Rights Reserved.
THE COLUMBIA
WORLD OF QUOTATIONS
Search Results for: Roosevelt, Eleanor
I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it
with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), U.S. columnist, lecturer. Today's
Health (Chicago, Oct. 2, 1966).
Copyright 1996 by Columbia University Press All Rights Reserved.
THE COLUMBIA
WORLD OF QUOTATIONS
Search Results for: Roosevelt, Eleanor
The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the
great religions of the world. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Christ, some of
the other great Jewish teachers, Buddha, all preached it. Their followers forgot
it. What is the trouble between capital and labor, what is the trouble in many
of our communities, but rather a universal forgetting that this teaching is one
of our first obligations.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), First Lady of the United States, author,
speaker, and diplomat. As quoted in Eleanor and Franklin, ch. 27, by
Joseph P. Lash (1971).
Written in 1925, before her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had yet
been elected President.
Copyright 1996 by Columbia University Press All Rights Reserved.
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free
public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for
personal responsibility that too often is neglected.
-- "Let Us Have Faith in Democracy", Land Policy Review, Department of
Agriculture, January, 1942
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be
objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is
both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and
deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no
one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.
-- It Seems to Me 1954
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
A society in which everyone works is not necessarily a free society and may
indeed be a slave society; on the other hand, a society in which there is
widespread economic insecurity can turn freedom into a barren and vapid right
for millions of people.
-- Speech, "The Struggle for Human Rights," Paris September 27, 1948
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
a trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree that
we do-namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the
world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most
generous and harmless intentions.
-- "My Day" Newspaper Column November 11, 1946
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
1884-1962
American. First Lady, Social Reformer
As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things
came along.
-- New York Times October 8, 1954
Born: October 11, 1884 in New York, NY. Died: November 7, 1962 in New York,
NY.
Career Highlights: Married Franklin D Roosevelt, 1905; US representative to
UN, 1945, 1947-52, 1961; often chosen in polls as world's "most influential
woman."
Also known as: Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt; The First Lady of the World
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
Change means the unknown.
It means, too many people cry, insecurity.
Nonsense! No one from the beginning of time has had security.
-- New York Times Magazine, November 3, 1963
1
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Gale's Quotations
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
Could we have the vision of doing away in this great country with poverty?
.
what can make us not only the nation that has some of the richest people in
the world, but the nation where there are no people that have to live at a
substandard level. That would be one of the very best arguments against
Communism that we could possibly have.
-- Speech, Democratic National Convention August 13, 1956
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
Do what you feel in your heart to be right-for you'll be criticized anyway.
You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
1
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Gale's Quotations
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't
enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
-- Broadcast, Voice of America, November 11, 1951
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
I believe that it is essential to our leadership in the world and to the
development of true democracy in our country to have no discrimination in our
country whatsoever. This is most important in the schools of our country.
-- Letter to Richard Bolling, January 20, 1956
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
I could not, at any age, be content to take my place in a corner by the
fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be
kept alive. The fatal thing is the rejection. One must never, for whatever
reason, turn his back on life.
-- New York Herald Tribune October 11, 1961
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
I have spent many years of my life in opposition and I rather like the role.
-- Letter to Bernard Baruch, November 18, 1952
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
I have spent many years of my life in opposition and I rather like the role.
-- Letter to Bernard Baruch, November 18, 1952
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their
judgment will be in favor of the many, as against the privileged few.
1
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Gale's Quotations
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me understand something, it
would be clear to all the other people in the country.
-- Newspaper column, "My Day", February 12, 1947
1
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.
-- "My Day" Newspaper Column, June 15, 1946
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Copyright (c) 1995 Gale Research Inc.
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Gale's Quotations
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
It isn't within my hands to resign or not to resign. Each of us does that
automatically.
-- Letter to Bernard Baruch, November 18, 1952
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Copyright (c) 1995 Gale Research Inc.
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Gale's Quotations
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Eleanor (Anna Eleanor) Roosevelt
It seems to me . we have reached a place where it is not a question of
"can we live in the same world and cooperate" but "we must live in the same
world and learn to cooperate." "
-- Letter to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, February 14, 1958
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Copyright (c) 1995 Gale Research Inc.
STORIES: Healthcare
1. GW Commencement Speech, 5/8/94
I was in the Children's Hospital in Cleveland talking to parents, as some of you now are
and as many of you will be in the next few years, parents who did not know that when their
children were born they would face serious chronic illnesses. And I had a mother say to me that
she and her husband both made a good living, they both were well educated, they'd had one
healthy child and then two children, two little girls, born with serious health problems.
They had always paid for insurance; they had always counted on it. But all of a sudden,
those two little girls were not insurable, and they went from place to place looking for insurance.
They didn't want a handout, they wanted to pay their way. But no one would insure two little
girls against certain and expensive medical care because they were sick.
And finally, the mother told me that she realized she would never, under any current
system, be able to insure her daughters when a man across a table she was begging for some way
to get insurance looked at her and said, "You just don't understand. We don't insure burning
houses." Think, if you will, all of us who are mothers, how we would feel if that had been said
about one of you, one of our children."
2. GW Commencement Speech, 5/8/94
I think about the man who grabbed my hand as I left a speech here in Washington and
said to me, you know, I didn't really understand what you and your husband were talking about.
I've always been pretty healthy. But I have a secretary in my office who told me what had
happened in her family, where two of her grandchildren, tow cousins who lived in the same big
old rambling house, both got sick.
One of those little cousins was the child of a family with insurance. She was taken to the
hospital, she was diagnosed with meningitis, she was admitted, and she was cured. The other
little cousin also had meningitis, but her family didn't have any insurance. They took her to one
hospital; they were referred to another hospital. They sat in the emergency room and went
through all the rigmarole that we go through to try to prove that we deserve to have medical care,
and finally she was looked at, given two baby aspirins, and sent home. She died on the day her
cousin was discharged. The little brother of the girl who died came down with the same illness.
The hospital that had turned away his sister took him on as a charity case.
I don't want another year to go by where we have to hear stories like this. Not one of our
children deserves to have any of that happen to him.
STORIES: Personal
1. Wellesley Commencement Speech, May 29, 1992
I remember one very long night when my daughter, Chelsea, was about four weeks old
and crying inconsolably. Nothing from the courses in my political science major seemed to help.
Finally, I said, "Chelsea, you've never been a baby before, and I've never been a mother before,
we're gong to have to help each other get through this together."
2. UPENN Commencement Speech, 5/17/93
My father, if he were here today, would tell you that the reason I have changed from
being a Goldwater Girl, to a Democrat is because I went to college. Not that he didn't approve of
my going to college, he always believed in education but that I came out different than what he
had sent.
STORIES: International
1. University of Illinois Commencement, 5/15/94
A few days ago I was honored to be a part of the American delegation that attended the
inaugural of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. I wish everyone of you could have been there
with me. It was both an incredibly moving experience. But also one that confronted those of us
who were there with profound questions about our commitment and conviction to freedom and
democracy.
I sat and watched a man take the oath of office, and two other men; one, his comrade of
many years, the Deputy President Embekki; the other, his foe over many years, Deputy President
DeClerk. Three men, who despite enormous differences in a far away land, torn by racial strife
and hatred and violence that we cannot even imagine, join together in a vision of a new South
Africa.
The inaugural ceremony was especially moving because of the speech that President
Mandela gave, because of the platform which consisted of Black and White and Colored citizens
of South Africa, because of the presence of the military and security forces both on the platform,
in their uniforms, and in a display of a 21 gun salute and a fly-over of the most advanced military
equipment committing itself to the new South Africa.
But the highlight of the entire inaugural came for me later at a lunch where President
Mandela stood and talked about he had invited to his inaugural ceremony three of his former
jailers. This is a man who was in prison for 27 years -- longer than many of you have yet lived -
- in the constant confinement and under the watchful supervision of jailers.
And yet because he was a man who understood that real change must come from within,
who understood that and incorporated the message of love and forgiveness that too many of us
only give lip service to, he learned to love his jailers. And they in turn learned to love him.
They no longer saw each other as stereotypes, as people who came from different backgrounds.
But they broke through the barriers, that divide us even in this country, to see each other in their
full humanity.
Eleanor Roosevelt and Universal Declaration By HRC
1. Column, 10/14-15
One thing I've learned since becoming First Lady is that wherever I go, Eleanor Roosevelt
has surely been there before me. I've been to farms in Iowa and factories in Michigan where Mrs.
Roosevelt paid a visit half a century ago. I've been to schools and colleges named for Mrs.
Roosevelt and walked the halls of hospitals she toured before I was born.
Even when I go to other countries, Mrs. Roosevelt has doubtless been there first. When
my daughter and I went to Pakistan and India last spring, we discovered that Eleanor Roosevelt
had traveled there in 1952, and even had written a book about her trip.
2. Column, 10/14-15
Traveling now through South America, I find myself thinking often about Mrs. Roosevelt.
And I'm convinced that if she were still alive today, nothing would thrill her more than coming to
watch children perform at the Circus School in Brazil. It's a place I'm visiting on this trip where
runaway children learn the principles of discipline and teamwork, and build self-confidence
through acrobatics and trapeze training. Not only do these children show a renewed interest in
education and improved attendance in school, they perform before sellout crowds every weekend.
3. Column, 10/14-15
Wherever she went, Mrs. Roosevelt celebrated the richness of the human experience. She
appreciated every person's potential to do something great with very little. Perhaps that is why
people all over the world, including here in South America, remember her with such admiration
and fondness. She was in the words of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, "a woman for all times
and all people."
4. Column, 6/4/96
Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Blanche Wiesen Cook both have shared their
thoughts about Eleanor Roosevelt, someone I wish I could have talked to in person about the role
of the First Lady. In fact, I occasionally have imaginary conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt to try
to figure out what she would do in my shoes. She usually responds by telling me to buck up or at
least to grow skin as thick as a rhinoceros.
5. United Nations Economic and Social Council Chamber, 12/10/97
Some of humanity's greatest lessons emerge only after the deepest tragedies. This
Declaration took shape in a world ravaged by the horrors of militarism and fascism. In the wake
of the most violent revelations of the depths to which human being can dehumanize one another,
the world as whole was ready at last to agree upon those standards for human rights.
Thankfully, in the half-century since the birth of the Declaration, we have as a global
people managed progressively to expand the circle of full human dignity. Because of this
document, individuals and nations alike have a standard by which to measure fundamental rights.
Many of the countries that have emerged in the last 50 years have drawn inspiration from the
groundwork for the world's war crimes tribunals. And it has prompted governments to set up
their own commissions to safeguard basic liberties.
6. United Nations Economic and Social Council Chamber, 12/10/97
And yet some critics continue to dismiss women's suffering as minor. But are they? In
1958 Eleanor Roosevelt wrote: Where do human rights begin? In small places, close to home, so
close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of
the individual person the neighborhood he lives in, the factory, farm, or office where he works.
Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity,
equal dignity without discrimination Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little
meaning anywhere.
7. POTUS Remarks in honor of Human Rights Day, 12/9/97
Under the wise, compassionate leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, half a century ago 18
delegates from China to Lebanon, Chile to Ukraine forged the first international agreement on the
rights of humankind. On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the
Universal Declaration without a single dissenting vote. I am very proud that the First Lady, who
has traveled the world to advance human rights, especially for women and young girls, will take
part in tomorrow's United Nations commemoration.
Over the past half-century, the Declaration's 30 articles have formed a constellation of
principles to which all people can aspire. They have entered the consciousness of people all
around the world. They're now invoked routinely in constitutions and courts. They set a
yardstick of humanity's "best practice" against which we must all now measure ourselves.
But as Eleanor Roosevelt said, words on paper bring no guarantees, and I quote: unless
the people know them, unless the people understand them, unless the people demand that they be
lived. Promoting respect for human rights is a fulfilling but never fulfilled obligation. Fifty
years since the charter was forged, human rights still persist. Human rights are still at risk from
Burma to Nigeria, from Belarus to China. Although more than half the world's people now live
under governments of their own choosing, democracy's roots are still fragile in some countries;
others are besieged by forces ranging from drug cartels to organized crime. And even in
democracies, human rights, which so often mean minority rights, are not guaranteed.
8. POTUS Remarks in honor of Human Rights Day, 12/9/97
Finally, I commend the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation for their efforts to
teach a new generation of Americans that the future of human rights is "in their hands." Eleanor
Roosevelt understood that our greatest strength abroad was the power of our example at home,
our commitment to work together across the divides to create one from many and opportunity for
all.
9. Dedication of Eleanor Roosevelt College, 1/26/95
I hope each of you associated with this college will continue to have, opportunities to
consider the many ways in which these extraordinary public servants helped lead our nation
through very difficult, stressful times. There is no comparison to the circumstances in which my
parents--your grandparents--found themselves in facing the Great Depression, facing the second
World War. What never flagged throughout that period, no matter how difficult circumstances
were was the faith that the American people had, fueled in large measure by their confidence in
themselves and their future despite the odds that America would continue to be great, America
would grow, America would solve its problems.
10. Dedication of Eleanor Roosevelt College, 1/26/95
I am a die hard Eleanor Roosevelt fan. I have read her autobiography, her newspaper
columns, and many books about her and President Roosevelt. And from the first time I can
remember hearing about her, I have always admired her. I was born in 1947, the year before she
was sent by President Truman to serve on the United States delegation of the United Nations
Once there, she oversaw the writing and passage of the UN Declaration on Human Rights. I have
also read that document which she championed and I'm always struck at how this woman at the
end of the second World War, the beginning of the Cold War, continued to emphasize the themes
that she had sounded throughout the years. Namely, that we must cooperate, we must find ways
to work together.
11. Dedication of Eleanor Roosevelt College, 1/26/95
I almost cannot even imagine the courage it took for her, at the dawn of the Cold War, to
persuade delegates from so many different nations to sign their names on behalf of human rights.
Although I admired Mrs. Roosevelt over the years, I must say that over the past few years I have
felt an even greater affection for her. And have taken on occasion to having imaginary
conversations with her. Now I am sure that there will be a talk show host somewhere who will
point out with great glee that I have gone over the edge and am talking to myself and talking to
Mrs. Roosevelt on a regular basis, but 1 believe the world, and particularly our country, would be
better off if we all spent a little time talking with Mrs. Roosevelt and less time yelling at each
other and listening to people yell at each other. And on occasion when confronted with a
particular situation I might say to Mrs. Roosevelt, "Oh my goodness, what do I do now?" And in
my imaginary conversation -- my mind's eye -- she would listen to me calmly and look at me
seriously and now say very much. I would then go on doing the best that I could and another
occasion would arise when I would attempt to seek some pearls of wisdom from this woman who
see med to embody grace under pressure and I might say, "how did you handle this sort of thing.
How did you deal with all of the concerns that you had and all of the difficulties that you faced?"
And again in my mind's eye I would see her listening calmly and not saying very much. And finally
the more I learned about her the more I understood what she dealt with on a daily basis as she
persistently and passionately carried forward with what she believed would make the world better.
That she could not answer my questions because in her view one simply went about life and did
what was expected and did it to the best of one's ability.
So every time I begin to harbor thoughts like, "why haven't we solved this problem by
now?" I imagine Mrs. Roosevelt shaking her heard and saying something like, "the thing always to
remember is to do the thing you think you cannot do." Or perhaps I see her again in my mind's eye
saying, "these problems that we faced today are problems that we faced in the past. We have
made progress, there are many, many improvements in the way that we treat one another, and we
know we have more to do but continue to persist." I have found great inspiration in her example
not only for the questions I ask and the role in which I find myself now, but more than that for the
humanity and the dignity with which she led her life.
12. Dedication of Eleanor Roosevelt College, 1/26/95
She was often attacked and criticized but there was never any confusion in her own mind
about what constituted a meaningful life. She refused to be categorized or stereotyped which of
course greatly frustrated her critics. She was one of those rare people who strikes that elusive
balance between "me" and "we." Between our rights and expectations as individuals and our
obligations to the larger community. She conceited herself as a citizen. Someone who was there
trying to make sure that democracy worked well. Someone who wanted to help educate other
citizens about what they could do.
13. Women and the United Nations Conference, 3/14/95
It is impossible to think about the history of the United Nations, or the role of women in
the United Nations, without thinking of Eleanor Roosevelt When she came to the United States
there were many who dismissed her arrival. They thought she came as a token, the widow of a
great President, and she faced considerable personal challenges in undertaking the work she did.
We know from various histories and from Mrs. Roosevelt's own writing that she was assigned to
a committee where they said she could do no harm. She was assigned to the Third Committee:
the Social, Cultural and Humanitarian committee. Apparently, assigned by men who had no idea
what she was capable of doing. She made from the very beginning it her mission to insure that
the committee, which deals so directly with the stuff of life, was one that had a very important
portfolio. We also know that she was alternately perplexed and amused by what she viewed as an
obsession with rule making among her male peers. As the men around here would sometimes
argue for hours over matters that Mrs. Roosevelt felt did not deserve minutes of conversation, she
would sit and knit.
It turned out to be not only a controversial job for her but one that took tremendous
diplomatic skill. Among her critics was the very powerful American John Foster Dulles. Who at
the end of the Assembly finally did say to her and I quote "I must tell you that when you were
appointed I thought it terrible, and now I think your work has been fine." She wrote about her
reaction to that statement in a letter home, and I quote, "so against the odds that women inch
forward.'
Her role within the Assembly, although sometimes not welcome, and certainly never easy,
was very important. She out worked most of her colleagues. She did turn that Third Committee
into one of the most important of the entire Assembly. She became instrumental in decisions
about the fate of refugees. And she negotiated over many very sensitive issues with a great deal
of success.
Her greatest achievement, as we all know, was to help persuade 55 nations to sign a bill of
human rights, something that had never been done before. Even with her successes she was under
no illusions about the capacity of this organization, or any government body or agency, to effect
changes on its own. The United Nations she said soon after its founding, is "a piece of machinery
and the peoples of the world have to make it work You make it work by what you do in your own
communities, by then things you build there which spread out through your representatives into
your national government."
That observations by Mrs. Roosevelt hold special weight today when all nations are
grappling with a range of human problems at a time of shrinking resources and increased global
competition. There is no panacea, no magic bullet that will suddenly empower women or free
people from the bondage of inhuman living conditions. Progress depends on our working
together in partnership to create conditions around the world that enable women, men and
children to reach their God given potentials and flourish within their own families and societies.
14. Women and the United Nations Conference, 3/14/95
If one looks at among Mrs. Roosevelt's great accomplishments certainly the Bill of Human
Rights continues to challenge all of us. Although international humanitarian law had been
evolving before the United Nations, human rights in general and women's rights in particular,
were not widely recognized. On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly adopted a Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and Eleanor Roosevelt played a major role in the drafting and
adoption.
15. Women and the United Nations Conference, 3/14/95]
In paying tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, as part of this conference, we would do well to
consider her great vision, her compassion and her common sense approach to solving very
difficult human problems. For her, no political obstacle was too large, no cultural gap was too
wide, no difference of opinion was too serious to overcome. And as Ambassador Albright has
reminded us, no controversy was to be avoided. One of my favorite quotations from Mrs.
Roosevelt is that she often said her work was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
16. Found on H Drive
Eleanor Roosevelt was a busy lady. In 1947, for example, her regular activities included: serving
as a delegate to the United Nations; going on a long lecture tour; hosting a radio show and a
television show; writing a daily newspaper column and a monthly magazine column; working on a
multi-volume autobiography; serving on the boards of several organizations; and regularly making
public appearances at various events.
Thus, that same year, when parts of the world were enmeshed in turmoil, the columnist Josephus
Daniels wrote that the most startling news in the world came not from Turkey or Tibet, but from
Hyde Park, where Eleanor Roosevelt had uttered the words, "I am tired." Mrs. Roosevelt wrote
Daniels a letter explaining that, "I had been walking around with pneumonia, so it was true that I
was weary. I am fine, now, however," she added, and she quickly resumed a schedule so busy,
that it had once led her husband to pray, "O Lord, make Eleanor tired."
17. Dedication of Eleanor Roosevelt College, 1/26/95
I remember particularly a story that Doris relates in her book. When Mrs. Roosevelt was
in California she went once with Helen Gahagan Douglas a writer, an actress, and later a
congresswoman from California to the San Joaquin Valley. They were going to tour migrant labor
camps and they were driving along when Mrs. Roosevelt spotted a row of migrants' shacks. She
asked to stop the car SO she could get out. She marched across the a field of mud and muck to
inspect the migrants' living conditions. And as she approached one of the workers realized who
she was and said matter-of-factly. "Oh Mrs. Roosevelt, you've come to see us." It seemed
perfectly normal that the President's wife would get out of a car and walk across a field to talk to
migrant workers.
18. Dedication of Eleanor Roosevelt College, 1/26/98
One of my favorite stories, again, takes place in California. She went to the West Coast to
tour this part of the country on behalf of the President shortly after Pearl Harbor was bombed.
You can imagine the swelling fear that existed in our state here. You can imagine the prejudice
against Japanese-Americans. Editorials described Japanese-Americans as traitors, spies, and
worse. Their houses and businesses were searched and many Californians were convinced that
their former neighbors were now their enemies. As the hysteria mounted, Mrs. Roosevelt took it
upon herself to pose with a group of Japanese-Americans. She issued a statement accompanying
the photo that said, "Let's be honest. There is a chance now for great hysteria against minority
groups loyal Americans born Japanese and German. If we treat them unfairly and make them
unhappy we may shake their loyalty which should be built up." This act of honesty and courage so
enraged so many in California that the Los Angeles Times essentially called for her removal from
public life. But of course she continued to speak out against the unfair treatment of anyone -
Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, anyone who she believed was mistreated. And she
particularly worked to reverse her husband's policy of internment camps here in California and
elsewhere.
19. Dedication of Eleanor Roosevelt College, 1/26/95
I remember particularly a story that Doris relates in her book. When Mrs. Roosevelt was
in California she went once with Helen Gahagan Douglas a writer, an actress, and later a
congresswoman from California to the San Joaquin Valley. They were going to tour migrant labor
camps and they were driving along when Mrs. Roosevelt spotted a row of migrants' shacks. She
asked to stop the car so she could get out. She marched across the a field of mud and muck to
inspect the migrants' living conditions. And as she approached one of the workers realized who
she was and said matter-of-factly, "Oh Mrs. Roosevelt, you've come to see us." It seemed
perfectly normal that the President's wife would get out of a car and walk across a field to talk to
migrant workers.
20. Dedication of Eleanor Roosevelt College, 1/26/98
One of my favorite stories, again, takes place in California. She went to the West Coast to
tour this part of the country on behalf of the President shortly after Pearl Harbor was bombed.
You can imagine the swelling fear that existed in our state here. You can imagine the prejudice
against Japanese-Americans. Editorials described Japanese-Americans as traitors, spies, and
worse. Their houses and businesses were searched and many Californians were convinced that
their former neighbors were now their enemies. As the hysteria mounted, Mrs. Roosevelt took it
upon herself to pose with a group of Japanese-Americans. She issued a statement accompanying
the photo that said, "Let's be honest. There is a chance now for great hysteria against minority
groups -- loyal Americans born Japanese and German. If we treat them unfairly and make them
unhappy we may shake their loyalty which should be built up." This act of honesty and courage so
enraged so many in California that the Los Angeles Times essentially called for her removal from
public life. But of course she continued to speak out against the unfair treatment of anyone --
Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, anyone who she believed was mistreated. And she
particularly worked to reverse her husband's policy of internment camps here in California and
elsewhere.
HRC Comments and on Children
International
1. Fifteen Minute Speech, 7/19/??
I've just returned from a trip to Central Europe where I visited several countries that are
making the difficult transition from communism to democracy. Even there, citizens and
governments are recognizing that the needs of children must come first if their countries are to
become flourishing democracies.
As a modern society, we know more about what children need to develop than ever
before. But we still have too few organized ways of supporting parents in the most important
work they do. We have not figured out how to replace the extended family, clan or village that
looked out for children in earlier times. As a result, many parents don't get the information or the
help they need to become the best possible mothers and fathers that they can be.
It is time to make a change for our children's sake. Advances in technology and the global
economy along with other developments in society have brought us much good, but they have
also strained the fabric of family life, leaving us and our children poorer in many ways.
2. Remarks at Roma Children Foundation, 10/11/98
I have always been struck by how street children are able to survive in conditions that
would often not be possible for us. And seeing the children here today, as I have, seen the same
brightness and intelligence, and quickness that enable them to survive under difficult
circumstances, and will permit them with proper help to become productive citizens in this
society.
I know that many Roma children are particularly at risk. I have visited programs for
Roma children in the Czech Republic and in Hungary, and now here, in Bulgaria. And I am so
impressed that you see so clearly that all of our children in today's world have to be given
opportunities to succeed. Because every child's future will affect our own.
3. International Development Girls' Education Conference
In Bangladesh, I visited a school run by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee,
a non-governmental organization that believes that education -- especially girls' education -- is a
pre-condition for economic development. Because of that belief, some of the BRAC schools
have been burned by extremist groups. But the schools keep being rebuilt and families keep
sending their children to attend.
I also saw where the Bangladesh government is attempting to provide incentives for
families to keep their daughters in school. Families get food each week if they send their
children, particularly their girls, to school. To help give girls the chance to go to
secondary school, the government actually deposits a small amount of money in a family
banking account as long as the daughters attend school.
I have seen the results of President Museveni's promise of Universal Primary Education
in Uganda. I have been in classrooms that are absolutely filled with children -- 70, 75,
80 third graders -- a very big challenge to any teacher. But instead of being frustrated
the teachers I have met have been proud. Proud because children are coming to school
and everyone is working very hard to create the materials and train additional teachers
to meet this challenge. Overwhelming pride is felt because for the first time, more girls
than boys are attending school.
There have also been results in Guatemala where the government and the Foundation
for Sugar Producers teamed up to offer small scholarships to girls in rural schools
because they knew that the drop out rate between the first and second grades for girls
in those schools with scholarships was only one percent compared to 30 percent
nationwide. In another Guatemalan program, afternoon school sessions have been
introduced to accommodate girls who must carry out domestic and agricultural work in
the mornings.
In Malawi, the villagers were not only asked why girls are not attending school, they
were asked to come up with solutions. They performed plays and skits. They waived
school fees. They took responsibility for enrolling girls in school. As a result, enrollment
increased from 50 to 83 percent.
In the Community Schools Program in Egypt, the number of girls enrolled in school
increased from 2,000 to 35,000 because schools were located closer to homes, making
them safer and more accessible. Curricula were designed so that they were culturally
appropriate and approved by village leaders. Girls were trained to be sure that they
were understanding how important this gift of education was and parents were asked to
become actively involved as well.
As we look across the globe, therefore, we see success stories everywhere. Yet, right
now, there are still 100 million children worldwide who are out of school, and
two-thirds of them are girls. 900 million people cannot read or write, and sixty percent
of them are women. Two-thirds of the children who complete less than four years of
primary education are girls and countless others do not even have access to a primary
school, let alone a secondary school.
4. International Girls' Education Conference
I remember so well being in a small village about 40 minutes outside Lahore, Pakistan
where I visited a school that had been built to give the girls in that area primary
education. I sat out in the courtyard in front of the school and talked with mothers of
children who attended. One mother told me about her 10 children -- 5 girls and 5 boys.
Her worry was that she had sent all of her children to school, to primary school. And
when her boys graduated from primary school they had gone on. They had gone to the
nearest secondary school continuing their education. But when her daughters finished
the village school, there were no secondary schools nearby for girls and she was not
willing to send her daughters off alone to attend school far away. So, she asked me, and
she asked all of the officials who were with me, if they could please have a secondary
school built for girls near their village.
5. Column, 3/24/98
For most Ugandans, the night of October 9, 1996, marked the end of a day celebrating the
country's Independence Day. For Angelina Acheng, it was the beginning of a nightmare. That
evening, her 14 year old daughter, Charlotte, was kidnaped from St. Mary's School in Aboke,
Uganda, by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a terrorist group based in Southern Sudan that
abuses civilians in Northern Uganda. The kidnappers broke the windows of this girls' boarding
school. They tied up the girls, all of whom where younger than 16. They beat those who dared
to cry. And then they took away 139 of them -- 75 percent of the student body -- and sent them
into a life of unspeakable horror. Many, like Charlotte, have not returned.
When I met Angelina at the White House a few weeks before I came to Uganda, she
spoke movingly about her daughter and told me about the organization she and other local
parents had formed -- the Concerned Parents Association. They work to save their children and
all the other children held captive by this group. Since 1994, with 10,000 children in Uganda.
These children are literally being snatched away from their homes. The boys are used in battle as
human shields. The girls are sent into slave labor, raped and given away as "wives" to rebel
commanders. They are often forced to kill other children who don't obey or -- worse yet -- who
try to escape.
The LRA invokes the name of the Lord, but there is no greater sin than making children
kill children or even the parents who brought them into this world. Followers of the LRA call
themselves soldiers, but they are cowards. Only cowards would hide behind children in battle.
The plight of these children is part of a growing and alarming trend. It used to go without
saying that innocent women and children were not supposed to be the targets of war; now
increasingly, they are not only targets but even compelled to participate.
One of Charlotte's classmates who managed to escape talked about what happened when
another girl tried to flee: "The girl was brought in front of us, and the rebels told us to stomp her
to death. We killed the poor innocent girl If we did not kill the girl, we were going to get shot
by guns. We prayed for that girl in our hears, silently, and asked God to pardon us and forgive us
because it was not our will to kill her."
Another rescued student from St. Mary's school said, "I saw people's legs being cut off
with either a panga or an ax. I saw a young baby of a few months held in hand and being beaten
to death against a tree. Innocent people were being killed in a way I never thought a human being
could (act toward) another human being."
One girl simply wrote: "I'm pleading with you to find a way of stopping this rebel activity
so that we children of Northern Uganda could also share in the peace that other children around
the world are sharing in. We need peace."
6. Makerere University, Uganda, 3/25/98
There are three children with us today that I just had a chance to meet with before I came
out to see you. Their names are Isaac and Janet and Betty. They were kidnaped by the LRA in
the north. They managed to escape, eventually finding refuge. As I looked into their faces and
their eyes, I saw the faces and eyes of children the world over. And I thought to myself as I
looked at these young men and women of Uganda that we owe them and the thousands more like
them everything we can do to make sure that they, too, have a chance, like the children I saw
yesterday, to grow up in peace, to be educated, and to look forward to their own families and
futures.
7. Remarks for Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 11/25/96
""Yesterday in Chiang Rai I visited a program started by the faculty at this university
called Thai Women of Tomorrow. It offers girls education, vocational training and options for
jobs -- alternatives to desolate and desperate lives of prostitution. Most of all, it encourages
parents to appreciate their daughters as people not property, and to give girls a sense of their own
value and promise."
Earlier today at the new life Center I saw another program that is bringing hope to young
women who are receiving education and training that will allow them to pursue their life
ambitions with confidence and dignity."
"When I was in Chiang Rai yesterday I visited some hill tribes in villages outside the city.
In one village I met young women who participate in the Thai Women of Tomorrow program. I
also spoke to a local businessman who supports the program financially. He said that he got
involved out of sense of charity. But within months, he said, he was surprised to find that the girls
were hard-working, quick to learn new skills, and determined to make better lives for themselves.
Now he has decided to open a factory in Chiang Rai that will employ girls from the school"
8. -- Remarks at UNICEF 50th Anniversary, 1/26/98
"Because we believed it could be done, we can look to the 10th anniversary of the World
Summit for Children, knowing that the majority of goals have already been met by the majority of
nations. Because we believed it could be done, the percentage of children immunized against
killer diseases has dramatically increased to 80 percent. And because we believed it could be
done, a full 2.5 million more children will live past their 5th birthdays this year than they did just
eight years ago.
At the Jose Fabella [Fa BAY ya] Memorial Hospital in the Philippines, I met mothers who
were learning about breast feeding their newborns. In Senegal, I visited a village that is improving
health, education, and nutrition especially for women and girls. And in Nepal, I went to the
Kalimati Clinic, where Save the Children kits are helping women deliver healthy babies."
CHILDREN-NATIONAL
1. Fifteen Minute Speech, 7/19/??
We all have roles to play in finding ways to make sure all children fulfill their God-given
potentials. When it comes to children we all have experience - and we can all claim a kind of
expertise. We have all been children. We all love our children. We all have visions and
aspirations for what they can become. We think of and talk about them constantly, during coffee
breaks, PTA meetings, on front porches and phones, in letters and e-mail. No other subject takes
so much of our time, and touches our souls so deeply.
2. Fifteen Minute Speech, 7/19/??
Our children are, in the beginning and in the end, the best reason for our being, the
greatest of all our gifts and works. There is no subject more important, no issue that should be
more decisive, than how we see and treat our children. Children have no vote; they have no say in
the political, business and economic decisions made by our nation. That is why we can and must
be their voice.
3. National Conference on Youth Violence
Every young man or woman, every boy or girl, has a God given potential that we at our
herald give up on. And it is incumbent upon us, as representatives of the adult community of this
society, to recommit ourselves to youth. The young people who are here are pledging to you, "If
you don't give up on yourself, we will not give up on you.
We see it everyday as we pick up our newspapers. I picked up a newspaper here in
Washington today and read about another thirteen year old gunned down on the street corner. In
Washington last summer, gun shots were fired at a public swimming pool packed with children
trying to escape the 90 degree heat. A few months ago, a four-year old girl was fatally shot in the
head when groups of youngsters opened fire on an elementary school playground. And during the
past week a one year-old was grazed by a bullet from a gunfight. That thirteen year-old who
died, it appears his killer is also thirteen years-old. What does it say about a society that has
graduated from taunts and yells and thrown punches and raised fists--, that all of us remember
from school yard fights, neighborhood fights in the past. To thirteen year-olds being gunned
down on street corners, a four year olds being killed on playgrounds, and one year olds being
grazed by bullets.
Let's just stop for a minute and ask ourselves, "Haven't we wasted enough lives, haven't
we lost enough young men and women to prison instead of college? Haven't we turned our back
too many times on the God given potential of every one of our young people?" I don't care what
race they are, I don't care where they live, every single young person in this country, has a spark
about them that we have for too long allowed to be extinguished by a level of violence, hatred,
and divisiveness that still stalks this country. We can do much better than that, all you
have to do is look at the faces of the young people around you today. We know we can do
better. But we cannot unless we stand up and are willing to be counted. I hope you will not only
attend this conference, I hope you will not only work on what needs to be done back in your own
hometowns, I hope you will take the time to let your member of Congress know why you are
here, what you stand for.
4. Fifteen Minute Speech, 7/19/?
In Kansas City, where I was part of a conference to discuss what we all can do to help
children, I met educators, parents, business leaders and community activists who have already
achieved much on behalf of their children. I heard how the city government offers employees up
to four hours of paid annual leave to participate in their children's school activities; how dedicated
volunteers are staffing evening and summer youth programs to keep their kids off the street and
out of trouble; and how the local newspaper is dedicating many resources, reporters and pages of
newsprint to cover children's issues thoroughly.
In Kansas City, I saw billboards all over town asking citizens the question, "Is it good for
the children?" It is a question more Americans should ask themselves before making decisions for
their families, their communities, and their country.
5. It Takes A Village, pg 139
Children know when adults are letting them down and it angers them. A boy in Kansas
City told members of the National Commission on Children what it was like for him to walk to
school every day. What could have been a ten minute walk took him double the time, because of
the zigzagging course he took to avoid a house where he knew crack was being sold. "What I
don't understand," the young man said to the commissioners, "is if the people who live on the
street know what is going on in that house and the police drive by all the time as though they
know something bad is going on in there, why don't adults do something about it?"
Eleanor Roosevelt Book
1.
Her work for UNICEF forced Mrs. Roosevelt into tightrope walking between pressure
from other nations and her obligation to represent the American position. She suddenly became
aware of 575 million children in distress in the Middle East, the Far East, Africa, and Latin
America who had been "ill-fed, ill-clad, and ill-housed for generations."
2.
Mrs. Roosevelt was supposed to speak at Bushnell Hall in Hartford, Connecticut, about
the United Nations:
Three thousand people were expected. But by the time Mrs. Roosevelt
arrived, only about three hundred people were scattered through the vast
auditorium. Mrs. Roosevelt arrived, stepped onto the stage and looked
around. "Oh let's all come down front and be a big family," she said with
her big smile, motioning the scant audience to come forward. Then she
gave her speech. Afterward, someone asked her if she felt disappointed
when after taking the trouble to come to our city, only such a small crowd
appeared. "If I can reach one person only with my message about he
United Nations," said Eleanor Roosevelt, "I feel that my efforts were
rewarded and my time was not wasted."
3.
In June 1940, Clarence Pickett, head of the Friends' Service Committee, asked Mrs.
Roosevelt to bring together leaders of various groups for a concerted effort to rescue European
children. She called a meeting and helped organize the United States Committee for the Care of
European Children, of which she became honorary chairman. This was the only secular
organization established exclusively to aid refugee children. It was designed to bring them from
Britain, Finland, Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France and place them in foster homes in
the United States. On behalf of the committee, Mrs. Roosevelt urged Americans to take them
into their homes and to request that Congress ease their admission into the United States. She
complained of "horrid legal details" which slowed down the rescue program: "Red tape should
not be used to trip up little children on their way to safety."
4.
After the invalidation of the NRA by the Supreme Court had left children unprotected, she
wrote in a telegram to a member of the Houston Labor Standards Committee:
The President has said in letters sent out to people who have asked him as to his
stand the obvious method of maintaining the recent gains made by NRA codes is
through ratification of the child labor amendment As far as I am concerned, I
have taken every opportunity to reiterate my stand in favor of the ratification of
the child labor amendment.
Where the exploitation of children was concerned, she accepted no compromise. In reply
to critics who claimed that the time was inopportune for ratification because families were
dependent on the earnings of their children during the depression. Mrs. Roosevelt said that such
arguments should not influence the passing of fundamental laws. To those who objected to
increased interference by the government family life, she said, "We already tell people they must
have their children vaccinated."
5. Mrs. Roosevelt devoted her long career to defending the rights of labor and minority groups,
to seeing that adequate housing and standards of child welfare and education were maintained,
and that all groups could benefit from the same opportunities. In these activities she regarded
herself not as a crusader but as a citizen performing her basic duties in the democratic
community Because of her early association with the Women's Trade Union League and the
National Consumers' League, Mrs. Roosevelt took a special interest in the abolition of child labor
and the protection of the rights of women in industry. One of her more important goals in the
1930's was the ratification of the Child Labor Amendment, a continuation of the long struggle.
"No civilization should be based on the labor of children." she said at her press conference.
6. Appropriately, President Truman nominated the former first lady to be one of America's
delegates to the United Nations. At the UN, her name became synonymous with the effort to
compose a declaration of human rights embodying standards that civilized humankind would
accept as sacred and inalienable. For three years, she argued, debated, lobbied and compromised
until finally on December 10, 1948, the document she had fundamentally shaped passed the
General Assembly. Delegates rose in standing ovation to the woman who more than anyone else
had come to symbolize the cause of human rights throughout the world. Even those from the
United States who had most opposed her nomination to the delegation applauded her efforts. "I
want to say that I take back everything I ever said about her," Senator Arthur Vandenberg of
Michigan commented "and believe me, it's been plenty." At times a figure of scorn and ridicule
during the New Deal, Roosevelt was now fast becoming a national heroine, even to former
enemies.
7. From Mrs. Roosevelt's Column
A little incident at one of the picnics, which I have held annually for the Wiltwyck boys at
Hyde Park will, I think, emphasize how much a personal contact means for these youngsters
whose background is often such an unhappy one. As I was greeting the boys on their arrival at
Hyde Park, one little white boy stopped in front of me and said:
"Mrs. Roosevelt, do you remember me?"
"Yes," I answered, "I remember all of you. I have seen your school and many of you were
here last year. Of course, I remember you."
The little boy with a determined face, looked me straight in the eye and said: "Mrs.
Roosevelt what's my name?"
I had to explain that there were 100 boys and that I could not remember all of their names
because I was an old lady and my memory was not as good as it once was.
He then told me his name. But he was so anxious to be identified by someone that, within
five minutes, he stood before me again demanding:
"Mrs. Roosevelt, what's my name?"
To have a friend who knows you by name gives you a sense that you are not alone in the
world. This is above all else what every single one of the Wiltwyck boys needs.
8. From National Women's Democratic Club Reception Speech, 1/10/95
One time Mrs. Roosevelt was invited scheduled to speak at the clubhouse on Dupont
Circle and Edith Helms (Mrs. Roosevelt's Social Secretary) was asked to introduce her. She
couldn't think of what to say and Lindy told her, "Don't worry something will come to mind."
And when the time came to introduce Mrs. Roosevelt, Edith Helms stood up and simply said:
"She is here." And that's all she needed to say.
15
Said by Eleanor Roosevelt
Humanity must "either recognize the fact that what serves the people as a whole serves them best
as individuals"
--Eleanor Roosevelt
"To be afraid is wasting your time, if you keep busy helping others you have no time to be afraid."
--Eleanor Roosevelt
"It is not a true democracy when some people cannot eat unless the government provides the
food."
"No civilization should be based on the labor of children."
" the health of our whole country depends on providing young people with an environment in
which they can grow instead of deteriorating." My Day (her column) 3/21/1960
"The one other thing (children) learn is that real love accepts people with their weaknesses as well
as their strengths. You like to respect and admire someone who you love, but actually you often
love even more the people who require understanding and who make mistakes and have to grow
with their mistakes."
In 1958 Eleanor Roosevelt wrote: "Where do human rights begin? In small places, close to
home, so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the
world of the individual person the neighborhood he lives in, the factory, farm, or office where
he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal
opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they
have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home,
we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."
"To undo mistakes is always harder than to create them originally, but we seldom have foresight.
Therefore, we have no choice but to try to correct our past mistakes."
"The thing always to remember is to do the thing you think you cannot do."
"It is not enough to wish, however earnestly, to bring these things about."
"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
"There is not one civilization, from the oldest to the very newest, from which we cannot learn."
"A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education
over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is
neglected." Let us Have Faith in Democracy Speech
"A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even
when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and
in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing
that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity." It
Seems to Me, 1954
"A society in which everyone works is not necessarily a free society and may indeed be a slave
society; on the other hand, a society in which there is widespread economic insecurity can turn
freedom into a barren and vapid right for millions of people." The Struggle for Human Rights
Speech, 9/27/48
"As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along." NY Times, 10/8/54
"Change means the unknown It means, too many people cry, insecurity. Nonsense! No one
from the beginning of time has had security." NY Times Magazine, 11/3/98
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right-for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if
you do, and damned if you don't."
"For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in
it. One must work at it." Broadcast, Voice of America, 11/11/98
"I could not, at any age, be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look
on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. The fatal thing is the rejection.
One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." NY Herald Tribune 10/11/61
"I have spent many years of my life in opposition and I rather like the role." Letter, 11/19/52
"I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their judgment will be in favor
of the many, as against the privileged few."
"It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself." Column, 6/15/46
"It isn't within my hands to resign or not to resign. Each of us does that automatically." Letter,
11/18/98
"It seems to me we have reached a place where it is not a question of "can we live in the same
world and cooperate" but "we must live in the same world and learn to cooperate." Letter,
2/14/58
"Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both." Column 10/15/98
"Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever
reason, turn his back on life."
what is the trouble in many of our communities, but rather a universal forgetting that this teaching
is one of our first obligations."
Quotes about ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
"Eleanor Roosevelt is a woman for all times and all people." Doris Kearns Goodwin
Quotes: Declaration
"Disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged
the conscience of mankind. The advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of
speech and belief, and freedom from fear and want have been proclaimed as the highest
aspirations of the common people. Therefore, the General Assembly proclaims this Universal
Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and
nations. All humans beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience, and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
Quotes: children
Senator Robert Taft, a conservative Republican leader in his era said in 1948 that the American
economy was rich enough and, "to prevent extreme hardship and maintain a minimum standard of
decent living, and to all children a fair opportunity to get a start in life."
"Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now it the time his bones are being formed;
his blood is being made; his mind is being developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow. His name
is today." Gabriela Mistral, from It Takes A Village
"If I could say just one thing to parent, it would be simply that a child needs someone who
believes in him no matter what he does." Alice Keliher from It Takes a Village
"Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with mankind."
Rabindranath Tagore, from It Takes a Village
"Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them." Lady Bird Johnson
"A civilization flourishes when people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit."
Greek proverb, from It Takes a Village
"Of course we need children! Adults need children in their lives to listen to and care for, to keep
their imagination fresh and their hearts young and to make the future a reality for which they are
willing to work." Margaret Meade, from It Takes A Village
"That most sensitive, most delicate of instruments - the mind of a little child!" Henry Handel
"The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them
into curious shapes." Carson McCullers
"If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all." Pearl S. Buck
"The society that destroys its children is eating its own tail, committing suicide in the most
perverse way." Jennifer Stone
"The children are always the victim of social chaos." Agnes E. Meyer
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Catholic Digest, 8/60
"One thing life taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They
come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something
else."
"This I know. This I believe will all my heart. If we want a free and peaceful world, if we want
to make the deserts bloom and man grown to greater dignity as a human being-we can do it!"
Tomorrow is Now, 1963
"Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or
so completely dominated by them whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside
without expression." UN Speech, 12/52
"We cannot exist as a little island of well-being in a world where two-thirds of the people go to
bed hungry every night." Democratic Fund-Raising Dinner, 12/8/59
"We must be willing to learn the lesson that cooperation may imply compromise, but if it brings a
world of advance it is a gain for each individual nation." Column, 1/21/46
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look
fear in the face." You Learn by Living, 1960
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do." You Learn by Living, 1960
"You seem to think that everyone can save money if they have the character to do it. As a matter
of fact, there are innumerable people who have a wide choice between saving and giving their
children the best possible opportunities. The decision is usually in favor of the children." Letter
to FDR III, 1/15/62
"All big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises."
"As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and work broadened
and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade an issue. When I found I had
something to do - I just did it."
"As with all children, the feeling that I was useful was perhaps the greatest joy I experiences."
This is My Story, chpt 1
"I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most
useful gift, that gift would be curiosity."
"The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the
world. "Love they neighbor as well as thyself." Christ, some of the other great Jewish teachers,
Buddha, all preached it. Their followers forgot it. What is the trouble between capital and labor,