Optimistic Voices
Vital voices in the fields of global health, global child welfare reform and family separation, and those intent on conducting ethical missions in low resource communities and developing nations. Join our hosts as they engage in conversations with diverse guests from across the globe, sharing optimistic views, experiences, and suggestions for better and best practices as they discuss these difficult topics.
Optimistic Voices
HOW WE GOT HERE - PART TWO ; Radical Collaboration and Redefining Mission Work 25 YEARS OF HELPING CHILDREN WORLDWIDE
Curious about how sustainable development models can transform entire communities? Our latest episode promises to unravel this by sitting down with Melody Curtis, the inspiring Executive Director of Helping Children Worldwide. Discover how her organization transitioned from temporary relief to an empowerment approach, fostering resilient communities and strong families. Melody shares uplifting success stories of families gaining independence, and our program strategist Laura emphasizes the value of local expertise, highlighting the key role communities play in driving long-term change.
Rethinking mission work? We definitely are, and this episode challenges the traditional models of short-term missions. We move beyond task completion to embrace relationship-building and mutual learning. Join us as we recount the experiences of mission teams in Sierra Leone, where medical training and simulations offered deep insights into the challenges faced by local communities. Learn how this shift towards understanding and collaboration leads to a richer, more reciprocal mission experience that empowers both participants and the communities they engage with.
Finally, we dive into the nuances of cross-cultural collaboration and the push towards localization in international development. Our conversation with Melody illuminates the Rising Tide initiative's success in empowering local leaders in Sierra Leone and celebrates 25 years of impactful collaboration. As we look towards 2025, we share our ambitious goals to expand our network and support vulnerable communities even further. With a commitment to justice, mercy, and humility, this episode is a testament to the power of global partnerships and the dedication of everyone involved in this important mission.
Give Generously - Make a difference!! As we wrap up the year, Helping Children Worldwide will be making a difference for families in need through our support for healthcare, education, and economic empowerment programs.
Join us in our Year-End Campaign celebrating 25 years of impact and starting 2025 strong. Your generosity is the light that shines across the world as a beacon of hope, transforming lives and creating bright futures.
Visit go to helpingchildrenworldwide.org to learn how you can be a part of the solution
A new documentary on orphanage response - the right way!
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I'm Melody Curtis, executive Director of Helping Children Worldwide, and this is Optimistic Voices Podcast. Welcome back to our end of year review, part two. We spent a bit of time during part one talking about the HCW empowerment model. I think we throw that word empowerment around quite a bit. We all know what we mean by it, but I think people who don't work in our international headquarters may not. Empowerment is an aid model, but it is not a relief model. It's meant to bring about long-term, permanent impacts to combat poverty and endemic disease conditions, rather than providing crisis relief.
Speaker 1:Honestly, we began making an earnest move toward empowerment when we realized that building an orphanage isn't the solution to orphanhood. The solution is a strong family. That is a solution that lasts for generations rather than creating additional trauma. That also lasts for generations, but that's a different podcast episode. In fact, I think it's the topic of several of our past episodes.
Speaker 1:To get to my point, empowerment is an ideology that is linked to balancing power in decision making and maintaining appropriate boundaries and roles, but it's even more than that. It's honoring local expertise and giving proper consideration and respect to people doing hand-to-hand combat with poverty, from the service providers we support financially to the families they support who are struggling to put food on the table, keep their children healthy and safe and offer them a better future. This team has a lot of experience in moving us in the direction of empowerment, so maybe you all can share your insights into the benefit of an empowerment approach from the dual perspective of program support by a Global North organization like ours and program implementation by the local Global South program itself, such as the CRC and Mercy Hospital. Hey, laura, as our top program strategies guru, maybe you should start us off. Why are family empowerment, health system support and village economic systems strengthening all part of helping children? Worldwide's approach to solving child poverty and survival issues?
Speaker 2:I think our allies at Mercy Hospital and the CRC are all about empowerment, about strengthening capacity building, moving families and people and communities to self-sustainability and resilience. I think it starts with having a mindset that's focused as much on what's strong as what's wrong and building on family strengths to make them stronger. The beauty of where we are now as a Global North organization is that it's not us doing the work and truthfully, it never really was. Let's just be right upfront about that. We might've thought that it was, but we were never really in charge of making that happen. Now I think we're just being much more upfront and honest and open about the fact that the CRC and Mercy Hospital does this work of strengthening families and people and communities, building resilience into them, making them stronger.
Speaker 2:And we like to say that we believe that stronger families make stronger communities and stronger communities make stronger nations, and we really do believe that. But it's our colleagues in the Global South who are actually doing the day-to-day empowering and strengthening of families and dealing with the challenges and facing those and finding solutions every day in the communities in which they live and the families that they serve. To that point, the CRC is releasing seven families this week from social work, care and financial support, and we're celebrating that by the time this podcast airs, they'll already be standing on their own, financially and personally independent. Crc is considering how these families might be tapped into to mentor or encourage other vulnerable families currently in the program, as they're moving toward that same goal of resilience, independence and self-sufficiency dignity, really, and I look forward to seeing what the CRC comes up with.
Speaker 3:This progress continues to show our dedication, as a cross-cultural ally, to strengthen the support system surrounding each child, with a focus on local participation and empowerment. So by enhancing community involvement, we foster lasting generational change and sustainable development.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I said they're proving it that it's possible. Seven families have received support in case management, including financial support, skilled social work, counseling, access to health and education, but, most importantly, families strengthening capacity building through workshops and trainings and all kinds of things, and they've achieved this thing that's called care plan release, which means, in a nutshell, they're strong enough to support themselves financially and emotionally, healthy enough not to need social work and counseling services anymore. And I wish you could have read the letters that caregivers of those families wrote there. Yes, of course, they're grateful to the CRC for years of support, but they're also so proud of how far they've come. They're resilient, they're strong and they, to a family, requested the CRC to offer support to more vulnerable families in their community so that those families could reach the goal that they've reached themselves. And that pride, that sense of dignity just shown through every one of those letters, it's amazing.
Speaker 4:Can I just add to that, laura? I think that pride is one of the key reasons why we are moving towards this empowerment model. When you simply provide aid, you don't provide people with the dignity and the pride and self and everything. You're just giving a handout. And while many people need handouts and we should continue to do that we don't give them that ability to take pride in what they've done and what they've accomplished, and I think that's just such a huge shift in our mindset and how we provide support, and it's going to be a shift in our allies' mindset as well.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think you're right. Thinking about the DevEx conference that we were able to attend this year, one of the sessions that we attended was focused on dreaming of the future state, and I think that's the underlying idea behind this empowerment model. When you think of relief models, they're very much focused on the problem now, looking exclusively at the problem now, but there's no consideration being paid to what the future state is that you want people to be in. You want people to be healthy, to be thriving, to be in an environment where they can make decisions for themselves, not based out of fear, but based on what's best for them and their family and their community and their social structure. You want people to thrive in the communities that they live in, and if that is the vision that you have for the future, then you can create programs and projects that work collaboratively to get towards that future. But if you're so focused on the problem, then you're never going to be able to achieve that future, because you don't even know what that future state is.
Speaker 5:This reminds me a lot of how we're starting to evolve our approach in short-term missions as well.
Speaker 5:So we're shifting our focus from these short-term interventions to long-term capacity building.
Speaker 5:Every interest meeting, I tell our potential travelers that, instead of doing a two-week mission, what they are doing is participating in our 24-year mission, and our 24-year mission, our goal, is that teams, through the short time that they lend us, are able to see a glimpse of the long-term impact that our allies have in Sierra Leone and that they're able to play a role in supporting that, however big or however small, they're able to do so. We work with our local allies to develop these multi-year plans that address specific needs and build sustainable solutions. So we're building teams that work alongside local professionals. They share their expertise and their knowledge and they empower them, whether that's to provide better patient care, provide better family care or even things like management, it leadership, things that make organizations run well. So, focusing on training, leadership, mentorship, resource development, we're able to equip local partners to lead and sustain going towards that future state that I was talking about earlier. So this approach ensures we have a more significant and lasting impact and moves us away from these short-term fixes towards long-term transformation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's kind of broken the model of what short-term mission and the way that people think about short-term mission. In the early days, you know you would go on a short-term mission and you'd paint a wall or you'd build a thing you know, and then that would be the thing you did and then you came home and told people that you know you painted a wall or you built a thing. It's so different the way we think about it now. It's about engaging people in relationship. It's about plugging them into, like you say, a 24, almost 25-year mission. You get to plug in for a moment but you also get to come back and plug in back here and we've explored this year in particular, some different approaches to mission.
Speaker 2:Of you know, thinking of sending US missioners to Sierra Leone, we have had CRC staff and Mercy staff travel somewhere else to receive training and capacity building.
Speaker 2:As I said a couple times in this podcast episode, we brought a couple of CRC staff to the United States and as they were preparing to make that trip, I said to them you need to think about this trip to the States as if it's a mission trip.
Speaker 2:You're on a mission trip to us, to HCW, and gave them a project calendar and they got off that plane at Dulles and the first thing they said to me was you make this trip over and over, like they were like blown away and how difficult the travel is. Um, and at the end of their time with us and and we we had a full project schedule. Um, they did a lot of fundraising with us the week before we went to CAFO. They did a lot of support, we did a lot of recordings with them, um, and at the end they said you know, that was a lot, you guys work really hard and you worked us really hard. So I think that that feeling of it's not just us that go in mission to them, of levels the playing field. So we get out of this mindset of we travel somewhere, you know from the United States, to serve the vulnerable in some capacity and more into a mindset of how can we connect to each other in relationship and be in relationship and mission to one another.
Speaker 4:Or you might want to give our listeners an example of what a future mission trip might look like, if they're not going to be building a wall or painting a building or something. What would the future mission trip be in this model?
Speaker 5:For sure, rick, I'm happy to share that. Yes, it's complicated to share because it doesn't look like that traditional model of I'm going to send you and you're going to do this specific project and this is what it's going to look like. When I first traveled to Sierra Leone, I was so nervous about going over there. I'd been working with the organization for almost a year. I knew a lot about the programs that we were going to be visiting, but I was so nervous the programs that we were going to be visiting, but I was so nervous. And I remember talking to somebody at my church about it and she said to me you just need to have a mindset of I don't have a lot to give, but I do have a lot to learn. And that's really the underlying thought that I want all of our mission teams to have is that they do have some to give for sure. I don't want to underestimate the efforts that our teams invest in country, but they do have some to give for sure. I don't want to underestimate the efforts that our teams invest in country, but they do have a responsibility to learn about the programs, to learn about the people, to learn about the projects, to form those relationships, as Laura was talking about, and contribute with their specific skills and abilities, both God-given, and through their careers and the work that they do.
Speaker 5:A great example of this is our medical mission teams. This one's a really easy win to explain. We send medical teams to Sierra Leone at least once a year, and they provide training and capacity building to the medical professionals in Sierra Leone. So Sierra Leone is, of course, a country that's dominated by a lot of tropical and infectious diseases, things like malaria, typhoid, things like that but there's rising cases of things like diabetes and hypertension and these diseases of leisure, or non-communicable diseases as they're known in the United States, and so they're having a double burden of these problems. But the education system in Sierra Leone has not caught up to that. They're not teaching about diabetes, they're not teaching about hypertension and how medical professionals should diagnose, should manage, should offer patient education, and so we've been sending teams who have these abilities to share this information with those medical professionals and to provide ongoing consultation to them as they counsel their patients so that they get better care.
Speaker 4:I understand there's also an upcoming mission trip whose primary task will be to develop a simulation. Primary task will be to develop a simulation, a simulation that could be used over and over again in a variety of places to enhance our support and how we work with our allies. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if I could add to that, just to give you a little bit of a break, when we're talking about a simulation, essentially we're going to have a mission team go over, learn everything they can about the kinds of families that are served by the Child Reintegration Center and the challenges they face as they come into a program. So just kind of walk a mile in the shoes of a vulnerable family in Sierra Leone and then experience a little bit of what the CRC the skilled social work team at CRC, provides those families to move them toward that dignity of self-sufficiency and independence. So the mission project, so to speak, for two weeks, is just to go and soak up everything they can so they can come back and create this simulation experience that we can use. We're excited about that.
Speaker 5:Yes, yes, so incredibly excited about it. We want people to really be able to experientially understand what it's like to live in Sierra Leone. Our mission teams that travel over get a glimpse of that for sure, and there are lots of people that aren't able to travel that would love to learn more and be more engaged, and, as somebody who's been to Sierra Leone many times and has also gone through a simulation like this, it really brings you into the deep emotional feelings of poverty and of vulnerability that you can't experience in any other way. So I'm super, super excited about us and the development of this project.
Speaker 3:And throughout 2024 and beyond.
Speaker 3:This progress has continued to reaffirm that transformation is indeed a long-term journey and we continue to see missionaries engaging with the ministry in increasingly impactful and lasting ways.
Speaker 3:So now, when they come back from those mission trips, they don't just share stories and testimonies but they actively contribute by advocating for the ministry, volunteering or serving as ambassadors. Many are even willing to host events, you know, gatherings or informational sessions to extend, to expand awareness and support and engagement, so that they can collectively continue to magnify the work we do to share that good news and bring that joy to other people as well. Share that good news and bring that joy to other people as well. So our ongoing commitment to empowering those local voices, whether the case managers, the social workers or medical professionals working on the ground, that continues to create deeper connections for missionaries by highlighting the critical role of these local leaders. Missionaries feel more inspired and engaged because they see them stepping up to lead in the exploration of lasting solutions to the fundamental challenges we are all tackling together. So that is very, very crucial to enhancing the effectiveness and longevity of any cross-cultural collaboration, like the one we have with our global health partners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, laura. Thank you, naps, I really appreciate that summation of how that works going on mission and coming back. And Laura, you're often speaking into our core values of radical honesty, radical collaboration and radical trust and why this has proven to be our key to hitting way above our weight club. Wait, about our weight club. Okay, laura, you are fond of speaking into our core values of radical honesty, radical collaboration and radical trust and why this has proven to be our key to hitting way above our weight class. Had the three of you on the global outlook for vulnerable children, because you're three people and our entire organizational staff is eight people, so I'd love it if you could share about that part of our dream for the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it surprises people sometimes to find out that it's there only eight of us at HCW and not all eight of us are full time, by the way and we all wear many hats and we all believe really strongly that collaboration is the magic sauce. Because, as Nam said, I think, earlier, if you want to go fast, you go alone. What is it? If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together. And that's something that I think we've done well, or at least we've tried to do well, for years, and not just collaborating within the HCW kind of sphere, and not just collaboration with our allies in Sierra Leone, but in networks and alliances and coalitions all over the world. We're plugged into more than I can count, I think, and that collaboration has been key in our success and in the way that we, as you say, punch above our weight class. But I think what's exciting to me is that we're learning a new thing, and that is we're flipping that collaborative model upside down so that we in the global north aren't in the lead anymore, and we've been doing this gradually over the last couple of years, but more and more we're pulling ourselves out of the driver's seat taking more of a backseat in the way things are going. We're following the local leaders, doing the actual hard work on the ground in local contexts like Sierra Leone, asking them not just what they need but what solutions they see and how they want to solve the problems that they face, Instead of running in and saying here's what we think you need, here's the problem that we see and here's the solution. We really are learning to listen more than we speak and to follow. We finally figured out I think, Melody, you actually pointed this out as we were getting ready to go to CAFO that our friends in Africa, one of the greatest strengths they have is the value that they place on relationship, and this is something you'd think we would have worked out in the past 25 years, but we're working on it.
Speaker 2:As Americans, I think it's fair to say that we're much more focused on outcomes, on impact, on doing things. We like to do things. Our colleagues, however, they prioritize relationships, which means that when we're in the driver's seat and we're all focused on outcomes and impact and what are we doing? What are the things we're doing? Our colleagues are forced to spend all of their time trying to maintain the relationship, In other words trying to keep us happy. But when we flip the script and we stop talking, we stop doing and we listen and we nurture the relationship, it opens a space where our partners start to feel free and empowered to tell us hey, we have a better idea, we think there's a better way. They start to feel like they can be radically honest with us. Sometimes they even tell us no right to our faces, which I have to tell you honestly, I never thought I'd be so happy to have a partner or a colleague just say no to me. Nope, not doing that.
Speaker 2:We were doing our panel presentation at CAFO with George and David and Melody. I think you were doing your piece. We all had our little piece of the script and you were doing your part of the presentation. And I'm looking at the time as you're talking and realizing that we're going to run out of time, that we've got a big surprise to everyone in this audience, I'm sure, but we've over-explained and we're running out of time and I knew my turn was coming and I also knew that if I was going to get to say everything I wanted to say, it was going to cut into the Q&A portion and I thought I was telling myself, well, that's okay, We'll just cut the Q&A, We'll cut it down, We'll have maybe two minutes of Q&A, It'll be fine.
Speaker 2:And it's like he read my mind. George passed me a slip of paper that said we need to make sure we have time for the Q&A and I gave him a little like half smile and I you know maybe winked and I mouthed at him We'll see, We'll see. And he slid the note back at me and I thought, okay, he's telling me this is what it's we should do. And it was like a you know in the moment, example of you're right, you lead, I'm in the backseat. So I cut my time short and they did the Q and A. I handed the mic back to them. They did the Q and A, they were right, it was a good Q and A, but it was a good kind of lesson for me, I guess, about how this really ought to look.
Speaker 1:I was there, I saw it happen. It's not been the first time I saw that happen, one watching George and David present to the African bishops and how they became totally disinterested in anything we had to say, because we stepped back and let the authentic, real voice of the people who knew speak into the problem. And like you, Laura, I get very excited to see that shift in the power because it's bringing about great results and it's part of our core values and as long as I'm in a leadership role at HCW, we will not be backing away from those core values at HCW. We will not be backing away from those core values not just because they served us so well, because I think that's the behavior we want to see valued by anybody interested in helping children and how we change the world. I threw you in there, Rick. I didn't know if you had anything you wanted to add at that point or not.
Speaker 4:I do A couple of quick thoughts. I just realized my name's here. A couple of quick thoughts.
Speaker 4:One, laura's comment about how we see things different culturally. We tend to be very results-oriented, objective and show, show me the numbers, and that defines success. But think about what success is in our allies culture, it's about maintaining the relationship before any other objective. They focus first on the relationships, which, quite frankly, is something I think we could learn from. It would be a tremendous value, think we could learn from it would be a tremendous value. But we have to be careful.
Speaker 4:And this is back to this whole empowerment thing is, we have to be careful about imposing our view of success on our allies. It's not our job to determine what success looks like. It's theirs and that's going to look very differently and we're going to have to adapt to it, and I think Laura's example is a good one of, in the moment, adapting to that. Melody, though, asked about our core values. I've worked with a lot of organizations in my career, and a lot of organizations in fact I would say most tend to have a set of values, value statements, core values. We call them core values, and what I see happening I've seen happening over and over again is they put them on a nice plaque that goes in the wall in the hallway outside the the executive suite and if you ask an executive about values, they'll say oh, yeah, yeah we got those.
Speaker 4:isn't that what in that plaque still out on the wall out there? And I point that out to you because so often in organizations I've observed we define core values but they don't drive our behaviors. They're just something pretty we put on the wall because somebody convinced us we should have them. We really reinforce these core values and use them as a measure of are we doing the right things? Our core values define what those right things are. So when we put together a plan of action of how we're going to move forward, we bounce them off of those core values and say is that consistent with what we claim our values to be?
Speaker 4:And I would offer there is nothing worse in an organization than saying you have a set of values and then behaving in a way contrary to those values. And as a nonprofit who depends on our donors and supporters out there, that's the death knell for us. We can't afford to say we hold certain values and then don't act in accordance with those values. So those core values I know we bring them up a lot. It's because they're critically important and they drive how we do, what we do every day.
Speaker 3:I mean in addition to that, in the spirit of open collaboration, we have continued to make significant progress in this area as well, by enhancing communication channels to ensure transparency and mutual accountability, because, recognizing that differences in management and leadership styles can pose challenges in cross-cultural collaborations.
Speaker 3:We have continued to strategize and implement mechanisms to enhance relationships with our global South allies. These efforts include fostering shared leadership practices to bridge data gaps in communication and unify expectations, streamlining and refining existing structures and processes. And working toward shared goals, key factors of trust and mutual respect. We know it may just come. A partnership between organizations, even within the same culture, the same country, can be very difficult to maintain, let alone think about kind of collaboration between two different cultures.
Speaker 3:Complexities and all of that it comes with a lot of challenges. So cross-cultural collaborations can only thrive when there is this mutual understanding, alignment and a shared commitment to effectiveness and, as well as the impactful outcomes that you are all working towards, this translate, in our case, into trying to be on the same, of the same understanding, the same why and the same vision with our global south allies. We understand that inconsistency in these areas can continue to hinder effective problem solving. It can lead to misunderstandings and can impact program success. So by prioritizing trust and open dialogue, we are laying that solid foundation for local leaders to take on greater responsibilities and also recognizing the recognition that they deserve. So at the same time, we continue to provide staff support in collaborative and empowering role, ensuring that lasting impact and progress are there, because that's what true empowerment and true cross-cultural collaboration can truly bring. So we continue to do that at Helping Children Worldwide going forward.
Speaker 5:That's a really great point, nabs. You know I said earlier about how we have to dream into the future and we have to have that same goal for what the future state looks like, but we also have to have the same plan for how we reach that future state. That's important. Melody, you unmuted so I thought you wanted to talk. Okay, you know, the topic that's spinning around the international development, global health, humanitarian, ngo space right now is localization. If I had a nickel this year for every time I've heard the word localization used I could fund our programs for the next five years. Used I could fund our programs for the next five years.
Speaker 5:So many large organizations are striving towards these localized strategies and the transition for this has been really, really hard, especially for very, very big organizations that have a lot of local partners in a lot of different countries. It seems like people are thinking that the transition can just be as simple as saying, okay, you're in charge of your own programs, now it's all on you. While the goal is to empower local partners and build sustainable solutions, the reality is that the skills and resources required for things like management, fundraising, compliance, grant writing these things are concentrated in large organizations. Big organizations have entire teams dedicated just to compliance, just to grant writing, and local organizations, they excel in direct service delivery, community engagement, but they don't have the capacity to take on the administrative and financial responsibilities.
Speaker 5:And so localization has to be this ongoing process and it requires patience, persistence and a commitment to ongoing support and capacity building.
Speaker 5:You know NABs is saying we have to have the same goals and the same vision for how to achieve those goals, and so deciding who does what of the direct service support versus capacity versus administrative is really important conversation that these organizations have to have. I have a friend who works for a really large bilateral organization and she was complaining to me that this you know humongous organization that gets a lot of funding from this bilateral organization they've been working for three years going through this localization process and they have not yet fully turned over ownership to that local organization. And she was like you know what is the holdup, it shouldn't take that long, like you should just be able to hand over power. And so I shared with her about how, you know, we've been doing the same thing and local ownership and local leadership has to grow out of that relationship. It has to grow out of those conversations and the division of power in those ways. It takes time to evolve and to grow. It takes time to evolve and to grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, I think you make a really important point when you talk about how our global self partners excel at direct service. You know that that that client facing thing that they do is something we don't do well, not in our in the capacity that we have as Global North organizations. But it isn't a simple matter of just saying here are the keys. Go ahead and drive. We had our annual golf tournament this year. Our fundraiser and George and David happened to be here in the US to help support that and I got into a golf cart with George and midway through I said to him do you want to drive? And he said yes and we switched places. He got in the driver's seat. He drove us right off the golf path and into a ditch and I said, george, what happened?
Speaker 2:He said this is the first time I've ever driven and I thought I probably should have asked if you knew how to drive before I let you get behind the wheel of a golf cart. So, yeah, part of this is helping to build the capacity. It's not that they can't do it, it's just that maybe they haven't had that opportunity to learn how yet. So we're always trying to learn. One of my favorite sayings about us is that we're a know better, do better organization, and so we're always, you know, trying to have the humility to know that we don't know everything, and the more, the more that we learn, the more we learn. We need to learn. As a former professor, my goal was always to get my students to a place where they didn't need me anymore, and that's a process that doesn't happen, you know, in a single day. You know in a single day, but that's about sort of working yourself out of a job and taking your rightful place in the wings as the people you're empowering and strengthening take their rightful place. I have to say, the most exciting thing over the past two years, since we're doing kind of a two-year retrospective, is has been watching our Global Self colleagues step up into the front and center of things. We were filming with an orphanage director in Mozambique a year or so ago, I can't remember, and the film director said to me do you want to feed David the questions to ask the orphanage director? And I said no, let's just let them talk and see what happens. And the two of them leaned in and started talking about the best way to care for children and why orphanages aren't a great place for them and what happens if you decide to transition to orphanages. They just had a conversation through an interpreter because she didn't speak English, and I realized they don't need me. They know their clientele, they know their work, they know their context, even across African cultures. They had kind of a common purpose and a common understanding that I was completely outside of and I realized I'm standing physically exactly where I'm supposed to, behind the camera, while the action is happening in front of me, and that's been really exciting to witness and be a part of.
Speaker 2:The other huge takeaway that I've gotten this year, that I've been able to grab this year, is I got to witness what happened when our the local leaders that are allies of ours in the global south, got to attend workshops and conferences with other people from the Global South that do the same work that they do and witnesses. They exchanged best practices and knowledge with one another, which is something that happens for those of us in the Global North all the time, but it doesn't happen so often for them. And we've said for years and when I say we, I don't mean HCW, I mean all of us in the global north have said for years that it's important to bring experts in transition from the global south and into these conversations, but we keep sticking ourselves in the middle of these conversations and that's why I'm really excited about next year's rising. I'm going to do a shameless plug and say I'm really excited about next year's rising tides conference, which is called catalyzing transition to broaden the impact, where we're going to spend two days in DC doing deep dive discussions into how we can coordinate better to really move the needle on transitioning orphanages worldwide. And we have the big, hairy, audacious goal of making sure that at least 50% of the people in the room come from the global South and do this work every single day so that their voices are platformed.
Speaker 2:You might not know this, but CRC is the only organization in all of Sierra Leone that knows how to transition orphanages and it's one of only three in all of West Africa. And that department, that transition department at CRC, is two people. So you can imagine there's no way that they can tackle all of the orphanages in Sierra Leone, much less the West African region, on their own. So Rising Tides is going to be a place where we try to figure out how to empower those local leaders so they can really move the needle on transition.
Speaker 3:All of this, we know humility is very essential. Having to always be doing big stuff, like all the things Laura just talked about, you may say, wow, they are like solving the whole world problem, but it's huge. We are not doing it alone, right? So, god and God, we know that God doesn't need us to do everything, just our own part. Do it well.
Speaker 3:So our ongoing progress continues to remind us of the importance of humility in collaboration. All those of you who will be coming to Rising Tide, this is going to be something not only helping children worldwide, but pulling strength and the brains of other people, other experts in this same field, because we can't do this alone. So, as we transfer more responsibilities to the local leaders, we see that stepping back can actually enable us to step up and then together we move. This can continue to foster that resilience and adaptability that's really, really crucial. These are crucial elements in the success of any cross-cultural collaboration. So this approach has strengthened our shared mission, allowing us to focus on capacity building and as well as resource bridging, to effect lasting change. It is crucial.
Speaker 1:I agree, navzin, and we talk a lot about how we're living into our name these days by reaching globally and locally to strengthen families, and that our entire mission can be summed up as that every child deserves a strong family, every child deserves a strong family, and that's not the way we say it, but it could. Somebody else said it that way just the other day and I went yes, that is true, but even so, all of the things that we do are grounded back in that 25-year relationship that we developed between the US and Sierra Leone in the United Methodist Church, and it's foundational in every alliance we establish, and that experience, that understanding and our ongoing evolution of that impacts what we choose to do next.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, melody. I mean, our mission began in Sierra Leone almost 25 years ago, now coming in 2025. And next year we mark the 25th anniversary of the Child Reintegration Center. It's a significant milestone. Sierra Leone is where the transformative work took root and it remains at the heart of everything we do. So, even as we expand our advocacy and collaborations globally, sierra Leone remains foundational because it is where we first learned the importance of strengthening families, empowering communities as well as fostering that local leadership.
Speaker 3:Despite progress, we all know, sierra Leone continues to face immense challenges. It ranks at the bottom of the United Nations Development Index, with pervasive poverty and vulnerability that hinder children and families from reaching their wonderful, god-given potential. The high child mortality rates and fragile systems mean there is still much work to be done. This is why our commitment to Sierra Leone endures. We are deeply invested in equipping local leaders and building resilient families and communities that can thrive independently.
Speaker 3:So, as we celebrate this milestone and look to the future, our dedication to Syria remains steadfast. It is a vulnerable country, as we all know, and the lessons we learn they are shaped how we collaborate globally. We honor the expertise and leadership of our Syrian Union allies, who are not just receivers or recipients, but contributors to global solutions. They are smart people. They bring solutions to the problems we are all trying to tackle. So our work started with a handful of children, including myself. Most of you know my story In the year 2000, when I was forced out of a children taking and brought into that orphanage what is called Child Rescue Center. By then, over the years transitioned and now doing the great work we do of helping children to grow up in safe, strong families. Today this ministry has expanded its reach and impact, but the roots of this mission remind us why we began and why we will continue. Together we are building a network of empowered leaders and communities, ensuring that the foundation laid in Sierra Leone becomes a beacon of hope for others.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right, amps. Laura talked in the first part of this episode about how our allies use empowerment models and working with families. So it was a bit ironic when we started about talking started talking about honoring their decision-making and shifting the power balance. At first they wondered if that meant we were planning to end all financial support for them. We kind of send them into a panic and a tailspin. But empowerment does not mean that we're abandoning our allies in Sierra Leone or reducing their support. It means we're getting out of the way of their development of solutions that advance our mission to make all families strong everywhere in the world. So we use this collaboration and system strategy to grow into our name, without switching our financial support from one impoverished community to another. As I said, in 2022, that would increase our impact one iota. And also, hearkening back to 2022, we all accept that what we sometimes seem as an insurmountable barrier and chaos, failures, delays and disappointments intervene in our plans. Sometimes that's just God ushering us down the path we're supposed to take.
Speaker 1:So with that in mind, I want to invite our listeners again to come along with us on this journey. Step up to the table with this motley crew of optimistic world changers. I, for one, will be leveraging every opportunity to engage more allies, to work together to raise more children out of poverty and bring the lessons we learn and the allied voices we encounter in our continuing and involving relationship with our oldest and dearest allies to help others, confident that their voices and their experiences will strengthen other alliances and improve other efforts. To make it perfectly clear we will work with our long-term friends in Sierra Leone I'm sorry. We will work with our long-time friends in Sierra Leone for as long as they desire and we will stay nimble, remain radically courageous and take advantage of the moments that present themselves to take the next steps forward.
Speaker 1:So, team, we have been talking a long time now. I'm wondering. We should get to our closing statements, the ones that we ask people to do every time. What are your optimistic goals for 2023, for 2024? Individually? Oops, sorry, sorry. 2025. Yep, that's where we are. What are your optimistic goals for 2025, individually and as a mission of helping children worldwide? How are we going to be changing the world through partnerships, alliances and collaborations?
Speaker 3:So I'll start. So, as we look to the future, our vision for 2025 and beyond reflects an unwavering commitment to holistic care encompassing the well-being of children, families and entire communities. So HCW remains focused on enhancing local empowerment and fostering meaningful cross-cultural collaborations that drive sustainable change. We understand that the most effective solutions come from those who are closest to the challenges, and that is why we are dedicated to empowering local stakeholders, leaders, families and communities to take active roles in shaping their futures. By shifting decision-making and leadership to those on the ground, we create an environment where local voices are not only heard but drive impactful solutions. So, to all our supporters and donors listening to us today, thank you for joining with us as we make these essential shifts toward empowerment and local ownership. It is a privilege to work alongside you as we transform together, building a legacy of sustainable, impactful ministry that will thrive for generations. This journey towards sustainable change is not just a goal but a shared responsibility, and we are optimistic about what we can achieve together. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to extend that gratitude that NABs was sharing and share my gratitude for those of you who've listened to us and journeyed along with this and will continue to. Personally, I'm hoping that we can pick up where we've left off in capturing the firmly rooted story which is this documentary that I think has enormous potential if we can find a way to help it reach the world. I'm hoping that more churches and faith leaders will find out about our new Bible study another shameless plug. It's called 127, the Widow and the Orphan, and I hope that they'll find it useful and they'll encourage their small groups and congregations to take it up, and you can message any one of us if you want to learn more about that.
Speaker 2:I'm eager to continue to support from behind the scenes this yearly on coalition as they continue to expand their reach, impact and reputation with their own government and with the region in powerful ways that I'm already seeing happen.
Speaker 2:I'm also closely watching as Mercy and CRC leaders are engaging more and more in conversations, not just at the national level but at the global level, and adding their expertise and experience into these spaces, which, frankly, those of us who've been leading the global north really need to hear and I'm eager to see how the CRC case management team continues to grow in its capacity and excellence and pursues its goals for setting up emergency foster care and continues to develop best practices in their SOPs and tracking of cases, with the onboarding of a digital case management system called WellBe next year, and how they're going to continue to utilize the referral pathways they've created with their Sierra Leone coalition partners.
Speaker 2:I'm very excited to be co-hosting Rising Tides in February with my Global South colleague from the CRC and seeing what comes out of those conversations, those deep dive discussions and while I in no way think that my workload will be in any way lighter in 2025 than it ever has been, I am looking forward to taking even more of a backseat and watching my friends and colleagues from the global South take the lead.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm super excited about all those plans that you guys have For me. I think our role is going to be in supporting our partners, if I can just put it in one sentence. But I'm way too talkative to just say it in one sentence, so I'll just keep talking. I see us continuing to pursue partnerships at the country level, at the global level, that help children worldwide, at the global level that help children worldwide, whether this be through our maternal health missions that work with local organizations within countries to empower midwives and strengthen health systems and improve care for mothers and babies worldwide. Whether that be through our Together for Global Health Network, which is a growing coalition of organizations that are dedicated to working locally but keeping that global framework in mind, learning from one another, sharing resources, sharing knowledge so that our micro environments that we work in can be strengthened collectively together. And when it comes to supporting, I just look forward to things like advocating and supporting where I'm asked, looking for opportunities that support our local partners on the ground and support local organizations wherever they need us to be.
Speaker 5:I loved Laura's story about driving the golf cart, and so I like to think about it as us stepping back from the rains but staying in the car because we're interested in seeing what that destination is too. We're all interested in getting there together. So staying in the car and providing the navigation if needed, or the snacks or fixing the music, metaphorically speaking but letting others drive and keeping that relationship where maybe we're not going to be needed in the future, but maybe where we'll be wanted.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was really curious. Your car has rained.
Speaker 5:You've never been in a car with me, Melody.
Speaker 2:I have, I mean there, say a lot of things in there, but I've been in her car.
Speaker 4:I would not surprise me if she had a sleigh with reindeer many metaphors.
Speaker 5:It's christmas anyways, that is.
Speaker 1:Thank you, rick well, my number one goal wait, actually r. I want to hear from you first what do you want us to be doing in 2025? Because you actually get to decide. You're the boss.
Speaker 4:Well, for once, I'm going to be the one who's going to be a little more practical, I think, and less pie in the sky, because I tend to be the one that I tend to look to the future and look for possibilities and big picture stuff. I'm going to be a little more practical. Back in 1999, end of 99, 2000, bishop Tom Berlin came back with this crazy idea to create an orphanage in Sierra Leone, and he presented it to us, the congregation at Florores United Methodist Church, and one of the things I remember him saying is if you want to do this, understand we are not going to do a one and done. We have to figure out a way to do this in a sustainable, long-term approach, and so my goal for this year giving that 2025 will be 25 years of this mission is that we do not forget all the good that has been done and we take the year to really celebrate.
Speaker 4:I think this is a cultural thing, but we tend to want to. What are we going to do? Next thing, but we tend to want to. What are we going to do next? And I want to make sure we don't forget what we have done so far in our relationships, our outcomes, all the things that's happened for 25 years. That is a remarkable statement and I want to make sure in 2025, we do a really good job of supporting that and making sure our donors and supporters out there know that we're still out here, we're still doing it and we still need their support and their donations as we go forward.
Speaker 1:So that's what I would offer. Well, thank you, rick. I'm going to say I'm going to feed into that, because my real goal for 2025 is to become a better conduit between our work and those who currently support it and reach more people who would want to if they heard about it. I believe we've reached a point in making progress where the next step is really education and recruitment of people and organizations to join our networks and alliances and come along with us in the work, and I'm starting with our local business community through chambers of commerce and social action and networking organizations like the International Rotary Clubs. And I know Laura is going to be sharing the Strong Family materials out in our faith communities and Yaz is going to be recruiting more medical teams to engage in Together for Global Health initiatives.
Speaker 1:And if any of you out there in our listening audience have a small group who might find our mission and mission approach fascinating people who enjoy stories of optimism and radical courage in the face of tough problems you can reach me at Melody Curtis and that's with two S's M-E-L-O-D-Y-C-U-R-T-I-S-S. As in Sam Sam at helpingchildrenworldwideorg, I would love to introduce you and your friends to the mission and increasing the impact of helping children worldwide and as a I guess a second goal is to be a better boss. I want to support all of you as you build on the foundation of the last two years to shift the balance of power so our friends in the global south feel empowered to take the lead. I have seen such great results when they do at Mercy Hospital and the Child Reintegration Centers, work with other Sierra Leone organizations and in the network of people from all across the globe who are coming together to improve the lives of orphaned children and families living in poverty, both at rising times to end the family separation crisis and collaborating in the maternal health mission to save lives of mothers and babies who are dying because they lack access to well-trained practitioners and adequately staffed facilities.
Speaker 1:And these aren't my goals. These are HCWs but, as implementer-in-chief, it's what I believe can be accomplished in the next years. We were set on this path by those people Rick talked about, people who dared to dream, dared to try and gave their every waking moment in service to others. I was blessed eight years ago to be offered a seat at the table alongside them, to meet and join leaders like Rick and Laura and be able to invite Nabs andAS to lead the changes we all imagined could be.
Speaker 2:We're little, but we're mighty because of all of you our volunteers, our board members, the church partners and our incredibly collaborative and capable allies, who are always eager to learn more, do more, be more.
Speaker 5:Thank you all for joining us in this podcast episode and in the work that we do. We always say that everything we do grows out of the relationships that we have. We've talked a lot about relationships in this episode, actually the relationships that we have to our allies, and we invite you to continue to be in relationship with us and thank you for all the support and love that you've given us over the years.
Speaker 1:All of you, all of those people speaking here on this podcast, reach for the horizon, constantly adjust and respond to an ever-changing world with grace and speed to do justice and have mercy. And despite your astounding achievements, you continue to walk humbly with our God. As a faith-based organization, we are often blessed to be surrounded by people who live out their lives for others. The list of changes I shared at the beginning of the first half of this episode were things that happened only in the first year of the change. As you all have described, those advancements have accelerated and even the very nature of the advancement became critically different in the second year. I guess the best way to describe that feeling is that I keep thinking about that classic commercial from the 70s, which most of you are way too young to have ever heard. We've come a long way, baby. What is it we always say when we're closing the podcast?
Speaker 2:It's a big messy world out there, but we believe with radical courage.
Speaker 4:And radical collaboration, we can change the world.
Speaker 1:Together.
