Text of the global conference call with
Joan Holmes

(To listen to the recording in RealAudio, click here.)

Hello, everyone! As always, I'm thrilled and honored to be with you!

Today - on this call together - we will deepen our understanding of this new era we have begun - the era of the Final Milestone for the end of hunger.

We will look at the current strength of THP as we move forward in this era, and highlight the progress we have made in the last six months.

We will create a vision of the event on September 23rd and see the strategic importance of this event for catalyzing our future work - around the world, and in all the localities where we live.

Let's then step back and review where humanity stands in the work to end hunger - and where The Hunger Project stands in its commitment to be at the cutting edge of that global process.

As you'll recall, and as we reviewed last January - when we began The Hunger Project in 1977, hunger was treated as an inevitable part of human existence. The first era of The Hunger Project's work was to create a worldwide recognition that hunger could be ended - and a world-wide commitment to do so. That era culminated in the 1990 World Summit for Children, when the then-largest gathering of world leaders who committed themselves to the end of hunger.

As the first era drew to an end, it was clear that something else was missing beyond commitment.

You could have all the commitment in the world, but if you tried to fulfill that commitment through unworkable strategies, you would fail.

Nearly all the strategies at that time were based on a top-down "service delivery" paradigm.

For example, The Indian Government and The World Bank funded a massive drinking water scheme. Wells were provided throughout India, but only 20% were operable at any time. No one thought to train the villagers to maintain and repair the pumps.

The service delivery paradigm is not only too inflexible and inefficient to make a significant difference – it also does great harm by treating hungry people as beneficiaries and passive recipients.

Poor people began to incorporate this thinking and often believed they were only capable of waiting for the government or UN or World Bank to solve their problems.

The transformation of this cruel misunderstanding of the poor as the problem – rather than the solution – is absolutely critical to the end of hunger.

In the second era of our work, THP pioneered strategies that gave hungry people themselves the opportunity to be the authors of their own development.

These strategies are touching the lives of millions of villagers in 11 states of India, all the districts of Bangladesh, 6 countries of Africa and 3 countries of Latin America.

This strategic approach of having hungry people at the center of their own development is absolutely essential to the end of hunger – and – it is not the final word.

What we in THP and in the world need to confront, is that hungry people not only lack opportunity to end their own hunger –they are systematically denied that opportunity.

Hungry people – and particularly women - live in an environment of traditional prejudices, unjust laws, corruption, broken promises, failed economic policies, and the severe subjugation of women.

The inescapable conclusion is that people-centered approaches to ending hunger will only ultimately succeed when they are coupled with powerful strategies for social transformation.

This is the hallmark of the Final Milestone for the end of hunger.

A key area of social transformation is women’s empowerment.

It is a tragic irony that on the one hand, society holds women responsible for all the key actions required to end hunger: family nutrition, health, education, food production and – increasingly – family income. On the other hand – through laws, custom and tradition – women are systematically denied the resources, the information and freedom of action they need to carry out these responsibilities.

Given this primary responsibility, women must be in the forefront of local leadership and decision making in order to achieve the end of hunger.

Last year, we launched our first new program in this era – the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative. This initiative has already mobilized hundreds of thousands of people committed to the economic empowerment of the women who grow Africa’s food.

This year - in societies where the subjugation of women is even more severe - we are developing and launching new initiatives for the empowerment of grassroots women leadership in South Asia.

Earlier this year, I had the honor of sharing with you and the board that, as we take on this new commitment, The Hunger Project has never been stronger, more powerful, more steeped in its principles and integrity, more financially sound or more powerfully positioned to make a difference than it is today.

This strength has grown in the last few months. At our last board meeting, we were privileged to elect four new directors to our Global Board of Directors who bring great expertise and influence in precisely the areas we are working. Let me tell you a little about them now.

Dr. Jean Augustine is the first African-Canadian woman ever elected to Canada’s Parliament and is very active in the international movement for micro-credit.

Dr. Mohini Giri is one of the foremost advocates for women’s rights in India. She chaired India’s National Commission for Women and is a champion for the cause of the most subjugated women in India,.

Dr. George Mathew is India’s leading expert in the critical importance of local democracy for the creation of a new future for India, and is director of the Institute of Social Sciences.

Chief Bisi Ogunleye is the 1996 Africa Prize Laureate and one of the continent’s foremost grassroots women’s leaders, mobilizing more than 150,000 women across all the states of Nigeria.

The commitment, expertise and partnership of these distinguished individuals is a tremendous addition to the strategic assets of The Hunger Project.

There has been significant progress in our programs in this new era.

I won't have time to mention here the breakthrough results that continue to happen in Latin America, Africa and Asia through our existing programs of strategic planning-in-action - and in particular through the mobilization fueled by the continuing expansion of our Vision, Commitment and Action workshop. This work is critical - it will continue and it will expand.

Today, I will only be able to highlight our new initiatives for this new era.

The "on-the-ground" action of our African Woman Food Farmer Initiative is taking hold. More than 10,000 women in five countries have received credit, and are using it to improve their crops and their incomes.

As important as providing credit, is ensuring that African women develop the skills, rigor, discipline and organizational structures that are necessary to manage large-scale economic empowerment programs.

It is sobering to confront how missing this is. The lack of this kind of organizational capacity is a major stumbling block to major funding agencies channeling more money into the hands of women farmers.

The advocacy thrust of the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative is making an enormous impact. The Africa Prize statue is traveling - like the Olympic Torch - from country to country and village to village. These torch events - with the participation of international delegations of Hunger Project investors - are changing the landscape such that - never again - will African Women Food Farmers be marginalized, taken for granted and ignored.

These events are putting the issue of the African Woman Food Farmer on radio, television, in newspapers and in the houses of parliament for the first time in Africa’s recent history.

Our Africa Regional Director, Dr. Fitigu Tadesse, was just in Uganda - where he ran into Nobel Peace Prize Winner Norman Borlaug. Dr. Borlaug shared how impressed he has been by the enormous media attention this initiative - and all the work of THP is generating in Burkina Faso.

This is giving us more and more leverage in each country for our advocacy program to change government policies and increase budget allocations to support women food farmers in ways that they need and deserve.

Already - in Burkina Faso, Benin and Ghana, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in support of the African woman food farmer.

And in one week, an investor delegation will travel to Senegal, where we will have the opportunity to bring this issue to the attention of the new democratically-elected government of Senegal at the very time it is formulating its knew policies.

I want to acknowledge the 78 Hunger Project women and men who have traveled to Africa to stand in solidarity with the women farmers of the continent. You've brought the power of the international spotlight to this issue in Africa - and as importantly you are now giving your friends and colleagues the opportunity to invest in this groundbreaking initiative.

In Africa - the name of the game is empowering women as producers - ensuring that women gain the economic empowerment they need to grow more and earn more with far less drudgery.

In South Asia - the name of the game is empowering women as the key change agents for a new future.

The future of South Asia depends on solving key issues of health, education, nutrition, population and environment. It is women who are at the front lines of these issues - each and every day - day after day. It is women who bear the crushing responsibilities for every one of these areas.

It is women who know best what needs to be done. It is women who are most committed to taking the necessary actions. Today and for thousands of years - women have been denied the resources, information and the freedom of action they need to carry out these responsibilities. Women have been kept in an almost unbelievable state of powerlessness, illiteracy, isolation and malnutrition.

Yet - in the midst of this inhuman oppression - and for the first time in 5,000 years - the most perceptive observers in Indian society indicate that "something is bubbling up in the psyches of the women."

There is an awakening of consciousness, which coincides with recently passed legislation, which - for the first time - creates a new opening for an historic transformation.

This new opening for women's full participation in society is not going unchallenged. The forces of opposition are formidable.

THP is committed to seizing this new opening, and to empowering grassroots women to become effective change agents for a new future. THP is standing in solidarity with women grassroots leaders of South Asia, and women and men everywhere who are committed to this transformation.

Therefore - THP is launching The South Asia Initiative.

As always we will work strategically. The initiative initially has a four-prong strategy: leadership training, advocacy, increasing media coverage and generating international support.

We intend to continue to discover high-leverage pathways for action as this initiative unfolds.

In Bangladesh, the highest priority is to train as many grassroots women as possible as effective change agents in their villages - and to provide an ongoing program for their empowerment.

Our most powerful tool for this is our four-day animator training. On a target of training 700 women as animators this year, we have already trained 500.

As a critical step to expanding our work in this area, we have held our first-ever training of women to become leaders of this intensive four-day training.

We are creating a new "women's empowerment" information handbook that our animators are using throughout the country to educate women - door to door - about their most basic rights starting with, that under the law, women are full and equal citizens.

The brochure also tells them how they can access critical resources for health, education and nutrition.

Last week, our country director Badiul Majumdar met with the Prime Minister Sheikh Haseena. At our request, she has indicated her preliminary support to having October 1st of this year be the first annual National Girl Child Day - a day of events and mobilization in every corner of the country.

THP will ensure that - on this day - we awaken everyone in the nation to the critical importance of providing better health, education and nutrition to girls as the highest leverage investment for the future of the country.

In a country where girls are so confined that you can visit villages and never see a little girl outside - never see a little girl playing - where many girls never enter schools - where girls are denied health care - where they are fed less - to have this country now declare a Girl Child Day is of monumental importance.

In India - our highest strategic priority is to empower women who have been elected as representatives to local government - women panchayat leaders.

We are beginning this initiative in four states, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and intend to expand it to all 11 states where we work.

We have created a new two-day Women's Leadership Workshop, based on our experience with the Vision, Commitment and Action workshop, and are pilot-testing it this summer.

As you've read in the emails - Lalita led the first of these workshops in May in the state of Karnataka, in the local languages of Kanada and Telugu. It has also been delivered in the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan.

We've trained 19 women and men of India to be the first facilitators of this workshop. These individuals are an extraordinary body of people - they are highly skilled, articulate accomplished professionals from business, social work, science and academia - all of whom are Global Investors. These women and men are the vanguard of leadership for expanding the training of panchayat leaders throughout India.

These individuals - as they lead the trainings - will identify the most outstanding panchayat leaders, who will then be trained to be the next body of trainers.

As part of the strategy in India, we are forging coalitions with groups of NGOs and government ministers, and

We are working with top people in the media to cause a breakthrough in reporting on the women leaders in panchayats.

You'll learn much more about our new strategies on September 23rd.

Let me now turn to our work in the developed world: financial investment that expresses our global partnership, responsibility and interconnectedness.

Given the stretch we are making in our programs, this year needs to be a banner year in investment - and thanks in large measure to the people on this call - we are delivering on that opportunity.

We set high cash targets this year, and we have surpassed those targets every month so far.

The Raul Julia Ending Hunger Fund Event in April was a great success - raising more than twice as much for this year as it did last year.

Australia has just completed a series of events with Lalita, that raised more than twice as much as they did last year.

We have a new team on the field in Japan which was formally launched one week ago, and who have already secured more pledges for global programs than Japan has raised in any year of the past decade.

For the first time in more than a decade we have million dollar commitments - a level we now call "Legacy Investors".

Karin Albrecht from Australia and Dave and Tracie Jansen from Santa Fe have committed $1 million each for the year 2001.

We also recently had a breakthrough at the "Benefactor Level" when we received an anonymous, unrestricted foundation grant of $250,000.

Last October, we created the Women's Leadership Fund as a special Charter-Level - $100,000 - opportunity to build the new level of financial strength we need to launch our new initiatives.

Already - 20 Charter-Level pledges have been made in the Women's Leadership Fund. This is more charter-level investors than we have ever had in the history of The Hunger Project. More than $2 million has already been pledged so far.

So - as we mobilize for September 23rd, this is our strategy and our strength. We are heading into September 23rd with the kind of momentum we need to cause the breakthroughs that are required.

Let's now look more closely at the opportunity of the weekend of September 23rd itself - and the strategy through the end of the year.

First - while we call this an "event" - it is much more than an event. It is a critical milestone in our entire campaign for the end of hunger in South Asia.

Whether you are in Africa, South Asia, Australia, Japan, Europe, Canada, Mexico or the US - this weekend is key to your mobilization strategy.

For the first time in Hunger Project history, our gala fall event will be dedicated to South Asia.

This year, we are holding the event at the newly-refurbished New York Hilton Hotel where we will be able to seat more than 1600 people.

Long before you arrive at the New York Hilton - you and your guests will have had the opportunity to study the On-line Briefing Program on the web. You will already have a feel for the rich culture of the region, a grasp of the centuries-old subjugation of women that holds hunger in place, and an appreciation of the issues involved in transforming this condition.

At the Hilton, after you go up the escalators to the third floor, you will immerse yourself in an exhibition that takes you - step by step - through the lifetime of subjugation of girls and women in India and Bangladesh.

Through a series of galleries of extraordinary photographs and powerful facts, you will experience what this means - from being unwanted before birth, mistreated throughout childhood, overworked - yet unrecognized for your contributions - throughout adulthood - to being outcast as a widow. At the completion of the exhibition, you will experience of the extraordinary awakening that is underway among women in South Asia - an awakening that sets the stage for the revolution and transformation we will portray in the event itself.

You will enter the ballroom to the sound of sitar and tablas - and see a room gloriously decorated with South Asian fabrics.

On the tables - in folders of hand-made paper by women in Bangladesh - you will find two beautiful powerful brochures, one for India and one for Bangladesh. These are companion pieces to the African Woman Food Farmer Brochures.

The opening ceremony will beautifully represent South Asia - with a procession of grassroots women leaders from India and Bangladesh, the lighting of a beautiful oil lamp, and readings that powerfully evoke the deepest spirit of The Hunger Project.

You'll hear about the new initiatives we are launching - including a first time announcement of a new initiative for India.

You'll meet and hear the women grassroots leaders themselves - in addition to seeing a short video of the panchayat leaders in their own villages...

You and your guests will also have the opportunity to invest in The Hunger Project - in its commitment to these women - in their future - in the future of South Asia and truly in the future of all humanity.

And we'll celebrate - with the great blend of Asian and Western music which - if you've not had the chance to see MTV India - should amaze and delight you.

Around the event - as always, only better - there will be workshops and meetings of activists and investors including a new format for Sunday's meeting - which includes a meeting at which all six grassroots leaders from Bangladesh and India will be present, in addition to other key leaders from India and Bangladesh.

Following the event - delegations of investors will accompany the grassroots leaders as they return to their villages in India and Bangladesh - one delegation to each country. As with the torch events, these investors will participate in a series of events to galvanize public attention to the importance of empowering women's grassroots leadership.

This will be very special for the team going to India, as you will participate in events in New Delhi on Gandhi's birthday. To stand in solidarity with grassroots Indian women on the birthday of a man who dedicated his life to the cause of freedom and human dignity for all people will truly be a momentous occasion.

It will also be very special for the investor team going to Bangladesh - who will be there on the first ever Hunger Project initiated National Girl Child Day. We encourage investors in this group to bring their daughters with them to be a part of the delegation. In fact - during the ceremony in New York, we plan on having all the daughters who are going on the delegation to stand up and be recognized.

During the month of October, we will carry out a follow-through campaign to speak with every one who attended the event, and invite them to invest and to become an investor activist.

This year, we also encourage you to organize South Asia Initiative events in your locality for the month of November. We envision having as many as 60 of these events - featuring delegation participants after they return from South Asia. We will have brochures and video segments that you can use in these events.

This will propel The Hunger Project powerfully into the year 2001 - when we will again have a 1,000 person call to launch the New Year.

That's it - that's the next six months in your Hunger Project. The Hunger Project has taken on an immense challenge, and this is our opportunity - with your leadership and investment, we will meet that challenge.

Link to previous conference call - January 20, 2000 - the Final Milestone

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