2008 CARE National Conference

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Washington, DC
June 18, 2008

CARE USA President and CEO, Dr. Helene D. Gayle, speaks to conference attendees during the Opening Plenary at the CARE National Conference in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, June 18, 2008. (© 2008 Erin Lubin/CARE)

At the end of the video you just watched, our colleague Derreck Kayongo threw down a challenge: "Here's what we can bring to the table. What can you bring?"

Derreck – I wish you could see the view from here. I am looking at nearly 500 Americans who are doing one of the most influential things a citizen can do.

People who have traveled from across this country to speak truth to power. To stand up for the world's poorest people. To cast their vote for a fairer, more equitable world. In short, to make things better.

And, let me tell you, it's an extraordinary sight.

With this step, you are testifying to one of the most important powers a person has: the power to choose.

In this election year, we are reminded every day that we have a significant choice to make in November. The choice we make then will impact not only us but people around the world.

But you and I know it's not a question of just one election. As citizens, we routinely make choices that influence the kind of world in which we live.

We can choose to weigh in on an issue. To write a letter to our policymakers. To make a phone call. To attend a meeting.

And we can choose to do nothing. So our choices matter. They matter for us because we are helping to create the world we want to leave behind for future generations.

And our choices matter in a very direct way to the people for whom we are here today – the part of our human family who are struggling to eke out a life on less than $1 a day.

Consider the agony of the choices they are forced to make because of such degrading poverty. Excruciating choices like: Which child will go to school? Which sick family member will get medical care? Which daughter or son will leave home in search of work far away? Who will skip dinner?

These are choices nobody should have to make.

Your very presence here is a vital step toward changing that.

Your presence says something powerful about you as a group, and it defies popular notions about Americans being in a period of intense self-interest. It was not self-interest that brought you here. This isn't an issue that affects your schools, your property value, your job security.

Yet, here you are.

You've traveled from 39 states, representing 146 congressional districts.

Our youngest participant is nine-year-old Bundev Sawhney from Morton Grove, Illinois!

Our most experienced is 91-year-old Janet Dewar from Littlestown, Pennsylvania!

Virdie Golliher traveled the furthest – 2,780 miles from Fox Island in Washington State!

Sandi Tully from Manhattan returns for the sixth year in a row – Sandi has come for every single conference, since the very first one when we had just 18 participants. We would love it if all of you became annual attendees.

Twenty-six percent of you are students. That speaks volumes about your generation and the commitment you have toward building a world with opportunities for all people.

For those of you who have never done anything like this, you are in for an exhilarating experience. You are demonstrating that a united voice can have an enduring impact around the globe. You are democracy in action.

And, let me tell you, you are in for some exercise – with each group having as many as four meetings, walking between the Senate and the House buildings, up and down flights of stairs, multiplied by nearly 500 of us, that is roughly the equivalent of one person walking from here to Miami.

But, based on what I saw this morning at Eric Harr's workout, that will be no problem for this group!

By attending this conference, each one of you made a choice. To show solidarity with people who couldn't be here to represent themselves.

I imagine many of you can remember a time in your own life when somebody reached out a hand to help you. And how that made all the difference.

There is something so elemental and inspiring in this. It is the universal human aspiration to improve our situation.

This is the very thing CARE sees in the people with whom we work in more than 70 countries. People working incredibly hard to provide a better life for themselves, their families and their communities.

People who believe that their children can have a brighter future. That good health is a right, not a privilege. That they, too, should have safe drinking water, adequate nutrition and a solid education.

People who, in the face of tremendous obstacles, get up every day and do what they can to make the world better.

Just like you are doing.

So, to address the question posed in the video, let me tell you what CARE is bringing to the table.

We have put a stake in the ground and are making some big bets to strengthen the impact we can have for the world's poorest people by the year 2015.

That is the target date set by U.N. members, including the United States, to cut in half the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day.

We've got seven years. Seven years to reduce poverty and disease and to increase access to water and food and education.

On the one hand, these are incredibly simple goals and it is absolutely mind-blowing that at this point in human development we are still not there – that, as a world, we are still striving for those most basic of rights.

Yet those simple goals represent very ambitious targets. And, getting there will take all of us.

CARE's contribution is grounded in 60-plus years of working with communities on health and nutrition, education, water and sanitation, agriculture and natural resources, food security, and emergency relief. Over and over again, we see the results of strengthening people's ability to provide for themselves and their families.

But it will require more than just business as usual. To end poverty we must tackle the factors that make people poor and keep them poor. Change the practices and policies that hold people back.

These include policies in their countries and in ours.

CARE's policy agenda aims to do four things:

First: Leverage the power of women who can help entire families and communities escape poverty. Our focus is on key periods in the life cycle of women and girls – improving maternal health, creating opportunities for girls' education and leadership, providing women with access to financial resources, and ending gender-based violence, especially in conflict situations.

Second: Adopt a new approach to fighting hunger that goes beyond emergency relief and ensures long-term food security. Given the current global food crisis, this is a critical issue and one which you will be raising in your meetings tomorrow.

Third: Reduce the impact of global climate change on people in the world's poorest communities, who are bearing the brunt of our neglectful policies in rich nations.

And fourth: Modernize the severely outdated system and approach to foreign aid, to get better results that actually have a sustained impact on reducing global poverty.

Accomplishing these goals will require action by CARE and by our partners.

Let me give you an example:

Two years ago at this conference we asked participants to advocate for a bill called the Democratic Republic of Congo Relief, Development and Security Act.

The country was recovering from one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II and was about to hold its first democratic elections in nearly 50 years. Thousands of civilians continued to be killed, injured and forced from their homes due to ongoing insecurity.

Senators Barack Obama and Sam Brownback had introduced legislation calling for an increase in U.S. engagement as the Democratic Republic of Congo worked toward peace and recovery, and sought to end the systemic acts of violence faced by many of its citizens, particularly women and girls.

CARE staff and advocates like you worked hard to pass this bill. Constituents lobbied on Capitol Hill, responded to our action alerts, called members of Congress at opportune times and arranged in-district meetings with legislators.

Thanks to those collective efforts, Congress passed the act in December 2006.

While the Democratic Republic of Congo proceeds on the long road to recovery, the U.S. has increased its commitment – both financially and diplomatically – to helping the Congolese find a path to sustainable peace and development.

CARE has remained engaged throughout the bill's implementation. Staff working in the region have testified in front of the Senate and have provided briefings about the situation on the ground.

We continue to push for an end to violence against women and girls, a worldwide problem with especially grave implications in some of the poorest countries.

This year, we are calling on Congress to support a bill called the International Violence Against Women Act, so that the U.S. can take a proactive role in integrating violence prevention and treatment efforts into our foreign assistance programs.

This is what it looks like to make a difference. And we couldn't do it without you.

Today and tomorrow, you will help change the world. That may sound like an overstatement, but consider what you are doing.

You will be lobbying on three timely issues.

You will be telling your representatives in Congress, "I traveled here from your district because I want you to do more to fight chronic hunger. I want you to protect women and girls. I want you to cap greenhouse gas emissions and do all you can to help the world's poorest people cope with the effects of climate change. I am your constituent, and I vote."

There are more than 30,000 registered lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Only 50 of them work on issues of global poverty. So, tomorrow, when this force of nearly 500 people who have traveled from 39 states arrives in the offices of our elected officials, you will be delivering a very powerful message. You will be speaking not only for yourselves, but for all those back at home who also believe in these issues.

And, let me assure you, your presence and your voices carry a great deal of weight.

In 2006, a group of nine Texans convinced their Houston congressman to withdraw an amendment that would have cut $600 million from development assistance.

Last year, just one week after this conference, the House of Representatives began debating how much money the U.S. would spend on programs to fight poverty. Speaking on the House floor, Republican Representative Jerry Lewis from California said:

"In recent meetings with CARE and others, I have noticed that more and more people are beginning to understand that they, too, have a role in our leadership in the world. Theirs are the voices from the grass roots. We must continue to lead in the world, for indeed, without our leadership, the poor of the world will suffer most."

Later that month, the House approved $34 billion for U.S. foreign assistance. So, don't underestimate the power you have. And the impact you are having.

You made a choice when you decided to join this effort. A noble, compassionate and an optimistic choice. You chose to make things better.

You may never get the chance to meet the people whose lives you will be changing.

They may never know exactly what you did.

But, together, you and they are improving our world.

And, as a result, we are all better off.

Thank you.