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Engaging Afghan-American Community Leaders
Posted byon August 7, 2013 at 6:15 PM EDTOn Friday, August 2nd, the Office of Public Engagement hosted a group of Afghan-American community leaders for a roundtable discussion. This is part of an ongoing effort to engage the Afghan-American community and spark an important conversation on how community leaders are working in various ways to support others across the United States as well as their role in shaping the future of Afghanistan.
Community leaders ranged from founders of NGOs, academics, entrepreneurs to youth leaders and other active members of the community. They hailed from cities and towns across the country including major Afghan-American enclaves in California, New York, and Virginia. The day-long roundtable connected them with Administration officials from the State Department, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, White House National Security Staff and Domestic Policy Council, and our office. It provided an opportunity to discuss the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan, the current debate on immigration, youth issues, the First Lady’s Let’s Move initiative, and other important topics.
Our time together provided a platform for these leaders to address some of the most critical issues facing the community locally and abroad. As the meeting came to a close, community leaders departed with a deep interest to continue the dialogue with the federal government and create new opportunities for other Afghan-Americans to be engaged while also celebrating their heritage and preserving their rich culture.
Paul Monteiro is an Advisor in the White House Office of Public Engagement.
Learn more aboutFor the Win: Stomp Out World Hunger
Posted byon August 7, 2013 at 1:06 PM EDTFor the Win is a guest blog series featuring the remarkable initiatives that young Americans are advancing to win the future for their communities. Each week we highlight a new young person and learn about their inspiring work through their own words. Submit your story to appear in the For the Win guest blog series.
Joshua Williams is a middle school student at Ransom Everglades School in Coconut Grove, Florida. He is the Founder and CEO of Joshua’s Heart Foundation, which has distributed almost 500,000 pounds of food to those in need. Joshua was recognized as a 2013 Hasbro Community Action Hero Semi-Finalist, an award that recognizes outstanding young service leaders presented by Hasbro in partnership with generationOn, the global youth service enterprise of Points of Light.
Have you ever woken up late, rushed to school and only then realized that you forgot to eat breakfast? Your stomach growls all morning as you grow impatient for lunch period. Fortunately, many of us know that when lunch time comes there will be a full meal, but imagine if your growling belly was a constant – through breakfast, lunch, and dinner with no relief. Hunger is real.
Statistics show that 3.9 million households in America with children experienced food insecurity and 5.1 percent of all U.S. households accessed emergency food from a food pantry one or more times. Today, with our financial and economic crises, hunger continues to rise among communities in the US and the world.
It is my personal goal to end world hunger. I know I can make a difference, this is a huge task but with the help of others it is possible. I started my mission to stomp out hunger when I was five. One day, while on my way to church with my mom I saw a man who was homeless and hungry. I felt very sad for the man, wanted to help him but didn't know how. Suddenly I remembered -- I remembered the $20 that my grandmother had given to me to do with whatever I wanted. So, I did what I thought was right and gave him my $20 so he could by food or whatever he needed.
When I gave him the money I knew I did the right thing, that experience changed my life forever! I felt really good and I wanted to do this more, but I didn't know how. A few weeks later I saw a commercial about the work that Feed The Children was doing in Africa. Conditions there were terrible, and this organization was helping. I realized that food issues were a huge problem everywhere and that I could start helping in my own backyard.
I wanted to give food to the poor in any way possible. But I had to find someone, an adult to help me with this. I approached my wonderful mom and at first she didn’t take me seriously but I was persistent and eventually I got her to help me help kids in the community. Persistence is the key, if you believe in what you want. Although my mom resisted, I knew at that moment what I had to do and that’s when I knew I had found my purpose in life.
After two years and many food donations, we created Joshua’s Heart Foundation. We have distributed over 500,000 pounds of food to over 8,500 individuals, raised a quarter of a million dollars, provided food to 150 families monthly, hosted quarterly cooking demonstrations to teach families how to prepare healthy meals on a budget, and provided weekend backpacks of food to kids in need.
I will do this for the rest of my life and I hope to help out even more to stomp out world hunger. I know what my purpose is. Do you know what yours is? Whether big or small, opening of the door for someone or raising money, I urge you to take action.
I believe that I am in the world not to get something out of it, but to put everything I can into it. What about you?
Check out previous For the Win blog posts:
- For the Win: Puzzles to Remember
- For the Win: A Day in the Life of a Bat Educator
- For the Win: Problem-Solving People
- For the Win: Preserving Our World
- For the Win: Open Your Eyes
- For the Win: Serving with Heart
Ronnie Cho is an Associate Director of the Office of Public Engagement.
Learn more about ServiceNominate a White House Champion of Change for Public Health and Prevention
Posted byon July 31, 2013 at 4:57 PM EDTSince its earliest days, the Obama Administration has worked to improve the health and well-being of our families and our communities. From tackling childhood obesity, to combating the tobacco epidemic, to expanding access to affordable health coverage, the Administration has focused on innovative and meaningful ways to support a healthier America.
The Administration believes that prevention and public health are a top priority because they have lasting effects on the health of Americans. That’s why the Affordable Care Act provides unprecedented resources through the Prevention and Public Health Fund to support community-based strategies to prevent chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, and support public health. Communities across the country are working with their public health leaders, employers, schools and citizens and across sectors like health, transportation, housing and education, to build partnerships that promote healthy lifestyles.
The Affordable Care Act also created the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council, which provides federal leadership to engage states, communities, and private partners in creating a healthier America through the recommendations of the National Prevention Strategy. The Prevention Fund is supporting projects that will put the National Prevention Strategy into action, helping to move the nation from a focus on sickness and disease to one based on wellness and prevention.
But we know that efforts to promote the public’s health and prioritize prevention happen in America’s towns and cities, in schools and parks, in churches and community centers. Every day, local leaders across America’s communities are stepping up in big ways to make sure all Americans have the opportunity to live a healthy life.
This September, the White House will host a “Champions of Change” event to celebrate these local change-agents, whose exemplary leadership is helping to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities in our communities.
The event will bring together and honor extraordinary individuals who are taking innovative approaches to support longer, healthier lives in communities across the country. These leaders will be invited to the White House to celebrate their accomplishments and showcase their actions to support healthier communities.
Today, we’re asking you to help us identify these standout local leaders by nominating a Champion of Change for Public Health and Prevention by midnight on Friday, August 9th. A Champion’s work may involve:
- Supporting community and clinical prevention efforts to address chronic disease, increase education and outreach, and integrate primary and behavioral health;
- Creating healthy and safe communities by promoting healthier schools, homes, and workplaces that make the healthy choice the easy choice;
- Working to address health disparities and empower all Americans to make healthy choices by addressing health concerns that disproportionately affect certain populations;
- Strengthening public health infrastructure and improving public health’s capacity to detect and control disease and other threats;
- Increasing the uptake of important preventive services; and
- Promoting tobacco prevention,
We are looking forward to hosting this event and to highlighting the great work communities across the country are doing to advance the health and well-being of the American people.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Nominate a Prevention and Public Health Leader as a Champion of Change (under theme of service, choose "Prevention and Public Health Leaders").
Carole Johnson works at the Domestic Policy Council.
Learn more about Health CareFor the Win: Puzzles To Remember
Posted byon July 31, 2013 at 2:32 PM EDTFor the Win is a guest blog series featuring the remarkable initiatives that young Americans are advancing to win the future for their communities. Each week we highlight a new young person and learn about their inspiring work through their own words. Submit your story to appear in the For the Win guest blog series.
Max Wallack, a 17-year-old junior at Boston University, is the founder of PuzzlesToRemember. He cares deeply about Alzheimer’s disease and has authored a paper on the topic in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease as well as a new children’s book entitled, Why Did Grandma Put Her Underwear in the Refrigerator? He is currently a Research Intern at the Molecular Psychiatry in Aging Lab at the BU School of Medicine and plans to pursue neuroscience. For his work, Max was honored as a 2011 Hasbro Community Action Hero, an award recognizing outstanding young service leaders presented by Hasbro in partnership with generationOn, the global youth service enterprise of Points of Light.
I was still very young when I first recognized my calling in life. My early experiences helped me grasp the importance of what I might accomplish if I could succeed at practicing medicine with compassion. I can still recall, at the age of nine, with sleepy eyes, taking my post for the night. It was my turn to sleep on the floor at the door to Great Grams’ room and to sound the alarm if she should try to escape. Great Grams had attempted several previous escapes, once—convinced that her family was trying to harm her—she made it to the corner where she flagged down a truck and hopped inside.
That night, years of memories danced in my dreams, most of them good, but Great Grams had no good memories to sustain her. It wasn’t her forgetfulness, rather her insurmountable paranoia that affected every fiber of our lives. It was understandable. If you can’t remember moving an item, then, someone else must have moved it. If you can’t remember what your husband looked like, then you can't tell if he’s been snatched away. If you can’t remember putting money in the bank, then all you have are the dollars in your purse, and Great Grams held on to that purse day and night. Afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, sometimes Great Grams was an adult. At those times, she advised me, protected me, and expressed concern for me. At other times, I was the adult, watching her as we crossed the street, protecting her from harm. Over time, as Great Grams became more child-like, I became more of a caregiver.
In 2008, I founded PuzzlesToRemember, a nonprofit organization that donates free jigsaw puzzles to facilities that care for Alzheimer’s patients. To date, over 23,000 puzzles have been distributed around the world. In conjunction with Springbok, I developed specialized puzzles with large piece size, colorful memory-provoking images, and low piece count, made to meet the needs of Alzheimer’s patients. Completing these simple puzzles provided an often elusive feeling of accomplishment.
From this early start, I have dedicated my life to the disease. A premedical, neuroscience major at Boston University, I am also a research intern in the Molecular Psychiatry In Aging Lab at BUSM, where I investigate various hormones and their relationship to Alzheimer’s. A paper I co-authored will soon be published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Why Did Grandma Put Her Underwear in the Refrigerator?, a children’s book I co-authored to explain Alzheimer’s disease to children has now been published.
Not only is Alzheimer’s disease difficult for patients and their families, it is also a threat to our economy, costing our nation $203 billion annually with projections to reach $1.2 trillion by 2050. We must all be proactive about tackling Alzheimer’s on multiple fronts, encompassing compassionate care of those afflicted, support for weary caregivers, and research to find treatments and, I hope, a cure. Will you help?
Check out previous For the Win blog posts:
- For the Win: A Fight Worth Fighting
- For the Win: A Day in the Life of a Bat Educator
- For the Win: Problem-Solving People
- For the Win: Preserving Our World
- For the Win: Open Your Eyes
- For the Win: Serving with Heart
Ronnie Cho is an Associate Director of the Office of Public Engagement.
Learn more about ServiceHealthy Baby, Happy Baby: The Indian Health Service Announces Designation of Two Baby-Friendly Hospitals
Posted byon July 26, 2013 at 11:20 AM EDTEd. note: This is cross-posted from the Let's Move! blog.
The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative is a global program that was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1991 to encourage and recognize hospitals and birthing centers that offer an optimal level of care for infant feeding and mother/baby bonding. As part of Let’s Move! in Indian Country, the Indian Health Service (IHS) has committed to certifying all IHS hospitals as Baby-Friendly by the end of 2014, and is proud to announce that to date, five of our facilities are now certified as Baby-Friendly.
Claremore Indian Hospital in Oklahoma and the Phoenix Indian Medical Center in Arizona are the first hospitals in their respective states to receive this prestigious designation. Three other IHS facilities — the Quentin N. Burdick Memorial Health Care Facility, Pine Ridge Hospital, and Rosebud Indian Hospital — received their certification in December 2012 and are the only hospitals in North and South Dakota to be designated as Baby-Friendly.
Improving health in early childhood is a critical pillar of the Let’s Move! initiative. IHS is working to reduce the risk that children will develop obesity and diabetes in the future by supporting new parents who choose to breastfeed.
The Indian Health Service (IHS) is the primary federal health care provider for American Indians and Alaska Natives throughout Indian Country. In June 2011, IHS started its Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative to give clinicians the tools and information needed to support mothers who choose to breastfeed, giving those mothers information, confidence, and skills.
We are committed to making all our obstetric hospitals Baby-Friendly. We are pleased and proud that IHS hospitals are setting the standard for maternity care in so many states. Our work shows how this initiative can succeed in populations that will most benefit from the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative.
Yvette Roubideaux, M.D., M.P.H., is the Acting Director of Indian Health Service, the Federal Health Program for American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Learn more about Health CareFFA State Presidents ‘Suit Up’ for Agriculture
Posted byon July 25, 2013 at 6:53 PM EDTEd Note: Yesterday, Secretary Vilsack had the opportunity to speak with some of our nation’s brightest young leaders at the National FFA Organization’s State Presidents’ Conference. He discussed USDA’s efforts to revitalize the rural economy and recognized the officers for their commitment to leadership, personal growth and career success. Below is a blog post submitted to USDA by Clay Sapp, 2012-13 National FFA President. You can find the original post here.
This week is the National FFA Organization’s 2013 State Presidents’ Conference (SPC) in Washington, D.C. At SPC, state FFA officers are exposed to new ideas, meet new people and expand their perspectives as they sharpen their advocacy skills for tomorrow. Two officers from each state, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are represented at this year’s conference, which carries the theme, “Suit up.”
At SPC, state officers undergo intense leadership training and develop a solid understanding of partner relationships. Their training is used to gather grassroots student input from across the nation on the future of FFA and agriculture education.
On Wednesday, our state officers were able to learn about key issues facing rural America, agriculture and education during a White House Rural Council meeting. We heard from U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, executive director of Let’s Move and senior policy advisor on nutrition Sam Kass and senior policy advisor for rural affairs Doug McKalip.
Learn more about RuralTune in Thursday: Observing the Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act
Posted byon July 24, 2013 at 4:15 PM EDTThis Friday, July 26th, marks the 23rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is a landmark law that profoundly changed our nation. On the trajectory of forming a more perfect union, the passage of the ADA in 1990 was a major step forward in keeping a key promise of the American experiment: ensuring equal opportunity for all. This is personally important to me. As an immigrant, as an African American woman, as a civil rights attorney and as a deaf person, the ADA is more than just a law. It is a concrete symbol of hope and opportunity for me, for my family and for the millions of Americans with disabilities who simply want the chance to be full and active members of our society, participants in our democracy and our economy who can be self-sufficient.
The ADA promised equal access in workplaces and educational institutions, and in the transportation required to get there. It provided for full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for those of us living with disabilities. It also gives Americans with disabilities avenues to pursue legal remedies to safeguard all of those rights. As we have learned, time and again, the only way to safeguard the hard-fought rights of the 20th century is to fight to preserve them in the 21st century. That is why President Obama has marshaled the resources of his Administration to advance the goals of the ADA so that it is not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law, that's being applied all across this country.
This Thursday, July 25, the White House Office of Public Engagement will host an event from 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM (EDT) to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the ADA. We invite you to participate from your communities via the live web stream at whitehouse.gov/live. Our conversation will include remarks from Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz You will also have the opportunity to hear from leaders from across the federal government about some of the important work that is happening in the agencies to protect the rights of, and participation by, people with disabilities in our communities. And I am looking forward to introducing you to eight incredible young people who we will be honoring as “Champions of Change” for their advocacy efforts, their innovative projects and their embodiment of the spirit of the ADA. The Champions of Change program was created as an opportunity for the White House to feature groups of Americans – individuals, businesses and organizations – who are doing extraordinary things to empower and inspire members of their communities. This live stream will be closed captioned.
I hope you will join us on Thursday to watch, to learn, to celebrate and to recommit ourselves to upholding and enhancing the principles of the ADA. To watch this event live, visit www.whitehouse.gov/live at 11:00 am EDT on July 25th.
Claudia Gordon is an Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
Learn more about DisabilitiesFor the Win: A Fight Worth Fighting
Posted byon July 24, 2013 at 8:14 AM EDTFor the Win is a guest blog series featuring the remarkable initiatives that young Americans are advancing to win the future for their communities. Each week we highlight a new young person and learn about their inspiring work through their own words. Submit your story to appear in the For the Win guest blog series.
Rebecca Shaw, a high school senior from New York, NY, is the founder and President of the Anti-Bullying Leadership Network and chaired the recent New York Conference on Bullying Prevention. She received an award from the American Psychological Association for scholarship in the field of psychology and has received grants for her anti-bullying work from the Capelluto Foundation and DoSomething.org.
In March 2011, at the first-ever White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, President Obama remarked, “If there’s one goal … it’s to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage.”
Now, two years later, this message is beginning to reach the collective consciousness of our nation: we know that bullying isn’t something to be written off as a natural part of growing up. Recent studies have shown that victims of bullying and bullies alike have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and even suicide. Bullying transcends race, gender, socioeconomic class, nationality, and sexual orientation, and it’s distressingly prevalent: according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 28% of students aged 12 through 18 report being bullied in school.
There was a time when I was part of that 28%. Although I had it better than many children nationwide who are bullied -- I was never physically threatened, nor did I ever fear for my safety -- I was teased and ostracized by the clique that dominated the social hierarchy of our school.
Some years later, in tenth grade, I read about the work of Betsy Paluck, a psychology professor at Princeton University. Paluck is exploring the ways that middle schools can tap into their students’ social structures to create an atmosphere less conducive to bullying. The idea of using student leaders to change social norms appealed to me, and I was struck by the fact that Paluck was scientifically testing the effectiveness of her approach in school settings. Best of all, her early results indicated that the program was working.
I reached out to Professor Paluck, and she gave me the opportunity to work as a summer research assistant in her lab. During my internship, I learned about other programs that had shown some success in reducing bullying. I came to realize how much we could change the social climate if every school knew about empirically driven programs like these.
With this idea in mind, I started the Anti-Bullying Leadership Network, which aims to spotlight bullying prevention techniques that have been shown to actually work, and to encourage the implementation of these effective techniques in our schools. We want to harness all the goodwill that is coming from the increased awareness of bullying, and channel it toward data-driven initiatives.
In pursuit of that goal, we hosted the New York Conference on Bullying Prevention on June 23, bringing together some of the best minds on this issue: researchers from Yale, MIT, Princeton, and other universities; the manager of the “Compassion Research” program at Facebook; the director of the award-winning documentary Bully; and others. These experts presented their findings to an audience of more than 300 school principals, counselors, teachers, non-profit leaders, and students, with many more watching online. It was particularly inspiring to see adults from such wide-ranging backgrounds immersed in discussion with the students who witness and experience bullying firsthand.
Going forward, there’s still a lot of work to be done, but the payoff is even bigger. After all, if our efforts can help even some of the millions of students affected by bullying, then surely this is a fight worth fighting.
Check out previous For the Win blog posts:
- For the Win: A Day in the Life of a Bat Educator
- For the Win: Problem-Solving People
- For the Win: Preserving Our World
- For the Win: Open Your Eyes
- For the Win: Serving with Heart
- For the Win: The Spark in All of Us
- For the Win: The Next Greatest Generation
- For the Win Special Edition: Making Your Mark
- For the Win: Riding the Green School Bus
- For the Win: Sharing a Love of Reading
Ronnie Cho is an Associate Director of the Office of Public Engagement.
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