I am very pleased that today I get to share an inciteful and though-provoking conversation with a very special person – David Evangelista, Regional President & Managing Director of Europe Eurasia for Special Olympics.

This conversation is one of those rare occurrences where one’s perspective is forever changed. At least it was for me…and I’ll wager that it will be for you too.

This recording was made in March of 2023 for a Global Washington profile article on David, as interviewed by one of our long-time writers, Amber Cortes.

I really want to describe what’s in this interview, but I think it will be a much better journey for our listeners to simply let David’s surprising insights and perspectives unfold and reveal themselves without preamble. They’re timeless and applicable on so many levels.

Hit play, sit back, and enjoy!

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Today we are excited to share with you a conversation with Kathleen Morris, the newly elected executive director of International Rescue Committee, Washington. Kristen Dailey, executive director of GlobalWA, and Kathleen had a wonderful and revealing conversation about the refugee crisis facing us today, the path to settlement in Washington State, the refugee experience, including the inspiring resilience and resourcefulness of refugees, and so much more. Special thanks to the Seattle Foundation who supplied us a room for this conversation.

Formed in 1933, IRC helps people affected by humanitarian crises—including the climate crisis—to survive, recover, and rebuild their lives. IRC is an incredible organization with very impressive results. In 2022 alone, the IRC and their partners reached over 32.9 million people in countries affected by crises.

Here are a few stats from 2022:

• They’ve supported 3,137 health facilities
• Provided 8,013,515 primary health care consultations
• Treated 222,278 children under 5 for severe acute malnutrition
• Admitted 453,344 children and 106,722 pregnant and lactating women to nutrition programs
• Built or rehabilitated water supplies serving 3,490,159 people
• Reached 1,421,270 people with cash assistance

And the list goes on. I encourage you to visit their website at www.rescue.org to find out more.

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For this episode, we have the privilege of sharing a wonderful conversation with Atul Tandon, CEO of Opportunity International, interviewed by Kristen Dailey, the Executive Director of Global Washington.

Opportunity International is a global nonprofit organization that creates opportunities for entrepreneurs to build their businesses, children to go to school, farmers to feed their communities, and families to end the cycle of generational poverty. For nearly 50 years, they have developed innovative programs that use financial services, training, and support to address some of the greatest challenges facing those living in poverty around the world.

Atul is a vast well of knowledge. He talks extensively about the need for, and interdependency of, multiple services and programs to uplift communities out of poverty.

He covers how the ripple effect of empowering one person can empower a whole community, the future of work including the use of technology, reasons to celebrate our progress on the sustainable development goals, and, well, I’ll stop there... so much to ingest ...

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In September of 2023 I had the honor of visiting Sukarya, one of our organizational members, in Delhi and Gurugram, India.  For over 25 years Sukarya has been providing services at the truly grassroots level in the slums and villages where populations are forgotten, ignored, or are simply too difficult to reach.  

Sukarya's holistic programs include healthcare, nutrition, gender equality, women empowerment, and education. I was able to visit several of these programs and experienced first-hand this amazing and crucial work. You can read about Sukarya on their website at Sukarya.org.  

I was also able to sit and have an inciteful and personal conversation with Sukarya’s Founder and Chairperson, Meera Satpathy. Meera created Sukarya because she saw how the slum populations were not receiving the support they needed, especially healthcare. Since the day it was founded in 1998, Sukarya's programs have helped more than 7 million people in over 760 villages and 190 slums. 

Meera is a force of nature. She is full of charisma, wisdom, and insightfulness. I know you will enjoy this episode of GlobalWA Goalmakers. 

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I had the great pleasure of being able to visit the Sehgal Foundation headquarters in Gurugram, India and speak with Anjali Makhija, Trustee and CEO. In this episode we learn more about the incredible work the Sehgal Foundation is doing in rural India. The way they are empowering women and improving small-holder farming are standards that all nonprofits working in these sectors can follow and learn by. 

I was also able to make a couple of site visits while I was there, and it was truly enlightening and inspirational. Nothing like seeing the work first-hand! You can read about my experience and view a couple videos on our website - visit www.globalwa.org and simply search for "Sehgal Foundation."

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In May of 2023, we were privileged to capture some time with Surita Sandosham, President and CEO of Heifer International, and Randi Hedin, Board Chair for Heifer International. 

Surita, initially trained as a lawyer, has more than two decades of senior leadership experience at global nonprofit organizations. Randi is an accomplished leader, trainer, and advisor in Global Development. 

In this conversation, facilitated by Kristen Dailey, Executive Director of Global Washington, Surita and Randi talk about Heifer’s work empowering women, the success of farmer co-ops, Heifer’s new strategic framework, and their vision for the future, amongst many other elements for sustainable and collaborative locally-led development.  

This is a wonderful and full conversation. 

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For this episode of Goalmakers, we hear from Tim Prewitt, President and CEO of The Hunger Project. 

I was able to grab some time with Tim while he was passing through Seattle in April of 2023. We were able to find a space in a WeWork conference room and had a deep and inciteful conversation.

Tim unpacks a wide variety of issues that lead to hunger and malnutrition despite our advancements in food production and distribution, and provides insights into how we, as a global community, can ensure proper nutrition and food security.

He speaks about recent shocks to the global food systems, food waste, community lead development, why The Hunger Project was created... and much more. 

In fact, there is such an abundance of great information packed into this episode that if you are at all interested in addressing world hunger, I encourage you to listen through to the end. 

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In this episode we hear from Jennifer Jones – at the time of this recording in September 2022, Jennifer was just about to take office as the first ever woman President of Rotary International. Yes, a first in its 115-year history. 

This is an amazing accomplishment, so you can imagine how excited we were to be able to interview her, initially for an article we wrote which highlights incredible individuals we call Goalmakers.

Jennifer was interviewed by Amber Cortes, one of Global Washington’s writers.

We hope you enjoy this episode as Jennifer takes us on her journey from attending Rotary meetings as a reporter in the late 1980’s to becoming the 2022-2023 President, and quite a bit more...

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Next up, I was able to grab some time with Tim Prewitt, the President and CEO of The Hunger Project, while he was passing through Seattle in April of 2023.

We were able to find a space in a WeWork conference room and had a deep and inciteful conversation about food systems, food security, the challenge of addressing extreme hunger around the world, how living, working and visiting international locations helps adjust one's perspective, and slow down, and much, much more. 

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