يتركه في الحياة القلوب بمفاركة العمام الحسن والإمام الحسين عليه الصلاة أن عندما يصدروا عن أوليهم ، خفيف محمد صلى الله عليه وآلى They said that his nobility was visible to all those who saw him His face was as radiant as the moon at the peak of its brightness ف he's haired were either curly nor straight. Nor sош it extended beyond the lower tips of his ears. His forehead was broad. His eyes wide and dark. And his eyebrows were extended and thin. His beard was dense and the 몇 허 هئ و استئ يخافت هته Gang borders. His nose was slender, and his mouth was not very small. His teeth were very white and glistened whenever he smiled. لقد أحبت فراغرينس و always adorned himself with perfume even when beads of sweat would form on his blessed body to onlookers they looked like pearl drops and spread the sweet smell of musk his limbs were long and strong his presence was that of bravery and awe he was a courageous fighter on the battlefield but never reckless when he walked he did not drag his feet upon the ground and he used to lower his head as if descending from a height he never tilted his head in arrogance or looked down on anyone he would walk with soberness and humility his eyes downcast more towards the earth than the sky he would always be the first to greet people and always met them with a smile he could speak every language so he would talk with others in their mother tongue he would inquire about the well-being of those he met and would ask after others if they were absent if any of his companions were sick or in difficulty he would make sure to visit them personally when others would speak to him he would face them directly and would never turn to look away from them he was very soft with the people and when he spoke to them he did so in a way that was clear and easy for them to understand he was never rude or harsh in his speech he never talked bad of others or sat in a gathering where there was gossip or slander he always saw the best in people and encouraged them to improve their character he never became angry except when he saw something that was wrong but he was always quick to educate and forgive people for their mistakes nobody ever felt disappointed after meeting him because if they needed anything he would make sure that their request was fulfilled he was fearless in expressing the truth and held firm to his values he was thankful for even the smallest comfort and would divide his time between worship serving others and taking care of his family he respected all people regardless of their background or circumstances and nobody would meet him except that they would benefit from his wisdom he would tell visitors to go and convey his words to others so that everyone could benefit from his teachings when he entered a gathering he would sit in the last available vacant seat and never asked for special treatment despite his great status he was not ashamed to sit with the poor or outcasts of society and did not shy away from showing affection towards his wives and family he was kind to animals and spoke out for their rights he did not like flattery but showed great appreciation when people were gracious towards him men admired him women felt safe around him and children loved his company everywhere he went he spread love and kindness on the earth he was a صادق and الأمين the truthful and the trustworthy he was the ultimate mercy to all living creatures and the inheritor of all the prophets he was Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم


Good morning. Well, I'm Jane, and I'm the founder and CEO of a socially inspired business called to the market, which uses artisan enterprise to help empower economically survivors of abuse, conflict, and disease. And this morning I wanted to briefly talk about a country about which I feel very passionately, Nepal. I've had the pleasure of actually working with Nepal from three different lenses. One from the government when I was at the State Department. One from the not-for-profit sector, and one from actually the for-profit sector. But before we begin, I'm actually going to ask everybody to sort of do a little exercise with me. So just indulge me. I want everybody to sort of imagine that the Bay Area has experienced an earthquake. And it's a substantial earthquake, and it's led to significant damage. This means that access to clean water, food, and shelter are all compromised. But fortunately, some famous musicians are doing a concert, and they're going to raise some money to help address the disaster. And slowly aid from out of state begins to pour in. And at first, among the community, this is really welcomed. We're really happy to have assistance, access to that clean water, access to the food, access to shelter. But then suddenly we begin to see that some of these organizations are making demands about what they think rebuilding should look like, what they think our homes should look like, what they think our roads should look like. And despite plenty of local labor and high unemployment among the population, because of the destruction, it seems like there are a lot of out of state workers that are coming in to actually do this work for us. And then just sort of as time goes on, some of the mom-and-pop stores begin to reopen up, but they're really struggling because the things that they're selling are being given away or severely subsidized by out of state partners. And then as local officials begin to sort of interact with their constituents and say to them, you know, what can I do? How can I help? They actually find that there have been folks from other states or other areas that have actually been on the ground doing work really without even extending a hand to partner, severely undermining the authority of these officials. And slowly as the press coverage begins to dissipate and the donations begin to slow, a number of really sort of half-baked projects are left behind. And because they weren't properly partnered with the community, people don't really even know what the intention of the project or what the direction of the project is supposed to be. And there we are. So I know that this seems like a really extreme example, especially being in a developed country, where it's actually not a far cry from what happens at times when there is a disaster and outside assistance comes to the aid of a community. It doesn't really think about how to assist that community in a meaningful and a sustainable way. So today I want to talk really briefly about Nepal. And I just want to talk about what happened in Nepal. I want to reference Haiti because that was also a country that was devastated by an earthquake that had some things that were great that happened and some things that we would really want to avoid. And then I just want to talk about really three opportunities for Nepal in this reconstruction. So let's start with looking at Nepal. So Nepal in April 2015 experienced an earthquake and then several aftershocks and then another major earthquake in May that led to the largest humanitarian disaster within the country for over 80 years. And just to sort of throw some numbers on the board, tens of thousands were killed or injured, 2.8 million were displaced, 473,000 homes were destroyed, and more than a million folks were in need of food assistance. Now I know that that looks like a snapshot of the destruction, but I want us to also think about how that's a snapshot of the opportunity. So let's look at Haiti really quickly. So Haiti. Although it was sort of lower on the Richter scale, this actually had even more devastation in Haiti. The number of people killed was close to just over 200,000, a number of people over 300,000, which you can imagine anywhere is pretty devastating, but in a country that small is really significant. But maybe what's sort of the most staggering thing about post-earthquake was the fact that 13.5 billion dollars were pledged or donated for reconstruction. And despite what seems like incredible overwhelming generosity, there have been some missteps in the reconstruction that I'm going to point to really quickly because I think it helps lead into talking about the opportunities for reconstruction in Nepal. So pitfalls. One thing that seemed to be somewhat prevalent was essentially the outsourcing of work. So I'm going to read a quote from a man that is from the Center for Economic Policy and Research. And this is in no way to sort of put down the efforts of USAID, but it seems like this is a statistic that's really worth us taking a look at. So Jake Johnson says, USAID has spent about 1.5 billion since the earthquake in Haiti. Less than a penny of every dollar goes directly to a Haitian organization. So that's a pretty significant contrast. The second thing I would point to was besides not sufficiently empowering the local community was really looking at the outsourcing of work. So again, from the same study that Jake did, he said international companies had to fly in, rent cars, rent hotels, and spend allowances for food and cost of living expenses. Danger pay and hardship pay inflated salaries by more than 50%. So you can imagine what type of ROI we were getting here on many of this work. And then from a private sector standpoint, because I think we've sort of touched on maybe the challenges of the not-for-profit and the government response, there were again a number of, I would say, very limited sourcing efforts that were done. Designers were pulling raw material to incorporate into a collection for a season in order to benefit the country, but unfortunately these were literally collections, meaning that they were of a limited run and they weren't sustainable efforts. And so after several years, these really sort of died out. So how can we take those lessons learned and have sort of the opposite impact in Nepal? So one of the things that I think is really exciting about where Nepal is and really in any sort of post-disaster is that there really is a tremendous opportunity for leadership in action. And just a mini case study, I want to point to a really terrific organization in which I'm involved called Women Lead. And Women Lead is an adolescent girls leadership academy in Kathmandu, although it pulls girls from all around the Kathmandu Valley. And essentially the girls apply and then are accepted into a year-long leadership academy that really takes a deep dive into leadership principles and also civic activism. So after the earthquake, the women leaders, as we call them, instinctively, because they had been trained as leaders, began delivering things like blankets, sanitary pads, school supplies, books, stationery to those in the community. And some of the women who are from the Outer Valley area were even trekking to remote villages and were often the first responders on the scene. And so to me, this is a terrific example of how one can direct assistance to local organizations even if they weren't built for reconstruction or designed for humanitarian response. If there are organizations that are equipped to do this type of work, then when we are empowering them, whether we are providing financial support or other types of resources, we are saying we believe in you and we know that you know what is best. So another quick opportunity is thinking about job creation. As I noted, there were a number of foreign workers that came into Haiti and I think that there's an opportunity to really try to mitigate that. And so one sort of example I like to talk about is global communities, which is an incredible nonprofit that has been participating in Nepal's reconstruction efforts. And something that I loved, which is so core to global communities, what global communities did in Nepal is that when they arrived, they immediately partnered with a Nepali organization called HELP and they started hiring local staff and local workers. And I think that this approach sounds so simple, but yet so often times it really hasn't been pursued. And I think the advantage of hiring these local workers is that of course it's a higher return on investment when you compare the salaries, the travel expenses of having to fly in outsiders, but it also creates income for the community and maybe even more importantly than that income because you're paying locals gets recirculated within the local economy. And that's really crucial. And similarly within the global communities example of reconstruction, they were also sourcing rebuilding materials locally, which is so important for the local businesses to have that opportunity. So often times in aid dynamics when we bring in outside material we are severely undermining the local business persons who might be a farmer who are selling their crops, but they can't even get market dollar for their crop because somebody is severely subsidizing the sale of that crop from an outside organization that maybe is a not-for-profit. So I really like the idea that there's an opportunity for job creation in addition to really allowing folks to take leadership from the classroom and into the field. And then the last opportunity I would focus on in Nepal and really again in any sort of post-disaster context is there is an opportunity for targeted trade. And what do I mean by targeted trade? As I referenced in Haiti, there were these sort of limited opportunities for the private sector to source material to make donations in exchange for certain arrangements, but they were very limited and they weren't sustainable and they would be what I would describe as a pity purchase. And I think in the case of Nepal, I would point to the company that I run to the market, we have had a growing need for selling scarves. And there's an organization, these are the ladies in the organization called Unaco, which means hers in Nepali, that has been creating scarves like the one I'm wearing. And what's interesting about the scarves is that, you know, all things equal. It's not that I couldn't find the scarf anywhere else, but I actually had a need for scarves and I'd simply directed where I was getting those scarves from a community that I felt like was in particular need of economic empowerment. So to me, those are three terrific opportunities in any sort of post-disaster, post-reconstruction community where we can look at how we can apply leadership in action, how we can create targeted trade and how we can create jobs from the disaster and ultimately empower the local community to lead their own reconstruction. Thank you.