Local Development

So on Wednesday night I met for nearly two hours with Ed Lynch the city of Newburgh's Director of Planning and Development.  It was quite a good conversation.  He is a former Peace Corps volunteer that has done a decent amount of work in South America (which immediately put us on the right page).  He most recently spent 17 years in a similar position in New Rochelle and seems to have turned that city in a positive direction in terms of crime, quality of life, and economics - this includes a 40 story Trump tower there.  When I was growing up, New Rochelle did not have a good reputation, yet it seems to now.  So if blanketed results are the measure of "success", he seems to have been successful in "New Ro".  I am not sure of the specifics of how it was done, and who flourished and/or was marginalized in the process, but he has a record of change. 

While Ed did have some very interesting thoughts and ideas regarding my work in Africa, we spent most of the time on Newburgh.  Just to put a few things out there, the city had a 25% tax increase in 2010, and will have anywhere from a 61-74% tax increase this year.  The city had to borrow millions of dollars from New York State just to pay the salaries for its workers for the end of 2010.  Also (and I heard this elsewhere), there is also discussion of dissolving the City of Newburgh entirely.  Yes, just shutting the whole thing down.  It would then have to be absorbed into the Town of Newburgh - which doesn't seem to be very interested in taking over this disaster.  There has been previous mismanagement of state and federal money's due to lack of manpower and maybe even incompetence to the point that some of this money may have to be given back.  Ten's of thousands of dollars of money being wasted on national searches for individual positions, and then local behind the scenes hirings from the old-boy network.  Corruption or the implication of it, seems to be either a common perception or an assumed undercurrent in everything.  There is no supermarket, there is no pharmacy, public transport is minuscule, the streets are dilapidated, the underground economy is rampant, yesterday saw 31 gang members indicted - including three on separate murder charges, and there is no money to do anything about any of it, never mind hope.  Suffice it to say, "Newburgh" gets worse every day...  I can't even fathom how a city like this can provide virtually no services to its citizens.  It is amazing.  

Maybe we should set up a plywood factory? :(

So what next?  The city has brought in new blood to try to right the ship.  Ed is among many new faces.  He claims that 60-70% of the department heads are new and they are trying to change both the culture of the administration and a gross history of financial mismanagement.  They mostly seem to be coming from successful areas in the lower Hudson Valley.  Ed, seems to me to be a person that has a good head on his shoulders and some quality experience to lean on.  Word on the streets about him though is quite skeptical (but then again, pretty much all the words on the street in Newburgh are skeptical).  He has been in office for seven months and it is claimed by some that the stances he seems to be taking don't necessarily back up some of my initial perceptions of him.  But everyone has a point and an agenda, and Ed's position is one of trying to balance all of these.  There are inherently going to be people that don't agree with what is done.  He is part of an institution, a bureaucratic and deeply ingrained developmental institution that resonates throughout the entire US and world socio-economic system.  I for one, as most readers here know, am interested in alternative ideas and new ways of thinking.  

As with anything, I am not going to jump in and use other's interpretations to run with. Time on the ground and local interaction is the only true to way to come to independent conclusion.  There is always a million ways to do things, and within them there is never a "right" answer.  So Newburgh, I will continue to learn all I can about you, your people, and your culture...  It is going to be a fun ride. 
 

zzzzz.....

So this week has been nonstop.  Not that I would have it any other way, but it has been a lesson in self-control that's for sure.  Since Saturday I have been going every day, meetings, meetings, and meetings.  The malaria fatigue has definitely been felt, and I've had to be very cognizant of both getting to sleep at night and finding moments of relaxation and meditation during the day.  But as I said before, poverty doesn't care if I don't feel well, so I've gotta move past it... control it as best as I can.  Trying... 

I have plenty to write about and will get into it tomorrow as best I can.  I do still have another meeting tomorrow afternoon though, and I did promise my grandparents I'd bring them some fresh baked homemade cookies - yeah, don't be jealous!!  They've earned it!! 

I was hoping to have all day today to catch up on the million pieces of information I've been given this week, but ended up with several meetings and had to give blood today.  So I will have to get to it tomorrow in between cookie making!!  But quickly, I've met with the head city planner in Newburgh, a local organization that can help set up the business/look for funding, and a community activist.  I've enjoyed a nice cup of tea across from one of the oldest historic sites recognized in the US, taken in the ambiance of the city, and learned and honed in on the deal here.  Real progress is being made... 

Oh, and one thing that can't wait... I am going to be on the organizing committee for Safe Harbors 5k run/walk in May... big fun!!

Good People

One of the biggest rewards that I get for actively following this pathway here is the people that I not only meet, but will hopefully get to work with.  Gone are the days of working with aristocratic British millionaires, former military types, expropriating raw material extractors, and bottom line obsessed sales managers all bent on the best price they could get for their mothers...  Today I met with the people from Safe Harbors.  What can I say... good people... good ideas... good initiative...  Just all in all a good experience. 

We didn't get too far into the details about things as there is just so much information both from my side and theirs, but we laid the ground work for meeting again.  perhaps tomorrow.  I sent an email with some questions and a few things thy might be able to advise me on.  And this is the beauty of the non-profit world.  The people aren't solely about what benefit their is specifically in it for themselves, they just want to help.  They see a guy like me coming along and they think of ways they can help me.  It's not about extracting the maximum from me for their benefit, but seeing if there is anyway that we can work together and help each other without anyone having to lose anything.  Cooperation... perhaps a lost art in today's society... perhaps not!!

One at a time!!

I learned a couple things right away yesterday.  Firstly...

...Newburgh is an absolute mess.  Secondly, there is not going to be any quick, jump in and set up programs and make it happen type solution.  It is going to take some time to understand how things are working/not working.  The politics seem to be a mess, the municipality seems to be flat broke, and the city has absolutely no hope on its streets.  The focus of this organization is going to have to be on Sierra Leone.  The office in Newburgh is really going to have to act as simply an inexpensive location for an office and fro me personally to live ($300 each?!)  With time though, programs will present themselves.  Just as I didn't step off the plane in Sierra Leone with a solution, Newburgh is going to have to allow for things to present themselves.

Back on the ground and walking...

So I've written this once, and thanks again to blogger, lost it all.  So we'll have to write it again, and with less time for it. 

I spent the day yesterday in Newburgh.  It was so nice to get back on foot, learning at the real pace of life...  I had a meeting set up in the afternoon and sandwiched some other informal discussion and touristing around it.  I started with the library where I was hoping to find some information or statistics on local situations, economics, crime, etc.  They really don't have anything of the sort, only a local history section, and in fact the city doesn't even have anything either.  I did however get sent to talk to the library's two people that work on outreach programs.  I had a very nice informal chat with them about the city and the goings on.  They recommended a few places worth looking into that I will get into later today or tomorrow as I have meetings over there both days.  I also met another gentlemen that works with Latinos Unidos and came to visit one of the Library workers that works with them.  They rent office space for under $300 dollars a month on broadway there in Newburgh.  They said the incorporation process was long, like five years for them.  I can't see how that is, but they are all volunteer so maybe it took a while longer. 

From there I went to my meeting with Community Voices Heard.  This meeting went quite well despite the standard overworked and no time having staff that you tend to find in non-profits.  I really liked what they are doing, trying to bring the community closer together in terms of political voice.  Some of the things that they want to do in terms of material outputs and opportunities are things that I had already been thinking about.  They could certainly be someone worth communicating and cooperating with regularly.  But I will be careful not to align myself with anyone, especially in the beginning.  From all discussion thus far it seems that sides have been taken and things are quite obstinate there.  On a positive note, I also did get to speak to two of the members of Community Voices that came in during the discussion, and while the meeting did leave many of my questions unasked, I got a little more back in terms of community input than I expected.  The meeting left a lot wanting, which is a good thing...

On the way to that meeting though I had a chance to wonder the streets a bit.  I tell you what...  Newburgh is a disaster.  I would not feel it to be a stretch at all to say that  every third building is boarded up and vacant where I was.  At Community Voices they said that the city owned something like 200 vacant properties - in a city of 4 square miles!  This doesn't even include derelict privately owned buildings.  It shows.  The streets are all but vacant (at least until it got dark), and there is this air of hopelessness that wafts through the air.  There is so much to be done.

I stopped and chatted with a cop for a few minutes as well, speaking of hopelessness.  Now, I would expect a cop to be cynical, but he said flat out: "not gonna happen, never."  He'd been working for 17 years in Newburgh, and sees no hope: "They don't want to make it better, they like the lifestyle."  "They want their handouts and they will use violence to get them".  Amazing, yet unsurprising.  Can anyone find me a cop in any city in the world that is optimistic?!  They are surrounded every day by the criminals of society, so they don't see the hope.  But everyone has it somewhere.  He did say though that, within a four block radius of where we were standing that there had been 8 murders in three years.  "Blood alley" he called it.  The street we were standing on was where they FBI made most of its arrests in the 76 person gang sting last year. 

So after those and some other words of warning, I headed on my way - wondering how in the world they would ever get people or business to locate in the city with a sales pitch like that!  This was a general theme of a lot that day.

There was however one certainly amusing moment for me on my way back to the car.  I walked by a group of youngish guys in front of a store.  I of course made my friendly eye contact and a nod.  One kid then came running over with a bootleg DVD, "The Mechanic" with my brother from another mother Jason Statham in the leading role.  I laughed, and said with a smile, yeah but do you accept EBT?  He looked at me with this puzzled look of incomprehension on his face.  Food Stamps... I said, breaking him away from his puzzlement.  A startled shiver came across his face, like, wait, but this doesn't make sense, this dude's white!!  lol!!  Yes my friend, we're all poor in one way or another these days...        

Synthesis

So what is the plan!?  How is it that all of a sudden we can simply add a new country and a new city such as Newburgh (for a bit more perspective on Newburgh you can read this article).  I have put months of specific effort (and years of indirect effort) into the prospective work in Sierra Leone.  Things are possible there right now.  What has to be developed at this point is the holistic entity that will be not just this endeavor, but an entire organization.  I am trying to find a way to use these two locations in conjunction with both each other and with the bigger picture.

The key insight to it all is to see what the over arching goal of both this project and an organization.  Despite my passion for Sierra Leone and its people, this was never solely about this country.  It has always been about broader goals, a broader learning curve on society, and the systemic way that we order ourselves.  Poverty is a big part of this.  We live in a Capitalist society that has certain values and is achieving certain outcomes.  These outcomes show their faces in both the 'rich' and 'poor' worlds.

Could this be Newburgh?!?

What is really the difference between poverty in Sierra Leone and America/Newburgh?  Some, including myself, would argue - a great deal.  Poverty by American standards is very different from the poverty found in most of the rest of the world.  But I would also say that there are a tremendous amount of similarities, especially on a personal level.  To a person in Newburgh, when they look around the world they see, they are at the bottom of the income ladder.  They are by most social measures at the bottom of society.  The poverty of a place like Sierra Leone is so far away and out of site it may as well not even exist.  All they can see is themselves, their situation, their "poverty", their mental state.

Or maybe this is Makeni?!?

It is not much different in Sierra Leone, they know little of the Western world.  A few products, stories, and movies.  But spend a few days there and you quickly realize that they have no clue, just as we really have no clue about their lives there.  They simply do what they must each and every day to survive.  But this poverty is relative.  There are so few people with anything around them that they know little of the nothing they have.  In their head's, they may even seem better off than the poor in Newburgh.  When everyone has nothing, what is there to be make you think you have nothing? 

But either way, both groups of people are left to struggle.  This is what I find unacceptable.  As friends of mine buy new clothes, talk about summer vacations, the difficulties of their work... those without the means to eat, live, and do, simply embrace the struggle that will come from that day's effort just to survive.  This is poverty, this is evident all over the world.  It must be studied, it must be understood, and it must have a solution found for it.   

Why to expand this process rests in the delivery of these goals and services.  Sierra Leone needs money, expertise, knowledge, and effort, as does Newburgh.  In order to set up an organization to help both places, we need both the means to deliver services, and services to deliver.  By the two locations working together we can provide local comparative advantages that can be capitalized upon by both.

The key to all this is to brainstorm through a process that provides for both places.  The American operations can provide knowledge, expertise, research, and money for work done in Sierra Leone.  Projects can be planned, managed, and even in some cases executed, from America, for delivery in Sierra Leone.  Local products from Sierra Leone can be shipped to the US and administered and sold in America to supplement local projects.

This is not a novel business model.  But it does start to get interesting if being done by a revenue generating non-profit focused on "maximizing local socio-economic outcomes" rather than just maximizing profit.  This means that in Newburgh, we don't always hire the 'best, most experienced' person for the job, we hire the right person.  We hire a person that needs the opportunity and is capable of seizing it, and we make training and teaching work skills just as important a part of the projects as the jobs.  A "socially thick" development model.  Our organization will be about doing business and making money, but it is more so about emboldening local populations with usable and transferable knowledge and skill sets - hiring potential, not achievement.

So what businesses will we be getting into?  This is complicated, and a question that is yet to have an answer.  You can make money in Sierra Leone doing virtually anything.  It is an entrepreneur's heaven.  But making money in Newburgh is different.  Anywhere in the US you have to come up with an original idea or at minimum completely reinvent an old one for non-profit inner city implementation.  The US market is totally saturated, no regurgitation of proven ideas allowed.

Competition??

This is a short list right now:

• Brick making in Sierra Leone.  The money would need to come from the US, but there is then a huge opportunity for revenue generation.  The kind that could fund project upon project for the foreseeable future. This project also opens other opportunities that surround this, transportation, contracting, etc.
• Sierra Leone Diaspora Funding Network.  This project would be managed from the US, and then implemented in Sierra Leone.  Providing for both locations.
• Solar street lamps in Sierra Leone.  This project would be managed from NY and implemented by the operations in Sierra Leone.
• Internet and learning facilities.  This is applicable in both Sierra Leone and the US.  It is thought to provide the front of the office space for revenue generation.  Training classes could also be added on top of this.  
• Sale of artisan goods produced in Sierra Leone for sale in NY.  This can also be expanded to be done online, with distribution from Newburgh. 
• Obtaining old used goods (such as welding/carpentry tools, clothes, computers, etc) and shipping them to Sierra Leone for donation/local sale.
• Fruit processing in Sierra Leone.  In time the products could be sold within the US, again with distribution in Newburgh.  That is a long way away though.  For the time being it would be a local operation in Sierra Leone. 
• Verma composting (with worms).  This has a tremendous upside in decreasing organic waste and is viable in both locations.  Selling the castings as fertilizer is also a revenue generator.
• Makeni Athletics Facility.  This is strictly a charitable endeavor and thus will take time. 

This list is still missing a good deal.  Newburgh has yet to truly be explored and realized in terms of what opportunities exist there. Hopefully that will happen over the next several weeks as I get further ingrained in the city.  But time will take us there, and a bridge between two impoverished worlds will become both apparent and a reality...