Selection of the Leadership Fund Past Recipients
Bobby Owens
As the Executive Director of the Mini Twelve Step House, Inc., Bobbi works to provide critical alcohol and drug rehabilitation services for women and their families suffering from addictive disorders, along with a combination of other issues such as homelessness, mental illness, domestic violence, and economic depression. Founded in 1971, Mini Twelve Step House has multiple programs in four locations in urban South-Central Los Angeles providing a full continuum of care ranging from assessment to family reunification and economic stability. The agency’s mission is to provide a decent, safe, and comfortable environment for inner-city families in need of quality recovery and treatment services.
Bobbi has been with the agency since 1987 and has been responsible for tripling the budget, turning the agency from high risk to competitive as well as gaining local, statewide, and national media attention and credibility. Keeping the organization ahead of the curve has become increasingly difficult. Competition has increased, while funding streams have become harder to tap into because there are fewer dollars available. Consequently, Bobbi feels the need to bring the agency to its next level and is coming back with the rest of her leadership team.
Bobbi’s interest in obtaining the skills, training, and insight available through Learning as Leadership goes beyond the agency to the many community groups she is involved in. Like Mini Twelve Step House, they are struggling to find answers to complex problems involving youth, crime, politics, and economic disparity. To this end, Bobbi is especially grateful to be participating in the LaL programs. Bobbi’s goals extend beyond improving her life and her agency—she also wants to find ways to spread some of the Learning as Leadership tools into her community. The outcome will impact communities that Learning as Leadership may not ordinarily have access to.
Shireen Najjar, Kifah Massarwi and Netta Eshel
Shireen Najjar gave a guest talk to the participants in Learning as Leadership’s July 2002 Personal Mastery workshop about her experiences growing up and living in the Jewish/Palestinian cooperative village of Neve Shalom - Wahat al-Salam (“Oasis of Peace”). For more than twenty years this village has been a prototype of cohabitation in the Middle East. It is still one of the only communities in Israel where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslim citizens have chosen to live, work and educate their children together. Through their shared commitment to teach, share, and celebrate both cultures simultaneously, they develop a real understanding of each other as human beings. Consequently, difficult news (like Palestinian suicide bombings or Israeli retaliation actions) may result in tense and painful conversations but never in a severance of communication nor in a “demonization” of the other side. Shireen’s talk inspired Learning as Leadership (LaL) participant Lexa Ayer to sponsor an Israeli and a Palestinian to attend a workshop together.
Lexa’s vision was realized when Shireen was joined by Kifah Massarwi in the Personal Mastery workshop. Kifa is a Palestinian-Israeli woman and peacebuilder through education and social outreach in the community of Baqa El Gharbiya. She came to the workshop to deepen her ability to facilitate intercultural dialogues between Jews and Palestinians. Shireen and Kifa were joined by Netta Eshel, who was sponsored by Learning as Leadership. Netta is an Israeli mother, whose son is in the Israeli army. Netta facilitates peace dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians in Israel.
Shireen, Kifah and Netta’s experiences offered an inside perspective on the struggles in the Middle East as well as a ray of hope about the conflict.
Ronald Musoke
Ronald met Lara and Claire Nuer at a young leader’s conference in Europe. Twenty-three years old at the time, Ronald came from Uganda with a goal to combat illiteracy in his home country. He wanted to participate in a Personal Mastery workshop, and so we set out to support him to attend the program. After his participation, he stayed on to complete the one-year program and to create the Ugandan Literacy Project (details in our Completed Projects section). With the help of LaL, the Nuer Foundation and the Associated Students of the College of Marin (ASCOM), Ronald collected more than 26,000 used books, which were shipped to Uganda in exchange for tuition to educate thirty-four young orphan women, who could not afford to pay school fees.
Another LaL client, Fairchild Semiconductor, generously paid the shipping fees for the books to be sent to Africa. Ronald (who lost both his parents to AIDS, leaving him and his brothers and sisters as orphans), saw a link between illiteracy and the spread of AIDS. He says, “My goal is to do whatever I can to make a difference, especially for the countless orphans who have lost almost an entire generation to this disease.” Ronald also points out the links between illiteracy, poverty and the civil wars that have ravaged his country. Ronald’s project garnered attention from CNN, Africa Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Marin Independent Journal.
This project was transferred to the Ugandan Children’s Fund.