Our four scholarship girls are ALIVE and excelling

Nick Kristof is an op-ed writer for the New York Times. I have this silent romance with him he’ll never know about. He is a relentless crusader for getting the word out about every nook and cranny of the planet where the poorest of the poor suffer while so many of us try to pretend it’s not happening.

He’s got a job I envy. He gets to travel to meet all of the people I dream about reaching through Just Like My Child. He sits with them in their disheveled, smoke-filled kitchens, and checks in on the progress of their children. (I know you do a lot more than that, Nick, but you get the idea).

He gets his readers to see that indeed, all children are “Just Like My Child”.

This week, he wrote an article that makes me want to send him big Valentines. I suggest you check it out Op-Ed Columnist: Changing Lives, Mitt by Mitt.

Here’s an excerpt that embodies what we’ve learned at JLMC through some pretty hard knocks over the last three years (hope you don’t mind, Nick, and if you choose to sue me, remember, I will still love you):

“Many people doubt the effectiveness of foreign aid, and a new best-selling book called “Dead Aid” by an African finance expert, Dambisa Moyo, even argues that government-to-government assistance is often harmful to recipient countries. It’s true that aid of all kinds is harder to get right than people usually assume, but the kind that has the best record is grass-roots investment — with strong local buy-in — in health, education, agriculture and microfinance. I’ve repeatedly seen these kinds of programs transform families and communities, from Africa to Afghanistan.”

I’ve watched this so many times in Uganda. While Big Government is planning, stealing, or redirecting, small investments in local communities reap huge rewards and transforms lives more sustainably.

Big shout out to Nick Kristof, my hero.

Vivian Glyck, Founder, Executive Director

www.JustLikeMyChild.org