The designer's new book profiles people who are making the world a better place.
Designer Kenneth Cole has edited a book on global issues, including poverty, genocide and climate change. "Awearness: Inspiring Stories About How to Make a Difference" is a collection of 86 stories and conversations by 90 individuals who were inspired to do their part to bring about social change.
Read an excerpt of the book below and click here to check out more books in the "GMA" library.
Chris Gardner
Chris Gardner's struggle to overcome homelessness was the subject of the
2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness, based on his memoir by the same name. Now the owner and CEO of Christopher Gardner International Holdings and a highly successful stockbroker and entrepreneur, he is also a committed philanthropist and speaker, working with a number of organizations to help the homeless, including Glide Memorial Church and CARA, among others.
glide.org; thecaraprogram.org.
I am living proof that a few small decisions, mixed with some bad luck and bad timing, can mean the difference between having a home to sleep in at night and being homeless. In the early 1980s I was a single parent caring for my son, Chris, Jr., in San Francisco. I was employed, working hard, and doing all I could to care for my child, but like so many people I slipped through the cracks. We lost our rental apartment and my son and I had no choice but to sleep in the park or sometimes a locked public bathroom. Then I learned about Glide Memorial Church and Reverend Cecil Williams, who runs its shelter, kitchen, health-care services, job training center, and other resources for the poor and disenfranchised. He saved our lives. I know for sure there wouldn't be a Chris Gardner today if there wasn't a Reverend Williams back then. Glide is truly an oasis in a desert of hopelessness, a place where old, destructive ways are thrown out and new ones created. They serve over a million meals a year and provide the services that get people back on their feet.
I live in Chicago now, where I work with the CARA program, which assists the homeless and at-risk populations with comprehensive job training and placement. I believe in CARA's philosophy of second chances and helping people who are trying to help themselves by giving them the necessary tools and skills. In fact, one of my most trusted employees is a graduate of CARA.
I never could have imagined that telling my story in the book and movie The Pursuit of Happyness would help others. I am humbled that people all over the world write to tell me that I've given them hope. And I'm proud to have put a face on homelessness—and it's not the face of a drug addict or a convict. It's the face of a workingman who lost everything except the will to survive, succeed, and make a better life for his children. It is estimated that twelve percent of the homeless population in the United States is employed; in some communities that estimate is as high as 30 percent. There is often a fine line between getting by and not having anything.
While it's important to make donations to reputable organizations like Glide, CARA, and others I support such as HELP USA, Covenant House, and Common Ground, I try to give my time and reach out to others so they become involved too. I do everything from speaking at events for Glide, attending counseling sessions, and donating clothes and shoes. A little goes a long way with people who have nothing. When I'm traveling, I try to see if I can make contact with a local church or shelter. I know that sometimes just shaking a man's hand or hugging a child, telling them that they will make it, is the push they need to get through the day. It doesn't cost a dime or take any time to acknowledge them and make them feel human. I try to give back however I can, because I was fortunate enough to receive help when I desperately needed it.
Fact
Today Chris Gardner is involved with homelessness initiatives assisting families to stay intact, and assisting homeless men and women who are employed but still can't get by. He helped fund a $50 million project that created low-income housing and opportunities for employment in the notoriously poor Tenderloin area of San Francisco, where he was once homeless.
A survivor of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi genocide, Jacqueline Murekatete is the founder and director of Jacqueline's Human Rights Corner, a genocide-prevention education program under the umbrella of Miracle Corners of the World, a New York–based nonprofit organization.
miraclecorners.org/programs_partner_jacqueline
What does a young girl do when her innocence is taken away, her whole world is changed, and she finds herself in an environment in which she is told that she is no longer a human being, a child, but an enemy of the state, a cockroach needing to be exterminated? What does a young girl do when her childhood is shattered, her parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, friends murdered by their neighbors, and she finds herself in an environment in which more than a million innocent men, women, and children are murdered simply because of their ethnicity?
When I was just nine years old, in 1994, the Tutsi genocide in my country exposed me to horrors that no child or adult should ever have to see. During the approximately 100 days of Tutsi massacres, I was forced to watch as men, women, and children were dragged down the streets on their way to be murdered, to listen to the screams of toddlers and infants whose arms or legs had been hacked off with machetes, and to get up not knowing whether I would live to see the next day. The genocide in my country exposed me firsthand to the worst of man's inhumanity toward man, and the worst human-rights violation that there is—the violation of every man's basic right to exist. My life would never be the same again.
The period after the genocide was a very difficult one, as I struggled to understand what had happened in my country. I spent many days crying for the parents, six siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends whom I would never see again, and at night I was haunted by nightmares. For six years after the genocide I found no words to express the horrors that had occurred in my country, and I was unable to talk about how my family had died. After arriving in the United States at the end of 1995, I kept to myself, and spoke very vaguely about my previous life in Rwanda to my new classmates and friends. The turning point for me, the moment when I made the transition from victim to activist, came at the beginning of high school. I began learning about the Holocaust and how other countries had gone through genocides. I was struck by the similarities between these genocides and the one in my country, and I was appalled to learn that the silence and indifference displayed by the international community as my people were being massacred was the same type of silence and indifference that had been the response to other genocides, before Rwanda.
After I learned about the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, and the Bosnian genocide, it became clear to me that what had happened in Rwanda in 1994 was not unique to Rwanda, that genocide had happened before and could happen anywhere. I realized it was a cycle that would continue to repeat itself for as long as we permitted it by our silence, indifference, and lack of actions to prevent it. Genocide can be prevented, but it requires the collective effort of all human beings around the world.
And so, in 2001, after listening to the experiences of David Gewirtzman, a Holocaust survivor who has since become a good friend and mentor to me, I made the decision to create awareness about the genocide in my country. I knew that sharing my experience and speaking out would not be easy, but that it was work that had to be done.
One important thing that people often fail to realize about the work of genocide prevention and human rights is that while we are often overwhelmed by the number and variety of human-rights violations around the world, and while we often feel paralyzed by the enormity of it all, all it takes to end major violations and to have a positive impact on the world is the hard work, determination, and efforts of ordinary individuals who use ordinary resources like their voices and time.
When I began my activism in genocide prevention and human rights, I did not know that I, a girl of sixteen, could make a difference. But as a result of the more than 300 presentations I have delivered in the past seven years, my genocide-prevention education work has been embraced by hundreds of U.S.–based schools, universities, and faith-based communities, and by diverse groups of people all over the world. As a result of my decision to make a positive impact on the world, others have followed my lead, investing their resources in my work and joining me to educate people, young people in particular, as to how to transform hate and achieve personal goals in ways that foster peaceful coexistence among all human beings. My team has grown to include students, global leaders, entertainers, educators, and noteworthy Holocaust/genocide scholars and human-rights activists worldwide.
