WALTER CRONKITE ANNOUNCES GLOBAL CALL-TO-ACTION

HONORS LOCAL TEACHER & ENTREPRENEUR

1. Steve Mariotti, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship
2. Marietta Primicias Goco, Philippines Presidential Commission to Fight Poverty
3. Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank

NEW YORK, NY, November 13, 2002 – Walter Cronkite announced today a global call-to-action challenging people to a new kind of engaged activism, to be a force for positive change in the world. 

                                                    

Among the first people to respond to Mr. Cronkite’s challenge will receive the Global Hero Awards at a ceremony on November 13th in New York City.  Steve Mariotti, who turned adversity into opportunity by founding one of the world's largest organizations dedicated to entrepreneurship education, will be honored by dozens of national and international dignitaries at the Stone Soup Leadership Institute’s event held in conjunction with the Micocredit Summit +5.

 

 “By connecting Wall Street execs to kids on the street, Mariotti is responding to this call to action campaign,” said Marianne Larned, the Institute’s executive director and author of Stone Soup for the World: Life-Changing Stories of Everyday Heroes (Random House 2002). "This campaign honors everyday heroes, passes on their legacy and ignites the heroic spirit in people around the world," added Larned.

 

The national campaign has honored an Oakland firefighter who inspired peace in his community, a Latino actor turned activist who rallied people to improve their lives and young heroes in Oakland who were tired of the violence and are now leading the way to promote change in their community.

 

Others to be honored at the Nov. 13 event include Muhammad Yunus, a professor who founded the Grameen Bank which took banking to 2.4 million of the poorest of the poor in Bangladesh and Marietta Goco who is spearheading the Philippines anti-terrorism/anti-poverty initiative affecting two million of her country’s poorest people.

 

Presenters of the Global Heroes Awards include Trude Lash and David Woolner, of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Diana Davis Spencer, of the Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation and Walter Cronkite.  “At this important time in our history, we must offer a hand up to the good guys,” says Mr. Cronkite. “These champions are forging new directions for the global economy, bridging the gap between the haves and have nots and striving to build a more peaceful world.”

 

“These heroes are ordinary folks who, by conviction, imagination, innovation, persistence, hard work and moral and physical courage have lifted their neighbors and communities,” says Mr. Cronkite. “They challenge each of us to respond in kind.  This is an ideal time to launch such a bold initiative.  It could become this generation's version of putting a man on the moon.  It’s up to each and everyone of us to take action – and chart the course for our future.”

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About Walter Cronkite

 

Veteran newsman and author, Walter Cronkite is the first newsman of the global village. Through the integrity and quality of his reporting, Mr. Cronkite has brought the American people together to face the most pressing issues of our day from the struggle for civil rights to the arms race and the race to the moon. “The most trusted man in America,” Mr. Cronkite has covered virtually every news event during his more than 60 years in journalism - the last 50 affiliated with CBS News.  The original space report was created for Mr. Cronkite to report on the status of NASA’s missions to the moon.  A series of one-minute TV “hero reports” will be premiered at the Nov. 13 event, the first step towards an educational television series with Mr. Cronkite based on Stone Soup for the World.

 

About the Stone Soup Leadership Institute

 

The Stone Soup Leadership Institute is a 501 (c3) educational organization that develops tools, programs and community initiatives that honor everyday heroes and trains future and emerging leaders to work together to build a better world.  Piloted by the YMCA of the USA, the Stone Soup for the World educational curriculum is used in 120 communities to teach young people to develop language arts, social studies and leadership skills.  Founded in 1997, the Institute moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001. For more information on the Institute, watch the video with Mr. Cronkite by visiting: www.soup4world.com/video/videohom.

 

Interviews with author Marianne Larned and Global Heroes are available: Nov. 12-14 to read their story in Stone Sou p for the World, visit Media Advisory: www.soup4world.com

 

About Muhammad Yunus

 

Muhammad Yunus is creating one of the greatest humanitarian campaigns in history.  He started by talking with people in the streets and villages of his homeland, Bangladesh where he learned that the root cause of their poverty was the outrageous interest rates they were forced to pay in their desperate attempts to create their own little businesses.  tarting by lending money out of his own pocket, Muhammad created the Grameen Bank in 1976 which helps poor people help themselves while helping each other.  Today, in addition to 2.4 million borrowers in 41,187 villages in Bangladesh, Grameen now helps African-Americans and Mexicans in South-Central Los Angeles, Native Americans in South Dakota, poor whites in Arkansas, North Carolina and New England, and Southeast Asian refugees.  Grameen gives the poor the opportunity to create their own jobs rather than waiting around for someone else to do it for them.  An unprecedented 99% have repaid their loans in full.  By the year 2005 they hope to have 100 million of the world's poorest families join them. "Society has always told the poor they should not be seen nor heard," says Yunus.  "Grameen invites them to come together, hold their heads up high."

 

About Marietta Primicias Goco

 

Marietta Primicias Goco is the Eleanor Roosevelt of the Philippines for legacy of using her wealth to empower the powerless.  The daughter of the country’s Most Outstanding Senate Majority Floor Leader, she quit government in 1971 when Marcos declared Martial law, and joined the street demonstrations in protest.  When the Marcos regime was overthrown in 1986, instead of the bloodbath that was expected, the Filipino people gathered together to peacefully face down the soldiers and elected Cory Aquino as their president.  People Power was born and the Filipinos then worked together to bring their country back from the edge of disaster. Called the MRS. NGO Networker, Ms. Goco helped lead the way.  As director of the first Presidential Commission to Fight Poverty, Marietta developed a plan to bring the disenchanted into the mainstream -- and decrease poverty by 10% in five years. "My father told me that Bayanihan gave people the courage to face their fears, stand up for their convictions and make choices that bettered their family, community and the world," says Marietta Goco. Rekindling traditional Filipino values, she invited people to work together for the common good, be willing to think of others and perform a kind of selfless service.  In just three years, they reached their goals and transformed the lives of an amazing two million people. As Chairperson of the Sambayanihan Foundation, Ms. Goco pioneered micro-finance, empowering women to have freedom to plan their future.

 

About Steve Mariotti, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship

 

Steve Mariotti turned his lifelong dream of becoming an entrepreneur into a reality for thousands of others around the world who were less fortunate.  When Steve Mariotti, a successful young businessman, was mugged by a bunch of teenagers in the streets of New York, it changed his life.  He decided to find a way to channel these young peoples' destructive energy and creativity into more positive pursuits.  In this story, we learn how the organization Steve started -- the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship -- has helped kids like Felix Rouse turn their passions into profitable small businesses.  NFTE has served over 65,000 young people who are replacing the deadends of drugs, crime and teenage pregnancy with a vigorous pursuit of success in the business world. This year, NFTE will serve 17,000 children in six US cities and in the United Kingdom, Belgium, India and Argentina – with startups in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria.  As one graduate put it, "My dream is not to die in poverty but to have poverty die in me."

 

Additional Background on Steve Mariotti

 

In 1979, after leaving a successful career as a financial analyst for the Ford Motor Company in Latin America and South Africa to start his own import-export business in New York City, Mariotti’s life was changed forever when he became the victim of gang violence. 

 

Traumatized by painful flashbacks, the young entrepreneur decided to confront his fears, giving up his business to become a high school teacher in some of the most underserved schools in the most impoverished neighborhoods in America, including the Fort Apache section of the South Bronx. 

 

There, Mariotti quickly learned that the reading, writing and math skills that high schools were stressing didn’t work with kids who had to face the grim reality of life on the street every time they walked out of the classroom.  So he decided to try a radical approach – doing a mock sales pitch as a way to focus his students’ attention on money. 

 

What he noticed was remarkable.  Many of his students who couldn’t read or write, who had been written off by the system, had a natural talent for entrepreneurship.

 

“Growing up on the street, they had become mentally strong,” says Mariotti. “They had developed a finesse and a toughness which are all characteristics of the great entrepreneurs.”

 

All they needed was a lesson plan. 

 

So in 1987, Mariotti founded the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) to teach students how to improve their reading, writing and math skills and become economically self-sufficient by starting and running their own businesses. 

 

Designed as a kind of mini-MBA program, NFTE teaches students the ABCs of business:  how to write a business plan, buy and sell in the marketplace, keep accurate financial records and calculate return on investment.

 

Under Mariotti’s stewardship, the organization has become so successful at teaching entrepreneurship education to low income at-risk youth – and fighting poverty and crime in the process – that it is the subject of two Harvard Business School case studies on social enterprise currently being taught in more than 20 of America’s leading business schools.

 

In the 15 years since Steve Mariotti created NFTE in a high school classroom, it has served 65,000 young people and trained over 2,700 teachers and youth work professionals in entrepreneurship education. This year, NFTE will serve 18,000 children in six US cities and in the United Kingdom, Belgium, India and Argentina – with startups in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria.

 

As the author or co-author of 16 books on entrepreneurship, including the bestselling Young Person’s Guide to Starting and Running a Small Business, Mariotti has been instrumental in creating an entrepreneurial future for thousands of people around the world.

 

“I am proud that the NFTE model of entrepreneurship education for young people has become an accepted idea by the top at-risk educators in America,” says Steve Mariotti.  “We’ve created a new paradigm.”

 

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