A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity

Sheryl WuDunn works at an investment banking firm called Mid-Market Securities. Before that, she worked at Goldman Sachs and was a journalist for the New York Times. She was named one of the “30 most successful Harvard Business School graduates of all time” by Business Insider. She is therefore an exemplar of the type of altruistic for-profit restructured not-for-profit that she advocates in the book. She has reported widely throughout Asia and co-written four books and won awards with Kristof. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, an MBA from Harvard University, and an MPH from Princeton University.

Rachel Beckwith was a girl from Washington State who used her ninth birthday party to raise money for charity: water. She had long been interested in helping others. She even cut her hair as a five-year-old to send it to Locks for Love, an organization that makes wigs for children who have lost their hair from cancer treatment or other medical conditions. After Beckwith’s serious car accident, word about both her accident and fundraising efforts for various causes reached many people who started sending money. Eventually, more than $1.2 million was donated in her name so that wells could be dug in Africa—a cause about which she cared deeply. Rachel’s mother, Samantha Paul, later traveled to Ethiopia to see the work that her daughter’s donations had made possible. A memorial service for Rachel was held at a church, a local park had been named for her, and people overwhelmed Paul with their outpouring of grief and admiration for Rachel and her generosity.

Dr. Gary Slutkin is a specialist in infectious diseases who spent much of his career in Africa, working at refugee camps. When he returned to the US, the violence he observed in Chicago reminded him of an epidemic. The behavior and patterns were the same. The violence was seemingly contagious in isolated, highly concentrated areas. Dr. Slutkin thought the response to the violence should be the same as that for the outbreak of a disease: prevent it from spreading to others. He created an organization called Cure Violence and hired “violence interrupters” to do just that. These are often former gang members with prison records themselves who know the territory and the players involved. They have credibility in their communities, and they visit the victims in the hospital to try to prevent retaliation and negotiate a peace. As Slutkin says, “Violence is learned behavior. Violence can also be unlearned behavior” (8).