Tag Archives: national service

AWSC Supporters, Support Resolutions

ISOJI Suppport

ISOJI and Multi-Disciplinary Team, August 8, 2016
Congress Huffman:

Re: Support for The People’s Lobby/Dwayne Hunn’s “American World Service Corps (AWSC) National Service proposal”

Dwayne Hunn as presented his proposal to the ISOJI (e-so-gee) MDT on several occasions and the response has always be affirmative and supportive if not a necessary ingredient into plight of our straying teens and young adults

Collectively we would like to see this proposal forwarded for consideration by Congress as a viable, well thought-out social-economic support system, and certainly, an option for our young people.

ISOJI surmises the lack of technical and vocational tracks in high school and the 30 to 40% students not wanting to/or cannot attend college puts many students at a disadvantage in transitioning into the workforce. Add to that, the evidences that says 75 to 80% of high-schoolers leave the learning environment with low self-esteem, which means low resiliency skills and reduced motivation, which leaves them unsure about self and the future, and indeed, in need of an environment where they feel useful and have the time to acquire a sense of discipline that helps them sort out their life’s path.

Without question, the compelling arguments, from our point of view, lies in the large numbers unemployed and underemployed and the 35 to 40 % of students NOT wanting or UNABLE to attend college or an advanced technical-vocational training institution.

We see the general disposition, unrest, and the higher levels of negative self-worth and low personal efficacy reflected in societal conditions that too often manifests itself in criminal inclinations – and we know how hard it is for young people to overcome what happens to them when they become enwrapped in a discriminatory criminal justice system.

A number of groups such as Peace Corp, Cross Cultural Solutions, United Planet Abroad, AmeriCorps, National Association of Community Health Centers, The Corp Network, City Year, The Red Cross, State Conservation Corps and multiple non-profits and other charitable works often lack the type of centrality or direct volunteer arm needed to address America’s systemic need to structure healthy and productive youth-to-adult pathways.

Your office can look at this proposal as a complementary necessity to, without question, the need to build a national infrastructure nationally that serves a myriad of social-economic needs. This AWSCNS program could present a national image for addressing youth, many of whom seem to occupy a social vacuum rife with drugs, violent media, social disconnectedness, separated from the health and welfare attributes that our nation has promised.

For all these reasons, ISOJI and the Multi-Disciplinary Team and our CITT “Collective Impact” Community Equity Building Team, endorses fully, this proposal.

In closing, as a former Air Force intelligence manager let me add another reason this AWSCNS program should be implemented. Whereas the military use to be a haven, an option for growing into a healthy manhood, the military and/or war environment too often today does not provide that route. Service as depicted in this proposed bill offers a healthy route, while providing human resources to our overwhelmed non-profits and presenting to the public a government that looks and acts effective, outreaching, and caring.

Sincerely,

Ricardo Moncrief, Director
ISOJI 415 883-1757

AWSC, AWSC Proposal

AWSC summary

“This country runs on laws.  If you want to change the country, write its laws.”

Ed & Joyce Koupal, founders of People’s Lobby

(Draft page… rebuilding site.)

Early in 2005 People’s Lobby (PLI )initiated the American World Service Corps National Service Congressional Proposal (AWSCNS) .  It is neither a direct nor indirect initiative with which People’s Lobby has had past successes.

It is a congressional proposal that benefits America and the world and raises the public policy IQ for both and requires introduction through visionary legislators.  Enacting the AWSC Congressional Proposals would:

  • Remind citizens that they are the ultimate source of laws;
  •  Involve citizens in healthy civic affairs;
  • Strengthen the thinning character and patriotic fabric of the nation;
  • Address the root causes of terror, refugee  tragedies, climate devastation, etc.;
  • Press red and blue-staters, red-necks and blue-noses and humans of all pigments into working on and learning from pressing domestic and international problems;  
  • Build a one million strong all volunteer peaceful national service corps by inspiring  more to serve in already existing do-good organizations such as Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Doctors Without Borders, Head Start, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, Mercy Corps, State Conservation Corps, FINCA, TechnoServe, Fuller Center for Housing, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, U.N. Refugee Agency, American Friends Service Committee,  as well as in local non-profits, schools, homes for aged, physical therapy wards, penal institutions, etc.
  • Involve rich and poor, young and old , red necks and blue noses in service to the nation and world that will dramatically raise national and international civic actions and IQs.   

***

The American World Service Corps Congressional Proposal neither establishes a big new bureaucracy nor is expensive.

It is not merely shorthand for a bigger Peace Corps, although it will make the Peace Corp much bigger than it has ever been.

It is envisioned as a small administrative office that does some marketing, disseminates paychecks to its full time volunteers, and takes care of their tuition and other post service grants and gratuities. It is a moniker, a name tag that allows us to model what should be the new 21st century army that  we and other nations should be sending out into the world. If one makes such service meaningful, it  can be as or more valuable than most college educations.

Its primary raison d’etre is to send many more volunteers to rub shoulders and do good through the already existing and effective do-good organizations such as  those mentioned above.

These organizations know what to do with additional full time human resources.

This AWSC Umbrella heightens the effectiveness of these groups by enlarging them at a time when complexities and needs are growing.  As the Greatest Generation passes, we need to involve the push-button, play-game generation as well as the more mature in active service, which builds the nation’s character and prepares us to better handle the real world.

 Summary

The American World Service Corps National Service  (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal would field a robust, peaceful, productive, paid volunteer army of American do-gooders who would choose to serve at home or abroad.  It would reduce conflicts, address needs, and make life easier for our military and healthier for our citizens.  It is NOT another program or large bureaucracy.  It is merely an umbrella, a moniker that feeds more volunteers into proven existing do-good organizations and non-profits.

How Fund?

In addition to the traditional revenue streams listed in the AWSCNS proposal that would fund this investment in our people and world, we have added nontraditional, voluntary, revenue streams that could fund this entire generation-long National Service Program without taxing Americans.

The Gates & Buffett Giving Pledge has helped PLI’s long effort to establish a  publically displayed Socially Conscious Giving Spreadsheet whose fund are escrowed to only be spent on AWSC volunteers who serve.  Click though to view the Forbes .0006% Powerpoint.

Undersized yesterday –>today’s growing problems

John Kennedy told former Senator Harris Wofford that he wanted the Peace Corps to reach 100,000 a year because, “It would then be considered serious.  In one decade, it would reach 1 million volunteers.”  In the last 54+ years, only about 220,000 PCVs have trained and served, meaning perhaps 180,000+ have completed service.  For more than a generation, we have failed to come close to implementing a vision that would cost effectively and dramatically reduce poverty, ignorance, hatred, and terrorist recruitment.  We missed the opportunity to dramatically increase our public policy IQ, understand the dynamics of the Global Village and its economies, and reduce the hatred fired at our troops, and care for and understand environmental needs.

We are leaving big problems to the next generation.  We owe them a big, but cost effective, AWSCNS solution.

Think of your favorite local non-profits. Could they accomplish more good if they had one or a few full time volunteers aged from a fresh 18 to an experienced 70+?  Could they enrich your community and raise its public policy IQ?

Joint Peace Corps

PLI’s AWSCNS Proposal urges that other nations emulate similar national service programs.  Imagine what could happen if the nations of the world built robust national service programs that rivaled the size of it militaries.

Imagine if People’s Lobby’s successful efforts in 1989 to have Congresswoman Boxer introduce HR1807, the US-Soviet Peace Corps, had grown over the years.  Imagine how much safer and saner today’s world would be.

In July of 2016,  PLI discussed with Senator Boxer’s staff  the possibility of reintroducing an updated HR 1807 .  Give her a call and express your support before she leaves office .

If you would like to read 60+OpEds detailing benefits of an AWSC, click OEN OpEds.  For some videos, click videos.  For one of several 30 minute overviews at the videos link, try this Mel Presents.

If able and willing, press your candidates or respected celebrities to help move this AWSC solution.  Thanks.

  Power Point  Summary

Today we have tooo many who pontificate about what should be done to address foreign and domestic needs who have little or no grassroots experience with those problems.  A robust AWSC National Service program smartens our and other nations in how to more cost effectively and peacefully address domestic and world problems.

Click  Why Need AWSC Umbrella

to view Power Point overview of why AWSC National Service umbrella is needed, including reference to non-traditional funding mechanisms that piggy-back on the Gates Buffet Giving Pledge –>

Uber-rich <2% solution for world peace  Will super-rich step up?

Embeded chart reflecting how the Forbes 400 alone, using one of the AWSC Congressional Proposal’s non-traditional funding mechanisms could easily fund this wise AWSCNS investment.

How to fund without taxing:

forbes006funds

 

AWSC

Presidential candidates stance on AWSC

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(Slowly rebuiding and migrating websites)

People’s Lobby is asking all presidential candidates whether they support the AWSC Proposal, (http://new.dwaynehunn.biz/awsc-congressional-proposal/ ), which places a million Americans a year into peaceful National Service for at least a generation, not by building a new bureaucracy, but through serving in already existing organizations such as: Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Doctors Without Borders, Head Start, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, Mercy Corps, State Conservation Corps, effective local non-profits, in-need schools, homes for the elderly, therapy wards in hospitals, etc.

Please note that we’re asking for more than a minimalist response that says you support today’s minimalized Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, etc., or that “National service is a good idea…”

Thoughtful responses will include answers to the following questions.  Do you believe that?

  • Such peaceful service will increase opportunities domestically & reduce tensions internationally?
  • More than .4% of Americans (active military) should serve?
  • Peaceful, healthy change in many needy areas requires generations to develop & therefore endorse the generation long robust national service “sunset clause” in the AWSC Proposal?
  • The good accomplished by investing $40K/year in each AWSC volunteer would in time reduce the $400K attributed to each of our active military and/or the $1 million+ cost for each of our battlefield soldiers?
  • Both traditional & nontraditional funding mechanisms (in the Proposal) should be used to field 21,000,000 National Service Americans over the ensuing 27 years.

More info:

Would the world’s people and its environment be better off today if since the 1961 inception of the Peace Corps (a form of voluntary national service) 20 million had served by now (2015) rather than 200,000?

Thanks for providing your stance on the American World Service Corps Congressiona Proposal.

AWSC Supporters

General Zinni comments on AWSC national service

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General Anthony Zinni on the American World Service Corps Congressional Proposals

Interviewed by Freedoms Forum’s Bob Aucone.

Portion of the video tape from November 2006 in Washington D. C.

In asking about “national service,” Freedoms Forum asks Four Star General Zinni about the volunteer national service proposal “coming out of the 6th CD,” Peoples Lobby’s citizen-initiated American World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposals.

Aucone:  “Freedoms Forum is following a citizen-initiated proposal that is coming out of the 6th (Congressional) District in California, which is where we’re from. It is a proposal for voluntary national service that the government would pass legislation to incentiviize people joining, ah, this national service.  Either serving in the Peace Corps or Red Cross or Doctors without Borders, Habitat for Humanity.  All of these organization that you call non-governmental organizations, NGOs.

“Is there a place for that kind of partnership between military and NGOs to provide a stable world out there, where if we have more people that would be encouraged to participate in that kind of service that we would have, perhaps, a more stable world?”

General Zinni:  “Well, I think a national volunteer program would be fantastic.  When I teach my college course, I see so many students that want to put something back, what to do something for the world.  I think a national volunteer program should have everything in it.  It should include the option of military service.  It should include the option of other governmental service, serving internships with our state department or maybe the USA AID, which provides assistance out there, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and with non-governmental organizations, where there can be placement and recognition for time spent there.

To me, all those provide service not only internationally but domestically.  I could see where this sort of volunteerism would have been effective for Hurricane Katrina, or elsewhere.  So we could have international and domestic.  I would like to see our government capture all the options, build the program, “and then put it in out high schools and colleges as an option.  So on career day you can look at these steps and these options and this would be explained as to where you feel you can best serve.

“Some people feel best that they can serve in uniform.  Others in doing some sort of humanitarian work.  Others in maybe working in government to help better create institutions, like rule of law institutions, or working with others in the area of diplomacy, or in other things that can support our effort.

“So I would like to see a broad based program that allows for all this.

“In terms of partnership, when you talk military and NGOs, you have to be a little careful, because many NGOS cannot be seen to be too closely tied to military. They have to maintain their neutrality.  The basis for their support may be faith based, or based on a principle like the Red Cross of neutrality or non-violence, and they could lose their credibility or effectiveness.  So it’s not that they object to the military or what they do in any way, our military particularly.  It’s that they have to retain that.  So you have to build that partnership very carefully.

“When we were in Somalia, we had some organizations that could not be seen as associating directly with us.  They appreciated the fact that we were trying to create a secure environment to allow them to operate.  But if it looked like they were working with the military, they may alienate certain elements of the society they were trying to help or make enemies.  So we had to do the coordination and cooperation on an information-sharing basis but not be seen as essentially cooperation.  That could be managed.  That can be done.  And not be seen as some sort of cooperation.

”When the military gets in the humanitarian business, sometimes it competes with them.  And sometimes we may not be the experts.  They know things about local diet.  They know things about constructing local markets that can stand on their own.  When the military comes in and tries to influence that it may not be the right course.  We’re not expert in that.  So they should have the lead.  The military should stick primarily, other than emergency relief, to providing that secure environment that allows them to work.

“So it has to be structured in a careful way.  The relationships are complicated.  But I would say one thing about going back to the point about national service program offered to our youth.  Don’t exclude anybody.  Don’t say that’s alternate service to the military

Because right away you are creating two sides to this.  It should be all encompassing.  You know when you talk about national service, there should be the option to serve in uniform or to serve in one of the other areas.  I think there are many possibilities here.  I mean, I listed three – military service, or working with governmental organizations non-military, or non-governmental organizations.  And there may be other options to throw into that service.”

 

AWSC Supporters

Congressional candidate Colleen Rowley 10-06

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Colleen Rowley MN 2nd CD D

Dear Dwayne and AWSC,

Thanks for taking the time to contact our campaign. Coleen generally supports an expansion of national service very much in line with AWSC’s platform. She also shares the reasons for doing so. In particular, she supports encouraging our citizenry to participate in programs like Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Head Start, Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, and State Conservation Corps.

Raising America’s political IQ is in truly a win-win scenario. To that end, if elected, I am confident Coleen will take a particular interest in AWSC’s platform.

Thanks again.

Walter B. Winger

Coleen Rowley for U.S. Congress

10-6-06 email

AWSC Supporters

General Paul Monroe on American World Service Corps Proposal

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General Paul Monroe statement:

 The American World Service Corps (AWSC) strengthens our nation.  It not only encourages volunteerism in support of our fellow citizens, it also demonstrates to the world community that the United States is a participating member of that community. This service, by an estimated million Americans a year, will also strengthen the moral fiber of our nation,

Today, America depends on its military for its national security.  They bear the brunt of the “Global War on Terrorism”.  We need more.  The nation building stability of the American World Service Corps will reduce the pressure on our military, by creating robust teams of volunteers that reinforce American values here and abroad. These teams will significantly contribute to world security and stability.

America stands tall and strong on the shoulders of its military. They have served in peace and war, and kept us free of totalitarian powers, by fighting and winning our nation’s wars.  They explored our frontiers, built strong families, and contributed to our country’s values. We have been blessed with these national role models by generations, who have willingly served and given up the comforts of family, home, and career to serve our country.

America has always put its best citizens forward when the nation was threatened. That time has come again, and not just for our military, for every American.  We are fast becoming a global village. We have the world’s most reliable warriors, and the best military that history has ever known.  But now, we need to augment our courageous service members with a strong team of citizens, who will stand beside our military.  The humanitarian service these teams provide is just as vital to our security and world stability, as the military has been.

We can no longer wait for the world to evolve into a safer more stable society. We must move quickly to implement the AWSC program. The more rapid we implement this program, the better America, and the world, will be able to deal with international challenges, and become a safer global community.

Email of August 8, 2006