[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2008, Book I)]
[June 26, 2008]
[Pages 883-888]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives' National
Conference
June 26, 2008
Thank you very much. Please be seated. Now how beautiful was that;
from being a homeless mother of two to
introducing the President of the United States. There has to be a higher
power. I love being with members of the armies of compassion, foot
soldiers in helping make America a more hopeful place. Every day, you
mend broken hearts with love. You mend broken lives with hope, and you
mend broken communities with countless acts of extraordinary kindness.
Groups like yours have harnessed the power that no government
bureaucracy can match. So when I came to Washington, my goal was to
ensure that government made you a full partner in our efforts to serve
those in need. And the results have been uplifting, and that's what
we're here to talk about today. It's an opportunity to celebrate your
achievements, to thank you for your life-changing work, and to look
ahead to ways that you will extend your record of compassion in the
years to come.
I really want to thank Jay Hein and those
who worked hard to put on this conference. It looks like it's a
successful one from here. I'm honored that members of the administration
have come--the Attorney General, Judge
Michael Mukasey. Mr. General, thanks for coming. Secretary Ed
Schafer,
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Department of Agriculture; Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Department of Commerce; Director John Walters, Office of National Drug Control Policy--thank you all
for taking time to be here.
Ambassador Mark Dybul, U.S. Global AIDS
Coordinator--Mark, thanks for coming; appreciate you being here. I'm
going to talk about PEPFAR in a minute. But when I talk about PEPFAR,
think about his extraordinary leadership, as I do.
I want to thank the Ambassador from the Republic of Rwanda. Mr. Ambassador, I'm proud you're here. And I want to
thank all of those who've come around the country who work in our Faith-
Based and Community Initiative for your leadership and your compassion
and your decency.
You know, when I ran for President, like a lot of others around our
country, I was troubled to see so many of our citizens' greatest needs
going unmet. Too many addicts walked the rough road of recovery alone.
Too many prisoners had the desire for reform, but no one showed them a
way. Across the country, the hungry and the homeless, the sick and the
suffering begged for deliverance, and too many heard only silence.
And the tragedy that was--a lot of good folks in America--a lot of
good men and women who had the desire to help, but didn't have the
resources--they had the heart, but not the resources. And because many
of them worked with small charities, they were overlooked by Washington
as potential partners in service. And because many of them belonged to
faith-based organizations, they were often barred from receiving support
from the Federal Government.
So I set about to change that, at least from the Federal
perspective, with an approach called compassionate conservatism. This
approach was compassionate because it was rooted in a timeless truth:
that we ought to love our neighbors as we'd like to be loved ourselves.
And it was conservative because it recognized the limits of government.
Bureaucracies can put money in people's hands, but they cannot put hope
in a person's heart.
Putting hope in people's hearts is the mission of our Nation's
faith-based and community groups. And today we're going to herald some
of the results of the collective work of compassionate Americans. To me,
it does not matter if there's a crescent on your group's wall, a rabbi
on your group's board, or Christ in your group's name. If your
organization puts medicine in the people's hands, food in people's
mouths, or a roof over people's heads, then you're succeeding. And for
the sake of our country, the Government ought to support your work.
I was reviewing my first major policy speech as a candidate for
President. It seems like a long time ago, July 22, 1999. Here's what I
said, I said: ``In every instance where my administration sees a
responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith-based
organizations, charities, and community groups that have shown their
ability to save and change lives. We will make a determined attack on
need by promoting the compassionate acts of others.''
As my--President, my first Executive order was to establish the
Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the White House. And
my next one led to the creation of faith-based and community offices at
11 Federal agencies. These offices were tasked with the--this new
mission: to lower the legal and institutional barriers that prevented
government and faith-based groups from working as partners and to ensure
that the armies of compassion played a central role in our campaign to
make America more promising and more just.
We've carried out this mission in two ways. First, we have helped
level the playing field for faith-based groups and other charities,
especially small organizations that have struggled to compete for funds
in the past. We've educated religious groups about
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their civil rights. We've made the Federal grant application process
more accessible and transparent. We've trained thousands of Federal
employees to ensure that government does not discriminate against faith-
based organizations. We've ensured that these groups do not have to give
up their religious character to receive taxpayer money.
With these steps, we followed a principle rooted both in our
Constitution and the best traditions of our Nation. Government should
never fund the teaching of faith, but it should support the good works
of the faithful.
Second, my administration has advanced policies that yield greater
support for faith-based and community groups. In other words, it's one
thing to talk it, it's another thing to act. So we worked with Congress,
and we've had a lot of help in the Congress.
By the way, this wasn't an easy idea for some to swallow in the
Congress, and yet we did have good help. We amended the Tax Code to
provide greater incentives for charitable donations, and we established
what's called the Compassion Capital Fund to help faith-based and
community groups operate more efficiently and secure additional funding
from the private sector. This year, we launched what's called the Pro
Bono Challenge, a 3-year campaign to encourage corporate professionals
like accountants and lawyers to share their time and expertise with
groups such as yours.
In all these ways, the administration has upheld its promise to
treat community and faith-based organizations as trusted partners. We've
held your organizations to high standard and insisted on clear results.
And your organizations have delivered on those results. You've helped
revolutionize the way government addresses the greatest challenges
facing our society. I truly believe the faith-based initiative is one of
the most important initiatives of this administration.
I would like to share with you some of your record. Faith-based and
community groups have revolutionized the way our government shelters the
homeless. Together, we've worked to reduce the number of Americans who
go to sleep each night vulnerable and exposed, unsure of where they'll
sleep tomorrow. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban
Development has partnered with faith-based and community groups to find
homeless Americans safe places to stay. And according to the most recent
data, this program has helped reduce the number of chronically ill
homeless by nearly 12 percent, getting more than 20,000 Americans off
the street.
Faith-based and community groups have revolutionized the way we help
Americans break the chains of addiction. Through our Access to Recovery
program, we provide addicts with vouchers that they can redeem at
treatment centers of their choice. So far, Access to Recovery has helped
approximately 200,000 addicts along the path to clean lives. And many
have been inspired to call upon a higher power to help them break the
chains of addiction.
One person who's turned her life around through this program is
Ramie Siler. You don't know Ramie yet, but
you're about to. Ramie was once lost to substance abuse and depression.
Even when she tried to get clean for her daughter's high school
graduation, Ramie could not break free from her addiction. And then she
found a faith-based group, a group of decent citizens reaching out to
people like Ramie. It was called the Next Door.
At the Next Door, Ramie met people who stood
by her during the difficult times of recovery. They gave Ramie a second
chance to become a productive citizen and a good mother. Today, she's
reunited with her daughter Dawn. She helps other
women as a Next Door case manager. And I'd like to tell you what she
said. She used the words of Saint Paul: ``Old things have passed away;
behold, all things are becoming new.''
Ramie is with us today with a Vanderbilt
sophomore, her daughter Dawn. Ramie,
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where are you? Oh, there they are. [Applause] So you applaud for Ramie,
but you're also applauding for those compassionate souls at the Next
Door. Faith-based community is--[applause]--our faith community is doing
a fantastic job of saving lives.
Faith-based and community groups have revolutionized the way our
government helps the children of prisoners. It's hard to imagine what
it's like for a child to have to enter a prison gate just to get a hug
from a mom or a dad. Government can't hug these kids, but it can support
caring mentors who do. Through our Mentoring Children of Prisoners
program, we've joined with faith-based and community groups to match
nearly 90,000 children of prisoners with adults who offer love and
guidance and a positive example.
Faith and community groups have revolutionized the way our
government gives prisoners across America a second chance. In the past,
government frequently ignored groups like yours in its efforts to help
former prisoners become productive citizens. Like, it just didn't enter
people's minds that the faith-based and community groups could actually
help change lives. Yet through the prisoner reentry initiative that we
created in 2004, we've enlisted faith-based and community groups to help
provide services like job placement and mentoring programs for thousands
of former inmates. Really, what we did is help them find love.
And the work has made a huge difference. Nationwide, 44 percent of
prisoners are rearrested within a year of their release. Yet among
prisoners that have been helped by people, like people in this room, the
number is three times lower, just 15 percent.
Faith-based and community groups have helped a lot in America, and
they've helped revolutionize the way our government alleviates suffering
and disease around the world. I'm about to describe some of our
programs. But oftentimes, I'm asked, why? Why do you care what happens
outside of America? I believe to whom much is given, much is required.
And I believe we got plenty of capacity to help people at home and
abroad. And I believe it is in the moral interests of the United States
to help when it comes to defeating malaria, for example.
Malaria is a disease which kills one African child every 30 seconds.
And it is something we can do something about. The U.S. Government
launched a 5-year, $1.2 billion initiative in 2005 to cut the number of
malaria-related deaths in 15 African nations by half. With strong
support from groups like yours, our malaria initiative is producing
results, tangible results. In just over 2 years, it's reached more than
25 million people.
The island of Zanzibar, which is affiliated with Tanzania, the
infection rate has gone from 20 percent of babies born to less than 1
percent of babies born in 16 months.
The organizations about which I'm talking today are vital to the
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR. We got to give
everything initials in Washington. [Laughter] We launched this program
in 2003--this is a program that Ambassador Dybul runs so effectively. We launched this program in 2003.
When we launched it there was about 50,000 people in sub-Sahara Africa
that were receiving antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS. As a result
of a focused campaign, I'm pleased to announced that today we support
treatment for nearly 1.7 million people. Think about that.
And one of the beautiful things about this initiative is that we're
saving babies. To date, PEPFAR has allowed nearly 200,000 African babies
to be born HIV-free.
These new numbers show the program is a huge success. And it would
not have been a--nearly the success it's been without the partners who
carry out the work, without the faith-based community that is on the
frontline of saving lives, not only here at home but in places like
Africa.
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You know, it's been amazing to watch this experience. People who
report back to Mark and myself talk about
what's called the Lazarus effect, where communities were once given up
for dead have now found new life and new hope.
I traveled to--you know, we had a fantastic trip to Africa;
Laura and I went. And the outpouring of love for
the American citizens is great. I mean, this--it is such an honor to
represent our country and to see the hard work of the American citizens
and the generosity of the American citizens paying off in the smiling
faces that line the road.
When we were in Tanzania, we went to visit a clinic where a 9-year-
old girl was HIV-positive, and she'd lost both her parents to AIDS. And
for the last year, Catholic Relief Services had been helping the girl.
And her grandmother said this: ``As a Muslim, I never imagined that a
Catholic group would help me like that.'' And she went on to say, ``I'm
so grateful to the American people.''
The United States Senate must follow the lead of the United States
House and reauthorize this vital program.
I really am grateful for those who are here and those around the
country who serve in the armies of compassion. It didn't require a
government law to get you to sign up. You chose to do so out of the
goodness of your heart. We've made great strides in fulfilling the goal,
and I am confident that the progress that you have made over the last 8
years will continue.
I'm confident because the movement is bigger than politics or any
political party. This is not a political convention. This is a
compassion convention. This is, ``we don't care about politic''
convention. We care about saving lives.
You realize that 35 Governors have faith-based offices, 19 of them
Democrats, 16 of them Republicans. Seventy mayors of both parties have
similar programs at the municipal level.
I'm confident that this initiative has built a powerful grassroots
network. We've trained over 100,000 social entrepreneurs. Isn't that
amazing? In this brief period of time, 100,000 people have been trained.
Last year, we provided more than 19,000 competitive grants to community
and faith-based organizations. Why? Because we want to change America
for the better. We want people to be able to be empowered to do their
work of love and compassion and bringing dignity to every human life.
We've laid the foundation for an effort that will continue transforming
lives long after I've been back to Texas.
I am confident about the power of this program because the
initiative has tapped into the compassionate spirit of America. Over the
past 7 years, more of our fellow citizens have discovered that the
pursuit of happiness leads by following the path of service. It's
amazing what happens when you love somebody like you like to be loved
yourself; your own soul is enriched. More citizens are understanding
that by serving, you serve yourself. Americans have volunteered in
record numbers. Sixty million people have volunteered in America this
year, nearly a third of them through faith-based groups. It's an amazing
statistic, isn't it? It really speaks to the great beauty of our
country.
I'm confident because I know how easily the compassionate spirit can
spread. There's an interesting story that I want to share with you about
Ugandan women who help--have been helped by PEPFAR. These were good
souls who worked in a mine. They crushed rocks into gravel by hand. And
it is tough work, really hard work. Then they heard about Katrina, and
somehow they scraped together $1,000, and they gave it to the U.S.
Embassy for the storm's victim. And one woman said with pride, ``We are
now donors.''
And I'm confident above all because I know the character of the men
and women gathered in this hall. In your countless quiet acts of grace,
you serve the highest
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ideals of our Nation. These are the ideals that preserve America as the
beacon of hope, the great light of freedom.
A few years ago, I met a young guy named Elijah Anyieth. Elijah was a little boy, and his village was bombed
during Sudan's civil war. He lost both his parents, and he spent years
wandering from one refugee camp to another. Eventually, he resettled in
Virginia, thanks to a partnership between a faith-based group and the
State Department.
Once Elijah arrived, a local Catholic
charity found him a place to call home. He came to a foreign soil after
wandering in refugee camps, and he found some love. He enrolled in high
school. Just last month, he graduated from college. He's landed his
dream job. The boy who grew up without electricity or running water is
now a mechanical engineer. Elijah, where are you? There he is, right
there. [Applause] You applaud for a good man named Elijah, but also for
those kind souls who share in the great story of this good man.
It's only in a place like America--think about it; think about our
country for a second--could a life nearly extinguished by hate be
restored by love and compassion.
So I've been proud to stand by you as you have worked these miracles
across our country. You probably don't even realize some of the acts of
kindness are miracles. I'm telling you, they are. And you can find it in
the hopeful expressions on the people you've helped. And so I thank you
for your efforts. I thank you for your life-changing work. And I thank
you for your record of compassion that I'm confident you will build on
in the years to come.
May God bless you, and may God continue to bless our country. Thank
you all.
Note: The President spoke at 12:59 p.m. at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. In
his remarks, he referred to Edith Espinoza, administrative assistant,
Chicano Federation of San Diego County, Inc., who introduced the
President; Jay F. Hein, Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives; and Rwanda's Ambassador to the U.S. James Kimonyo.