Keeping a Promise

By Mauricio Miller, Center for Peer-driven Change

I have never felt that I controlled my life.? Instead, I feel I have been driven by a promise I made to my mother long ago and the seemingly random emergence of opportunities to fulfill that promise.? Growing up, our family -- my mother, older sister and I -- were struggling to gain a sense of hope as well as how to pay the bills at the end of each month.? We lost my 16-year-old sister to an abusive man and so one night my mother took me aside and as she pointed her finger down at me she made me promise that I would go to college and not let my sister and other families go through the struggles we had been facing.? She sacrificed everything to keep her side of the bargain, and I was admitted into UC Berkeley.

We didn’t immigrate to this country for welfare or programs that made poverty tolerable. My mother could have been an amazing dress designer, and she wanted the opportunity to have the merits of her talents and hard work recognized so she could shape our family’s future.? She saw that those in more privileged circumstances had a chance to get support based on the merits they displayed, but being poor, female, and Mexican … well she was never afforded that chance.

Society offered us charity which she rejected because it took away her pride and we survived on pride alone at times.?But she discovered that there is no support system that is based on merit and hard work for those at the bottom of our economies.? If anything, if you are poor you have to compete to look poorer than your neighbor to get access to any programs or support.? The more desperate you look, the more eligible you are for support and my mother and sister would not compete on that basis.

Though they deserved better I lost both my sister and mother.? And so for the last 4 decades I have pursued an answer to the promise I made to make things better.? Everyday people, immigrants and those struggling with poverty are the ones who built this country -- from the railroads, plantations, to entire townships.? ?America was not built by the “educated elite” immigrants that Elon Musk wants but instead by everyday people like our family and friends.?The people I grew up with in pretty tough neighborhoods have been exploited to build the economy so the rich can get richer. Yet, like my mother and sister, they continue to be disparaged and now deported although so many have talents that can contribute to expanding our economy so everyone can benefit.

For decades I have searched for how we could draw out and support the talent and resourcefulness of those I grew up with.? Progress has been made.? My lessons have come about by challenging groups of low-income families to come up with steps forward that make sense to them and for them to take the lead in demonstrating those steps.? And in every instance in the US and internationally, when I have challenged groups of people and stepped back, the leadership and capabilities of everyday people have exceeded my expectations.

What I also learned in trying to develop a merit-based support system is that the impact can scale peer to peer even across racial and geographic borders.? In communities where the tradition is to share, to help each other, those communities of mutuality can overcome obstacles and everyone does better.? Success comes when people work together.? I saw groups of families in my US based projects help each other to buy homes, etc., and succeed but my greatest lessons have come from Africa, one of the most exploited continents in the world.

In Liberia, West Africa, with the support of the Rising Tides Foundation, we challenged an entire region in that country to find solutions that we as outsiders could support.? The response from the residents has been overwhelming with residents learning from one another, investing in each other, leading projects to improve local conditions and also helping the most vulnerable.

We have thus formed a membership community under the Center for Peer-driven Change, CPDC, where all are pledged to help each other and lead their own change.? Thousands have now joined that pledge and have demonstrated they appreciate the centrality of mutuality.? We survey them regularly and continue learning how we can support their efforts without taking over the leadership of their efforts.? Any recognition or support we provide is based on merit and the support they have from their neighbors.? Yes, it is a merit-based environment that has prompted amazing creativity and efforts on the ground.? This holds to the promise I made. On our side, we, the well-intended outsiders, have become what one group gratefully called … we are now “Follower Leaders”.

People long to be independent of the privileged class and the elite.? Their latest suggestions is profound, especially in areas with underdeveloped economies.? In Liberia, West Africa, as in many similar countries, the majority of the population survive as small and petty street vendors since their economies do not create enough jobs for everyone.?They are exploited by an entrenched business class left from their colonial past. Yet these vendors purchase hundreds of millions of dollars of goods that they use or resell to neighbors.? What a number of residents suggested is that if we could help them to aggregate their purchases, we could provide them discounts for the products they need.? With the savings they could grow their businesses, create jobs, and build their local economies from the ground up.

So that is what we at CPDC are now doing.? With our technology partner, ImpactX, we are putting together an online platform like Amazon, we are aggregating the products they order and trucking them to their towns. ?We can thus provide them the discounts they asked for, much like Costco.? The initial tests have been extremely promising and there is no lack of customers. ?People from other counties are showing up asking to purchase from our test site in Buchanan. Liberia. ?The business is called PDCMarket and it will take in investors and launch early this year.

?Discussions with potential investors have also begun as we explore the potential to establish some manufacturing in Liberia to reduce their dependence on imports.? All of this bodes well for import dependent countries.? ?Liberia, one of the poorest countries in the world could prove to be the model that demonstrates the impact of a support system based on merit for those at the bottom of our economies.

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