Friends and Family : September 2008

Richard Rappaport’s song “Sail into the Sun”

Richard Rappaport’s song “Sail into the Sun” has reached #39 on the FMQB rating chart!

SAIL INTO THE SUN
Play

See the chart here.

RAPPAPORT'S BIRTHDAY AT THE LITTLE DOOR WITH THE FLORIDA CONTINGENT

After the smashing success of the EASL At the Emmys Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, we enjoyed a pre-Emmy celebration of Richard Rappaport's 82nd birthday at the Little Door on 3rd Street with the group that put together the conference.

CITIZEN KAYO

On September 11, 2008, Kayoko was sworn in at the Los Angeles Convention Center, along with 6,173 others, as a citizen of the United States of America. She was teary-eyed and moved to complete a process that’s taken nearly 8 years! Here are some photos of the unique event, along with some from the September 12 red-white-blue celebration at our place.

Read Kayoko's piece, "To Become An American Citizen" here.

Mummy III Premiere

CL with DollHouse Girls

Obama supported by Japanese!

This is a Daruma doll from Obama City, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, which is north of Tokyo.

The entire city of Obama is going crazy supporting Barak Obama, creating “Obama Girls”, and “I Love Obama” bandanas…etc. This Daruma doll says “VICTORY” for him!!

Trip to the Bay Area

One of the highlights of my recent trip to the Bay Area—aside from watching my grandson Teddy’s first soccer game--was a meeting with The Yoga Journal for the purpose of hooking them up with The Grameen Foundation—the micro-financing institute founded by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Dr. Muhammed Yunus.

The YJ/Grameen program will be called “Giving Back to India.” More details to follow. The photo shows the “organizers”: my wife Kayoko Mitsumatsu, Grameen west coast development exec Julia Wilson, and yoga instructor par excellence/YJ model Joel Bender.

Desperately Seeking Chris

Over tennis yesterday morning Katherine Taylor (Rules for Saying Goodbye, Farrar, Straus) told me a delightful story for the annals of contemporary lit about her previous night’s reading at Vroman’s. She and about 10 pals reconvened at the Ritz Hotel for drinks and snacks after the packed reading. A tall mysterious stranger named Chris joined them, though she only exchanged a few words with him. They ran up a bar tab of at least $50 each. At the end of the evening, someone noticed Chris slipping out the door. When the waitress was asked if he paid his share, she said, “He took care of the whole tab!”

Now if Chris is really as cool as this sounds Kate won’t see him again until she’s signing her second novel! Truly a tale as delicious as her novel.

Rhiannon Meier

I have this photograph of Rhiannon Meier on my computer to remind me from moment to moment that the purest way to approach life is exuberance. VP of Development at Red Wagon, she was killed in a traffic accident on December 8, and the subject of a standing-room-only celebration of her life at the Grove. She touched so many people in Hollywood—including AEI, when we made a deal with Blue Star on David Angsten’s Dark Gold—that it’s not surprising the theater was overflowing and the after-gathering at Morel’s went on for hours. We will always remember her for her unswerving positivity, endless energy and enthusiam, dogged determination—cliches normally reserved for fictional characters in romantic comedies. And, yes, above all: an exuberance in every thing she undertook that sets a standard one can only hope to approach. Chi-Li and I were honored to meet her stepfather Tom at the party—he’s created a website to memorialize her life: http://rhiannonmeier.legacy.com/ .

Hope for the World

I’m so glad I happened to read Alan Wolfe’s article in the March Atlantic, “The Coming Religious Peace.” For those, and I’ve counted myself among them, who despair that religious fanaticism will bring us to the end of the world, Wolfe’s analysis of the relationship between wealth and religiosity is an optimistic appraisal of the positive impact increased affluence has on the diminution of fanaticism. With the exception of the United States (Don’t get me started!), the more affluent a nation is the lower it scores on Wolfe’s “religiosity scale.” Nations like France, Sweden, Japan, Britain, Germany, and Italy all score under 1.0, while nations like Senegal, Indonesia, Pakistan,, Brazil, and Malaysia score between 2.5 and 3.0 (the highest). The more free market influences shape a nation’s daily life the less its citizens are interested in blindly fanatic religious intolerance. The U.S. rates 1.5, slightly above Chile and Mexico, slightly below Lebanon and Venezuela.

JAPÓN ES DIFERENTE

JAPAN IS DIFFERENT (sent from Ivo’s mother in Mexico)

Those skirts are the worst! See it here.

WELCOME TO THE ATCHITY FAMILY, LAUREN

Out of the blue Kayoko and I were delighted that No. 1 Son Vincent and beloved new daughter-in-law Lauren Schumacher tied the knot on the Big Island of Hawaii at sunset on August 7--08-07-08. We're thrilled for both of them, and want Lauren to know that everyone of the Atchitys she met at the family reunion on June 21 of this year loved her and will be thrilled to hear the news. We look forward to hosting a gumbo-gyoza party on Burnside at the earliest possible moment, and also to celebrating with them in Cabo in October.

TRIP TO OAHU

Stayed at the uncongested Ala Moana Hotel, thanks to the Maui Writers Conference. Visited the North Shore and cracked our own macadamias, Kona coffee, garlic shrimp from the truck. Breeze always blowing. Sudden rainshowers that last five minutes. Green mountains. Tourism down 20%,
but half the tourists are Japanese so Kayo felt at home--food courts superb. Hula on Waikiki Beach at night. Fingers crossed for New Orleans and Gustav. Great news about Ivonne's new job. Thrilled by Obama's speech. Startled by Palin's nomination. Not surprised Bush & Cheney avoided convention.

Campaign To Help India's Poor

Yoga Gives Back

Written by Kayoko Mitsumatsu

From Posture To Power: Microcredit Changes Lives On Both Sides of the Ocean

We can talk about making change. But affecting real change in the world comes from impacting the lives of individuals. It comes from empowering people to be independent and able to make a living on their own while at the same time being fully integrated in our interdependent global community. Sometimes it takes something that seems to be radical to make this change, but these shifts can be deceptively small. They can be even as small (or as large) as the cost of a Los Angeles Yoga class.

How could this be? In the practice of microcredit, lending seemingly small amounts of money to small-scale entrepreneurs allows them to succeed and change their circumstances. This is the fundamental basis of microcredit’s transformative power; it’s a revolutionary concept in finance. This practice shifts the emphasis from financial transactions being focused only about large loans and large scale businesses, which are out of reach of many one-person operations, institutions and organizations – to lending practices that actually make a positive difference in a person’s life. Microcredit practices based on social justice and empowerment operate through a combination of small-scale loans based on trust and community support, with structured repayment plans and programs that encourage savings. In these situations, people actually have the opportunity to solidify long-term change in their lives.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the Yoga Gives Back Team: Joel Bender, Leslie Hendry, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Kayoko Mitsumatsu (left-right)

In 2006, economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the institution he founded, the Grameen Bank, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This award was in recognition of their revolutionary efforts to create this micro-credit model, support sustainable economic practices, and provide an alternative to what were exploitive norms. When a person is caught in a cycle of poverty, they may become trapped in the system, particularly since large banking institutions have historically ignored people without assets or credit histories, who are just starting out and who may not have already proven themselves. Most banks prefer to lend large sums of money that represent a greater profit margin and are set up only for large loans in order to make a profit themselves. And even making it more challenging, people at the bottom of the economic scale worldwide have had to rely on moneylenders charging usurious terms and interest rates to obtain funds to plant the next crop, buy inventory of new equipment, or upgrade a business in any way. Institutions such as the Grameen Bank and their affiliates are offering another approach. It’s one that has significantly impacted millions of people.

As Dr. Yunus described in an exclusive interview with Yoga Gives Back in May, 2009, “We started in 1976, and today within Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, eight million people borrow micro loans, ninety-seven percent of them women.” This represents an enormous potential for change and empowerment that just did not exist on a large scale in this form prior to 1976.

There is a social cycle in economics, and Dr. Yunus explained this: “Poverty is not inside the person. Poverty is forced from outside. Poor people are as capable [a] human being as anybody else. They have the same power and energy, same potential. But they are denied such facilities. They cannot express themselves. Money is one of the most important items missing in their lives. You need a dollar to catch a dollar. You cannot catch a dollar with an empty hand. So, that first dollar, nobody has given to her. So she remains dependent on someone else. She has to be hired, to slave; she has to work to make food available on the table. What we have done, we have put that first dollar into her hands as a banking proposition. Conventional banks never come to the poor people. They go to rich people to make more money. The person who does not have a dollar – she cannot get it. So we did it. We did it in a way that is affordable to her. Because we do not insist on collateral. There is no collateral.”

While that may seem like a radical concept, the Grameen Bank has proven that their success is much more than ideological. Dr Yunus cited statistics for us, “The repayment rate is almost 100%, without collateral or anything. This is the strength of microcredit which is now spread all over the world. There are by now at least 150 million borrowers in the world today. Bu it is still very small comparing to the need. We need more microcredit organizations in the world so that more people can be reached.”

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization begun in LA, with the goal to provide a way for Western Yoga practitioners to give back to India, the birthplace of Yoga, which has given us so much. We’re heeding Dr. Yunus’ call to reach more people through expanded opportunities for and awareness of microcredit and have targeted India and Indian families, women, and would-be entrepreneurs, who would be otherwise stuck in the cycle of poverty that Dr. Yunus described. Yoga Gives Back supports microfinancing operations in India, through the Grameen Foundation, headquartered in Washington, DC. Donations go directly to Grameen Koota, Bangalore, South India and our YGB awareness campaign focuses on the real stories of how poor women are changing their lives with small loans from Grameen Koota.

Ms. Vinatha M Reddy

Grameen Koota was started by visionary teacher and philanthropist, Ms. Vinatha M Reddy (pictured, above) in 1999, who learned about Nobel Peace Recipient Dr Muhammad Yunus’ microfinancing and immediately began exploring ways of replicating his work in her hometown. In 2000, she started providing small microcredit loans, averaging $25.00 a month, to fifty local women. Today, Grameen Koota’s work is reaching out to over 280,000 women in Bangalore, Mysore and many areas of Karnataka state, in South India, making real impact on these women’s lives as well as on the local economy.

Yoga Gives Back

The Los Angeles-based Yoga Gives Back has a worldwide reach and began out of the inspiration and dedication of my Yoga mentor Joel Bender and me. Our group has suddenly started growing almost daily and our mission is shared by a quickly expanding and loving Yoga community.

When I was growing up in Japan, which is a very middle-class society, I had never experienced or seen any real poverty, especially growing up in Tokyo in 1960s and 1970s, when Japan's post-war economic miracle was taking place. Then, I had a chance to live in Brazil in the late 1970s for two years, where as a teenager, I saw the divide between poverty and wealth, the reality of the real slums, kids on the streets begging every time you stopped the car at the traffic light, all very much like India. Social injustice hit me hard.

Once I started Yoga practice and feeling my life being so enriched by it , I felt a need to use my resources to help others. I was producing a documentary on Social Entrepreneurship and learned about microfinancing. I shared this information with Joel [featured in the teacher profile in this month’s issue of LA YOGA] who had been looking for the way he could give back to India since his first visit there – so we teamed up.

When I think about the growth of Yoga Gives Back thus far, I give a lot of credit to the entrepreneurship and volunteer spirit of Americans, willing to embrace and support a new grass roots campaign like ours.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu, co-founder of Yoga Gives Back, is a documentary filmmaker whose films deal with social justice issues, including First They Killed My Father a memoir of a Cambodia’s Killing Fields’ survivor.

A Life Changing Story of Microcredit: Jayashree

Jayashree

Jayashree lives in the suburbs of Bangalore and is married and the mother of two children. We visited her at her humble dirt floor one room home for the first time in 2007. We were touched by her warm smile and most generous hospitality, serving us hot tea and cookies.

Jayashree was born into a very poor family in Bangalore. When she was a child, her family’s financial situation became so severe that she had to drop out of school and work at a garment factory. She toiled throughout her childhood and after she got married at fifteen, her meager earnings had to support her ailing in-laws. She had two children. Her husband’s rickshaw business was not enough to pay her sons’ education or secure food for the family.

In 2007, Jayashree learned from her neighbors about Grameen Koota’s microcredit program and applied for her first loan. She was granted a first loan of 7,000 rupees ($175), and immediately bought her husband’s auto rickshaw. Owning their own rickshaw business increased their income significantly.

Jayashree was able to pay back her entire loan in one year and became eligible for her second loan in 2008. Having proven her diligence, her second loan amount doubled to 15,000 rupees ($375). This time, she bought a sewing machine and started stitching bags. The family’s earnings have now tripled and she is earning 150 rupees ($3.75) a day. In addition, she opened a small shop next to her house to sell her products which is earning her an additional 100 rupees ($2.50) a day.

She is sending her elder son to a medical school. Her son dreams of becoming a doctor and thanks his mother’s business for providing his education, their own home and daily food.

To participate in a Yoga practice where the proceeds support Yoga Gives Back and directly impact the transformation of not only your own life, but that of someone in India, start your Thanksgiving week at Yogaglo, Sunday, November 22, 10:00 A.M. - 12 noon. Some of the teachers include John Sahakian, Felicia Tomasko, Alexandra Aiken and Ally Hamilton; more to be announced. Yogaglo.com; yogagivesback.com.

For more information on Yoga Gives Back or to host a Yoga Gives Back class at your own studio or location, visit: yogagivesback.org or contact yogagivesback@earthlink.net.