As regular listeners of the show know, we’ve had the distinct pleasure of covering the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change competition over the past year or so including getting to hear from each of the eight semi-finalists. The winner was announced in December, and I thought it’d be worth recapping this extraordinary enterprise starting with the woman who oversaw the whole thing.
“…these characters have this ability to engage children in every place on earth… when we bring in our characters, and you see Elmo, and these children light up, and the thought that you’re going to reach them with quality, proven educational content! But at the same time, we bring a joy and a hope, and that’s really important in these settings.”
And our semi-finalist for this evening in the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change Initiative is The Carter Center, and their proposal is to eliminate river blindness in Nigeria. And here to discuss that with us is Dr. Frank Richards, who is the Director of the River Blindness Elimination Program at The Carter Center.
And this evening, you’re going to hear from another one of the semi-finalists in the 100&Change initiative of the MacArthur Foundation. He is Dr. Geoffrey Tabin, the Co-founder of the Himalayan Cataract Project.
And this evening, we’ll be joined by our second semi-finalist, Catholic Relief Services, who is looking to change how society cares for children and orphanages with the aim of getting them into family settings. And with us to discuss it is their President and CEO, Sean Callahan.