Translator: Nadine Hennig Reviewer: Denise RQ
Let me ask you a question:
how many of you would hire a felon,
a recovering addict?
How about someone who's never had a job longer than a year?
I see some hands, but my guess is not many of you.
Why would you? You have a business to protect.
Before I began working at my current job,
I wouldn't have hired addicts or felons either.
I spent 15 years working in marketing and business development
in the private sector.
And in those roles,
I was always focused on hiring the best, most trustworthy candidates,
but today, I work at a place called Women's Bean Project.
We hire women with felonies, often several to their name,
with long histories of addiction,
and who haven't had a job longer than a year in their lifetime.
Their average age is 38.
One might say we hire the worst workers rather than the best.
Women's Bean Project has two manufacturing businesses:
one makes gourmet food products, the other handmade jewelry.
But the products aren't what's important about our business.
What's important about our business is the women.
We hire women who need to learn workplace norms
like coming to work every day and on time.
We hire women who need to learn life skills
like problem solving, goal-setting, and budgeting.
After nine months, they move
to a career entry level job in the community
where they can advance, prosper,
and often feel valued for the first time in their lives.
Before I came to The Bean Project, I didn't think hiring felons, addicts,
recovering addicts, and chronically unemployed was a good idea.
I thought felons were bad people who made even worse decisions.
I didn't understand the power of addiction and how it can affect one's actions.
And I thought women who are chronically unemployed
didn't want to change their lives.
Because of these beliefs I would have never hired Joy.
Joy grew up...
Well, first of all, Joy has a lovely brown skin, cat shaped eyes,
beautifully arched eyebrows, and a broad grin.
She grew up the youngest child of two drug addicts
with no role models for employment.
When she was 12, she began selling crack
to her parents and their friends in order to be closer to them.
When she was 16, she began using crack for the same reason,
and by the time she was 18, she was a mother
which only amplified her need to sell crack to support herself and her son.
For years, through the birth of three more children,
Joy continued to sell drugs on her own,
despite multiple arrests on probation,
until finally, she got hooked up with big time drug dealers,
and she thought she had it made, financially speaking.
And then, she was arrested and convicted on federal drug charges
and sentenced to 54 months in prison.
Well, there are no federal women's prisons in Colorado, so she was sent out of state
leaving her four kids to await her return.
Now, if all I've done was read about Joy,
I would have thought she was tough, and conniving, and not very trustworthy,
but Joy wasn't anything like that.
She was soft-spoken, and kind, and enormously grateful
for all the help she received while at The Bean Project.
She worked hard, and she learned to stand up for herself,
something she'd never done before.
We believe that Joy could create a new life for herself.
One that didn't involve selling drugs and eventually, she believed it, too.
Today, Joy is enrolled in college
and works for a food distributor making over 17 dollars an hour.
All four kids ranging in age from 8 to 18 live with her,
and she is focused on keeping them in school
and helping them avoid making the same mistake she made.
(Applause)
Joy taught me that no matter how rough one's exterior,
there's often still a spirit within that wants to change and pay her own way.
She taught me that if she'd had another choice,
if someone had actually believed in her,
she'd have never chosen to be a desperate drug dealer.
I wouldn't have hired Joy, and I certainly wouldn't have hired Selena
who is only 21 when she began working at The Bean Project.
Selena arrived with her golden blonde hair flowing smoothly down her back
and an anxious expression.
Her clear blue eyes implied innocence, but once I heard her story
I knew that innocence had long been lost.
When Selena was 12, her mum introduced her to cocaine.
At 13, Selena became homeless, when her mom kicked her out of the house
because she perceived Selena was competition for boyfriends.
With the street as her home, Selena was forced to drop out of school.
And she wasn't old enough to work,
so she wandered with no purpose or responsibility,
but she had drugs which she got through any means necessary.
For the next five years, Selena lived a life of violence and addiction
until finally, she was poisoned, robbed, and held up at gunpoint,
- and even threatened others with guns -
until finally, the nightmare ended,
and she was arrested for manufacturing and attempt to distribute drugs.
She spent the next three years
working her way through the Department of Corrections.
And then, her pastor, the one adult she could trust,
referred her to The Bean Project.
Now, you might think Selena would have a hard time following rules
having lived on the streets during her formative years.
And you might also think that she'd have a hard time
remaining clean and sober because she had never learned
to manage her emotions without using drugs and alcohol,
but Selena was hungry for a new opportunity,
eager to please and succeed.
We provided Selena with that new opportunity,
we believed she could create a new life, and that she deserved a second chance.
And eventually, she believed it, too.
Selena got a job at Safeway where she learned to count change.
And then she enrolled in an adult high school
to begin to address her third grade reading level.
Today, Selena is married, owns a home,
and works for a local business in South Dakota where she resides.
(Applause)
Selena taught me that even a young woman with no reason to trust
can make herself vulnerable enough to receive help and change her life.
Selena, like so many of us, just needed someone to believe in her.
Before I became CEO of Women's Bean Project,
I was in the business world: profitability and efficiency, return on investment;
those were my watch words.
In those roles, I would have never hired Gloria.
Today, Gloria's brown skin is clear, her eyes twinkle, and her smile is bright,
but when she arrived at The Bean Project,
her brown eyes were flat, her skin was blotchy, and she was extremely thin.
Gloria had had a hard time keeping a long term job
because she had no belief in herself or her abilities.
Her abusive marriage had ended and her ex had taken their kids
leaving her with nothing: no money, no kids, no sense of self.
After years of closet drinking
and letting her husband determine the direction of her life,
Gloria had to find her way on her own, alone, and sober.
The homeless shelter where she was living referred her to The Bean Project.
On her first day, when she sat with our case manager
broken down and hopeless, she softly said,
"I've lost my voice."
In return, our case manager looked into her tired eyes,
and said simply, "I'm listening."
You see, we believed in Gloria.
We believe she could create a new life for herself,
and eventually, she believed it, too.
Gloria graduated Women's Bean Project eleven years ago, when a local business
took a chance and created a job for her at their front desk.
That business has grown, and Gloria still works there.
Only now she manages five women, has just closed on her first home,
and is on the verge of earning her college degree.
(Applause)
Today, Gloria describes herself as a communicator, goal setter,
and fabulous.
(Laughter)
Believing in another human being can create powerful life-changing results.
Seven out of ten women we hire graduate and move
to career entry level jobs in the community.
A year later, 85% of these formerly chronically unemployed women
are still employed.
That means dozens of women in our community are working,
supporting their families, and contributing to society.
Sure, it's a risk hiring someone who has been chronically unemployed,
but as a society we can afford not to.
The combined cost of a criminal conviction in just one year of incarceration
can exceed 70,000 dollars.
Employment is the key
to breaking out of poverty and staying out of prison.
So you might ask,
how many women like Joy, Selena, and Gloria could there possibly be?
Well, we hire 70 women a year,
yet, we turn away four out of five qualified applicants.
These are women who are qualified to work for us,
but we don't have the capacity to serve them.
That's 280 women each year who are unable to change their lives
because we don't have the capacity,
and like all businesses, the size of our workforce is determined by sales.
Today, I know that when women come to The Bean Project,
they're not their mistakes.
They're not their felonies or addictions.
They are mothers, and wives, and recovering addicts.
They have been abused, and loved, and made bad decisions,
and in their addictions they were at their worst,
abandoned, strung out, and hopeless,
but by the time I meet them, they're full of possibility.
What I'm talking about is not just jobs.
It's about all the other things that come from gainful employment:
increased pride and confidence, the ability to set and work toward goals,
the opportunity to provide financial and emotional support to one's family.
Women like Joy, Selena, and Gloria are looking for someone
to see them differently, support their change, and believe in them.
I'll leave you with this:
when you believe in another person, despite their background,
despite their best efforts to self-sabotage,
despite they're pushing back,
when you truly believe in them, they can begin to believe in themselves.
If we want to change the world,
we must first believe in our own ability to change,
and then believe that others can as well.
Thank you.
(Applause)