YouSaid · the spoken record

Tjada McKenna

lines on the record: 23
first: 2023-03-09
most recent: 2023-03-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, one, I really encourage businesses to think about the places that are receiving less attention or may have less support. The other thing I would add is that we have to remind ourselves that talent is spread out equally in the world. It just doesn't always have access, right? And so there have been a lot of refugees from these countries who've done amazing things for these companies. Think of Steve Jobs and Apple when you think of Syria. And just remember these economies evolve, right? There's an incredible loyalty that people”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, our goal is really to build resilience in those populations, right? And we know that things will go up and down. But we are committed to those communities. And I think that's what's hardest is, you know, at some point people want to leave. But we're committed to those countries. Afghanistan is our longest continuous country presence. We've been there since the 80s. We're committed to the people of Afghanistan, regardless of who's in power. And so sometimes the intentions rub up against one another.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not the US government. I couldn't get people visas to get out of Afghanistan. I couldn't necessarily secure them all safe passage. And I still hear regularly from people who fled to Pakistan or other places and who were enduring hardships there. And, you know, I wish I had the resources to support people indefinitely, but we don't. And that's the part that's really hard.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Out how to go next. I think the very real human toll, the impact on our employees and thinking about them and their families is that thing that's hardest and most haunting. So it's no longer abstract, right? It's people that you worked with and that have been a part of your larger family for a long time.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The thing that has gotten me is I hear more directly from our staff who are impacted. So I think about our female staff in Afghanistan. I think that's one of the things that haunts me the most to this day. When the Taliban took over, they were reaching out, like wanting help, getting out of the country, desperate. You know, some of these people were so young. They hadn't lived under the Taliban before. Recently in Afghanistan, the Taliban issued an edict that women were no longer allowed to work for NGOs. Now, there have been some exceptions, but I think about those same women who wanted to get out. There's one employee in particular I'm thinking about, that same woman later after the Taliban took over. We hired her husband so that he could accompany her on visits to her programs and to visit the people that she was serving. And now having to go through this ban and her having to work from home while we suspended our activities to figure.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unfortunately in Ukraine itself, the humanitarian crisis just continues to escalate as Russia attacks critical infrastructure. The other factor is it has been a really hard winter in Ukraine. So you have a lot of people who are in need of heat, who are hunger than before, and who are more vulnerable. In fact, on the one-year anniversary of the bombing, we shut our offices in Ukraine for the day, partially so that people could take care of themselves and emotionally process that they were here in, but also for security reasons because of that fear of what Russia may do on that day. And so I think the psychosocial elements of still feeling so vulnerable living in a war zone has certainly taken its toll. And we're still very worried about things that have always been issues. We're very worried about human trafficking and the safety, especially of women.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were always focused on the people inside Ukraine. It took us a minute to get in there safely, but we have a robust office in Kyiv and a few other parts. And on some of the worst days, the team has sent us pictures of them at their computers in safe spots and parking garages and elsewhere. And that team just continues to motivate us every day.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So far, we have been able to disperse about $12 million through the cash consortiums we have there. We are working entirely through partner organizations. So supporting Ukrainian, Polish, Moldovan, Romanian organizations that were already on the ground. We also have helped over a million people with information as Russia bombs different places. We're constantly flooding the zone with information so that people can get to safety. And then in nearby countries where a lot of refugees are, we continue to support those who are most marginalized. So in Poland, we worked with about 9,000 refugees and there we're focused on people with disabilities, organizations serving disadvantaged populations like the Roma people, also LGBTQ people that might need certain medications. So we're really keeping our eyes on the most vulnerable.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In Syria, I just felt like these were the same people. These people were government officials, or they had been in university, they had professional jobs. And so it really struck me how these Syrians were grateful for work as agricultural laborers. And it just reinforced, you know, the oneness of it all. It's like the bigger us. We're all the same. These people are in the same situations. And we need to treat these situations equally, even if there is a ruler of one country that is horrible, even if religions may be different or that country is not as strategic. They're all humans who are looking to survive and contribute in some way.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, a lot of countries in the Middle East, including Syria, were dependent on wheat supplies and other supplies from Ukraine that either stopped or slowed down. That combined with price increases, it's also made it tougher for Syrians in the wake of the Ukraine war to get by day to day. So I went to Poland three weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. And at that point, there were a lot of more middle class people coming over the border. And at the time, I remember thinking, God, I wish every refugee were being treated as Ukrainians. Every refugee deserves this. Right after I left Poland, I went to Lebanon. And in Lebanon, we do work with Syrian refugees. And so one of the things that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are allowed to legally do is agricultural work. And so I met with some Syrians. And when I spoke to them about what their lives were like,”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The answer is and not or. And so there were some or trade-offs that were made a year ago that were still feeling the effects of now.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It shouldn't be, but I know it is something that's been used. There have been kind of UN negotiated humanitarian routes in throughout Syria for quite a long time. And organizations like Mercy Corps and our peers, we are able to work there and to make sure the money is deployed effectively and not going to bad actors. I think there is a fear of the unknown with Syria because it has been in the news for conflict for a decade. It's interesting because a year ago we were talking about Ukraine. When the war in Ukraine started, we saw donors diverting money from places like Syria and Yemen and Myanmar to Ukraine. And so now Syria is once again in desperate need of an infusion. And a lot of those funds are being used elsewhere. And unfortunately, kind of given the world we're in now,”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Businesses and individuals. You know, Turkey also is part of NATO and other things that make it more strategic in some ways. We have companies that we work with on employee giving campaigns. And what we've seen is that the response that we're getting from those employees for Syria is equivalent to what we got from the Ukraine. So if offered the choice, employees and people are happy to support Syria. I think they just know Turkey more and feel like more of an obligation to their staff on the ground there.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can deploy their funds, right? They can just get it out the door quickly, whatever it is. If employees give, they can turn around and cut that check tomorrow. Whereas governments, you know, they have emergency protocols that they put in place, but they have to scope it out. They have to get bids, the major amounts of money will come. They just take a little bit of time to get out the door”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Situation there Syria has long been forgotten and it's been really sad because the people of Syria are feeling left behind once again.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's really sad. There are a couple of reasons for it. I think simply it's easier to get in and out of Turkey. The epicenter of the quake was in Turkey, but the epicenter of pain and tragedy is squarely in Syria. You have to remember it's a group of people that are even more devastated, especially where we work in northwest Syria. It already is a community of people who have fled other parts of Syria because they were scared of the regime, who were on the move in territories that had already been bombed. Most big companies have employees in Turkey and buildings. And so a lot of the immediate kind of corporate social response or individual giving was going to Turkey. And that's the money that you get before you'll get government funds or anything else. So that's been devastating to not have that go to Syria. And I think also just people aren't certain about the political.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. And that has been one of the things that we've paid most attention to and encouraged the UN is just to keep up the trade routes. So we really were urging Turkey to keep the borders open and we were urging suppliers, some of whom obviously are located in Turkey and other places to keep their commitments to Syria. But yes, we're not moving to cash. The markets are just too fragile.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so where we are in northwest Syria is at the end of a very complicated supply chain that goes directly through Turkey. So you have goods and supply. We work in over 100 displacement centers in Syria. And remember, this is also the height of winter and it had been snowing. So right away, we were using dirt and other things to like fill up roads that had flooded in displacement centers so people could get through. We also were out there right away giving out emergency supply kits. So food, tarps, sweaters, blankets, you name it because you had a lot of people who were homeless.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were really hard notes, and then obviously they were translated into Arabic. So I got some lovely responses back, which I was not expecting people to respond. Obviously, they need to deal with their grief, but they were pleased that someone was thinking about them and that they knew they had an organization behind them that was going to help their community. And then I also sent a note to the whole Syria team because with this kind of devastation everywhere, everyone's suffering. We also since then have had a number of staff who have slept in our building because it was not affected by the earthquake.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no. And we were really worried about communication systems being down and not being able to get through. Ultimately, all of our staffers survived, but several, at least six. And the next day I was writing letters to all of them, lost wives or children. And I had one staff member who lost 13 members of his extended family. So it was devastating. But when we went to the team and said, who can show up the next day? More than half of our team said they were ready to come to work and help.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And then we work with 12 different partner organizations, both Syrian and international. So our reach, we reach about 300,000 people a year there. So it was like our staff of 45, but then also our partner organizations.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Remember sitting in bed, and the New York Times alert came in, and then I remember about an hour of back and forth with my team getting in touch with our team on the ground in Syria, our Middle East regional directors in Beirut, and then also our team in the US on communications and figuring out what the team would need. I heard a stat that this was like once in a 200-year earthquake or something like that. So I immediately knew that whatever early numbers were coming out just were absolutely wrong and were undercounted. And I also knew that because of Syrian infrastructure and the fact that this was a country that had already been battered by a decade of civil war, that any earthquake of any size would be catastrophic there. We've been in Syria for 15 years and we were already there providing humanitarian support to people, things like food and clean water. So then my mind went to, do we have enough critical mass?”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was like once in a 200 year earthquake. I immediately knew that because of Syrian infrastructure and the fact that this was a country that had already been battered by a decade of civil war, that any earthquake of any size would be catastrophic. All of our staffers survived, but several, at least six, lost wives or children. And I had one staff member who lost 13 members of his extended family. So it was devastating. But when we went to the team and said, who can show up the next day? More than half of our teams said they were ready to come to work and help Really encourage businesses to think about the places that are receiving less attention or may have less support. There's an incredible loyalty that people have to companies that they know were with them at the worst times.”
2023-03-09 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Compassion in the face of crisis, w/Mercy Corps CEO Tjada McKenna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT