John Hope Bryant : Bryant Audio Message

September 23, 2012

Why we should always have ‘Hope’ in Saudi Arabia

SPECIAL REPRINT FROM AL ARABIYA NEWS, SAUDI ARABIA

By FAISAL J. ABBAS

Sunday, 23 September 2012

Last year, I wrote an article on the occasion of the Saudi National Day arguing that despite the country’s blessings of economic prosperity, continuous growth and remarkable stability; Saudi Arabia still had an enormous challenge that it needed to overcome.

The Kingdom’s biggest challenge comes from within, I argued. “Saudis are only now starting to wake up to their present-day demographical realities, having seen the county’s population grow at a staggering rate of 333 per cent in just 34 years,” I added.

A year later, and as we celebrate another Saudi National Day, I can’t help but repeat myself to emphasize – yet again – what our biggest challenge is.

Our government, which in 1975 only had to cater for the needs of a population of only seven million, now has to deal with almost four times that number. Furthermore, we are a predominantly young population; this means that most of us are yet to find a job, get married, buy or rent a place to live and of course consume an enormous amount of energy, which is used for air conditioning, transport and to power the massive desalination process which we run to ensure that we all get enough drinking water.

Now, this would all be manageable if we had an infinite amount of resources. Unfortunately, despite the abundant amount of oil reserves we are blessed with, the reality is whilst our population is growing, our reserves are diminishing in parallel.

This simple fact has a double-edged disadvantage: Given our demographic growth; more and more oil is going to be consumed locally – rather than exported. Recent estimates suggest that 25 percent of our oil production is channeled towards local consumption.

Continue reading "Why we should always have ‘Hope’ in Saudi Arabia" »

Posted at 04:01 PM in 21st Century Middle East Agenda, Bryant and his Vision for Operation HOPE, Bryant Audio Message, Bryant International Agenda, Bryant on Bi-Partisan Public Policy, Bryant on Current Affairs, Bryant on Jobs, Bryant on Leadership, Bryant on Love Leadership, Bryant on Something to Think About, Bryant on the Economy, Bryant on the Global Economic Crisis and Response, Bryant Speaks, Bryant Traveling Man, HOPE 20th Anniversary, HOPE Financial Dignity, HOPE Financial Literacy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: JOHN HOPE BRYANT, saudi arabia, sedco holdings

Today I was deeply honored to meet and spend substantive time one on one with former U.S. President (and my friend) William Jefferson Clinton, in his Clinton Foundation office in Harlem, New York. I was also pleased to have with me Mrs. Mary Hagerty Ehrsam, our global chief of financial dignity. Our government relations chief, Ms. Jena Roscoe who worked for President Clinton in the second term at the White House, did not join us but she was there with us in spirit.

We covered a range of items of mutual interest to both his foundations and the Operation HOPE family, both domestic and international, including the new Gallup-HOPE Index and the Gallup-HOPE Index Cities Initiative. We actually presented President Clinton and his staff with the first draft copy of the Gallup-HOPE Index 2011 Report, which will be mailed out nationwide to leaders later this month. We also briefed the President on the HOPE Financial Dignity Center, Ebenezer which is presently under construction in Atlanta (at the King Center complex and within th new Martin Luther King, Sr. Community Resource Complex), our new HOPE Office of Small Business & Entrepreneurship which will be formally announced to the public on my birthday, February 6th, 2012, along with our new HOPE Business-In-A-Box and the HOPE FILE Program (HOPE Fellows, HOPE Interns and HOPE Loan Executive Programs).

Continue reading "Operation HOPE founder John Hope Bryant meets with President Bill Clinton" »

January 23, 2012

Special from CBS in Erie, Pennsylvania: Dr. King's Legacy Remembered as Focus Turns to New Movement

Watch the complete newsroom video here.

As the nation remembers Martin Luther King Jr's famous "I have a dream" speech, others are turning their attention to a new movement.

"Forty years after his death, we need to realize his last movement was about economics, it was a poor peoples campaign. It was no accident that last movement was not about race," said John Hope Bryant, the chairman and CEO of Operation Hope.

John Hope Bryant served as the special guest speaker Friday night at the 2nd annual MLK Awards Dinner. He says the new movement is not "civil rights" but "silver rights."

"This cannot be about any race. We have to see that we're all bound up together. This is about class and not race. We are really in a fight against China, not a fight against each other," he said.

The theme of the awards dinner, which honored several local people for their work in the community, was "Creating Economic Empowerment, Building the Dream."

"We get a little complacent. We forget about what Dr. King really wanted us to do. We have to refocus and I think building on the dream theme tonight is most appropriate," said James Sherrod, executive director of the Bayfront NATO Martin Luther King Center.

And while they shift their focus slightly, remembering Dr. King's legacy continues to remain just as important.

Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century African-American Agenda, 21st Century Latino Agenda, 21st Century Low Wealth Agenda, 21st Century Mainstream Agenda, 21st century Middle Class agenda, Bryant Audio Message, Bryant on a Vision for the Future, Bryant on Civil Rights, Bryant on Culture, Bryant on Current Affairs, Bryant on Leadership, Bryant on Love Leadership, Bryant Speaks, Bryant Traveling Man, Bryant Video Content, HOPE and Bryant Media, HOPE and Bryant on History Making, HOPE and the Silver Rights Movement, HOPE Financial Dignity, HOPE Financial Literacy, Partnership with Community | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: a movement for all (colored) people, civil rights to silver rights, dr. martin luther king, erie, financial dignity, financial literacy, john hope bryant, jr, operation hope, pennsylvania, poor people's campaign

Product Details

My book continues to be ranked (#52 for the hardback and #76 for Kindle Edition) amongst the Amazon.com Leadership Bestseller List for this week. Honored, and again, a special thank you to everyone that is purchasing the book and sharing its principles with others you care about, and for.

John Hope Bryant is founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, bestselling author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), and a member of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for President Barack Obama

April 19, 2011