Jen Brady of Oasis Gives me Hope

08/05/22 • 60 min

This conversation gave me such a feeling of humility yet hope about our world. It's an awful place sometimes but some people are truly awesome at making it better.
Jen Brady is the Executive Director of Oasis, a non-profit serving women and children in Paterson, NJ and this is her second appearance on the show. In the first show we talked about COVID and the poor. This time we're digging right onto Oasis and its mission and how it's doing.
Charity is incredibly similar to insurance. As I half joked once in comparing them: "One of them supplies resources to those in desperate need and hopefully enables them to pull themselves out of their difficult circumstances to lead a successful life. So does the other one." Insurers could do well to learn from Jen. And she has a remarkable track record, doubling the size of Oasis during her tenure and initiating many fascinating experiments and new initiatives in Paterson, NJ.
We discuss:
* How self-belief is the most important factor in women lifting themselves out of poverty
* How that feeling of self-belief is constructed, influenced and nurtured in and out of Oasis
* The difference between generational poverty and immigrant poverty
* What is the drop out rate (I was astonished) and how do they manage drop-outs
* Do the problems feel endless?
* What did they learn by extending Oasis into housing development?
* How to not create bureaucracy in solving problems
* How they handle the cultural complexity of women and children from 26 different countries (plus Paterson natives!)
* How the social consequences of COVID (lockdowns, etc) impacted poor families
* How much talent there is hidden in places like Paterson
show notes: https://notunreasonable.com/?p=7567
youtube: https://youtu.be/aWS7tSIe68Q

Twitter: @davecwright
Surprise, It's Insurance mailing list
Linkedin
Social Science of Insurance Essays

Twitter: @davecwright
Surprise, It's Insurance mailing list
Linkedin
Social Science of Insurance Essays

Previous Episode

Chris Blattman on Why We Fight

Chris Blattman is an economist and political scientist and author of several books, most recently *Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace*.
This is another installment in my investigation for how to pursue social change. What I notice about insurance is that the institution is so deeply encoded in our society that we don't even realize how important it is. So deeply encoded that we actually kind of hate it, yet it persists because of how important it is.
What are other ways of pursuing beneficial social change? Persistent beneficial social change? Violent conflict is a pretty big, nasty problem. But what are its roots and what are its causes? What might need to change about our world to reduce it? What is the relationship between peripheral and central societies and how is that related to violence?
All that plus tons on James C Scott and more!
youtube: https://youtu.be/H-bcj1LJy80
show notes: https://notunreasonable.com?p=7498

Twitter: @davecwright
Surprise, It's Insurance mailing list
Linkedin
Social Science of Insurance Essays

Next Episode

Brian Nosek on the Gap Between Values and Actions

Brian Nosek, has been at the center of the two most important recent social revolutions in academia. First is implicit bias where Brian co-founded Project Implicit http://projectimplicit.net/ based on a pretty incredible idea: that we don't do what we say we value. The concept of implict bias has really taken off and the practice of implicit bias detection and training has gone "way out in front of the research" as we discuss.
While he was busy kicking off a fundamental change in our society (felt very strongly in academia) he decided to upend (and massively upgrade) the culture of research itself by discovering that huge swaths of empirical research fails to replicate. I'm no academic but I would find this terrifying if I was. As Brian says in the interview: "in some fields, people still don't like it an email from me" because that means he's about to try to replicate their work!
How was Brian able to pull all this off? There's even a technology innovation hidden in all this that makes his work possible. He's a true innovator and an honor to have him on the show!
show notes: https://notunreasonable.com/?p=7611
youtube: https://youtu.be/NkKuF--5V60

Twitter: @davecwright
Surprise, It's Insurance mailing list
Linkedin
Social Science of Insurance Essays

The Not Unreasonable Podcast - Jen Brady of Oasis Gives me Hope

Transcript

David Wright00:00:01.199

My guest today is Jen Brady, Executive Director of Oasis, a nonprofit helping women, teens and children rise out of poverty and the greater Paterson, New Jersey area. we last spoke in May of 2020 on COVID potential impact on the poor Jen, welcome back to the show.

Jen Brady00:00:14.669

Thank you. It's very nice to be here.

David Wright00:00:16.379

First question. So who are the ha