Michael Heyn

A unique global perspective, front-line experience, and approach to resolving poverty and inequality, as relevant to Yemen as to America.

From an unsettling childhood with estranged yet remarkable parents who inspired a lifelong struggle in support of equal opportunity and justice, Michael Heyn shares what he experienced living and working across 15 countries over 50 years. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru he learned from villagers what it meant to be poor. Joining the ranks in service of the United Nations, he encountered the hopelessness of poverty in Nairobi's slums, the brutal face of civil war in Liberia, the ousting of dictators from Ethiopia to Malawi to Yemen, the discrimination of tribal peoples in Bangladesh, and not least, the indifference to soaring inequality in America. It was always the dominance of a privileged few up against the despair of all the rest. It was a voyage of accumulating discovery and learning from mistakes that exposed what could change if people crossed over the divide and came together for their common good. It was a belief in the basic decency and potential power of people rich and poor to realize and effect such change.