Ted Waitt Speaks Out at Founding Fathers Event

New York, NY - June 14, 2005 – Father’s Day is coming up this weekend. It’s easy for it to become little more than an exercise in greeting cards and trinkets. But it’s more than that. I honor my own Dad for many reasons, and one of them is that he – and my mother – taught my brother and me, by word and example, to respect women. I’m not talking about opening car doors. I’m talking about respecting women’s right to be safe, to be respected, to live in dignity. It’s a core lesson that many of us pass on to our children. My parents lived it, I learned it, and I’m proud to pass on a legacy of non-violence to my sons.

I am so proud to chair the “Founding Fathers” campaign for the third year. This program has become one of the most engaging, successful organizing campaigns there is. That’s because it’s backed up by real tools that get to the heart of the problem. It is the right campaign, speaking to the right audience, at the right time.

This is a pivotal moment in history. I don’t need to tell you that violence pervades our society, costs every community, and harms every family in some way. And it takes a terrible toll in our world. Every day we read about unspeakable atrocities in the Sudan. Forced child prostitution in Cambodia. Rape as a tool of war in the Congo. A new State Department report tells us that 800,000 human beings are being trafficked across international borders each year – people forced into slavery and brought to foreign lands, including the United States. And many more are trafficked within their own countries.

From terrorism to war to cruelty to torture, violence is taking lives and diminishing the futures of women, children and families.

Stopping violence is, quite simply, the greatest challenge facing our country and our world today. It’s so common in our lives, on our television screens and in our neighborhoods that we’ve come to take it for granted. We just expect it. We think it’s normal. But it’s not.

It’s not “normal” to kill people because you disagree with them, or because they have something you want. It’s not “normal” to beat women and children because you’re frustrated or angry.

Our challenge, in the 21st Century, is to know the difference, to talk about the difference, and to demonstrate the difference in word and deed.

Here’s the hard truth: Violence is the greatest threat to our public health, the gravest threat to children, and the biggest obstacle to the economic development we need to lift up the next generation. Something deeper needs to happen. We have to change the way that people think about human relationships.

We can’t sit by while it consumes families, communities and societies. We know our limits. We know we can’t stop all the violence. But we can do our part. And that is what the “Founding Fathers” campaign is all about.

As “Founding Fathers,” we refuse to feel helpless. We refuse to turn away. We take a stand and take action to stop violence against women and children in our families, our neighborhoods, our communities. And we invite other men to join us in this work.

That’s what we have been doing with the Coaching Boys into Men campaign. Many of you know that my foundation, the Waitt Family Foundation, has been a partner with The Advertising Council and the Family Violence Prevention Fund since the beginning of that project. Our public service announcements have reached tens of millions of Americans.

They are having an impact. We had some good news recently when new tracking data came in. It found a steady, significant increase in the proportion of men who have spoken to boys about violence. 29 percent said they had done so in November of 2001, before the campaign launched. 41 percent had done so by February of this year. The spots are especially meaningful to parents.

Our work will continue and grow even stronger. A few minutes ago, you saw a rough cut of the wonderful new PSA we will be releasing soon. It will reach millions more men in coming months.

The Coaching Boys into Men Playbook that we release today is another powerful tool in our campaign. We expect thousands of high school and college coaches to use its tips, tools and advice to reach out to boys with the right messages about how to treat women and girls.

The best coaches do more than teach the X’s and O’s. They teach about integrity, courage and respect. They lay the foundation for boys to grow into responsible men. This new Playbook will help many more coaches meet that challenge.

I am also very proud to announce today that I have created, and am endowing, the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention – with a $10 million grant. This new operating foundation will be dedicated to reducing family and community violence. It is positioned to be a leading organization in the prevention of violence and domestic abuse.

I said we need to work in our own communities, and the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention will do just that. Its Sioux City Project will be a community-based violence prevention effort based in the tri-state Sioux City area of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota – the area where I grew up and where much of my family still lives.

And I am proud that one of my heroes – my sister, Cindy Waitt – will head the Waitt Institute. Her commitment to stopping violence is boundless, and borne of the experience of seeing how many children in the juvenile justice system came from violent homes.

We are here today for the children who didn’t have fathers like Don Toomer and Norm Waitt, Sr. to teach them that violence is wrong. We’re here to give their coaches a tool – a Playbook – to help them fill the gap. And we are here today to get this Playbook into the hands of every high school and college coach in America.

I look out at this audience and see the faces of the next generation. I want them – I want all of you – to grow up free from violence, in your homes, your schools, your communities and your world.