AP/File

The Senate Watergate committee hearings, pictured here on May 23, 1973, were held in the Senate Caucus Room and were watched by as many as 80 million Americans. The committee's work is often praised as the gold standard of congressional investigations. Today's Jan. 6 committee hearings are happening in a more polarized era, with much less bipartisan support within Congress than existed during Watergate.

They were practically kids back then – most of them at least – when the Senate Watergate committee was announced, and they wanted in. One, a young Senate elevator operator, closed the door on a senator’s arm and wouldn’t open it until he agreed to pass along her résumé. Another got a job by promising to help a senator clear out a backlog of 10,000 letters. Others landed positions when their former Georgetown law professor Sam Dash was named chief counsel. Few had robust experience.

They photocopied $100,000 worth of bills to trace their serial numbers, interviewed witnesses in a windowless room dubbed the “dungeon,” and encountered countless dead ends, such as calling every Miami locksmith in the Yellow Pages to find the one who had changed the lock on a safe – only to have him say he couldn’t recall whether he’d seen stacks of cash. 

From May to November 1973, as many as 80 million Americans tuned in to watch their committee unravel a web of misdeeds that started with a “third-rate burglary” in the Watergate office buildings and led to a broad pattern of corruption within the White House. 

Today, the staffers who cut their teeth on Watergate are in the twilight of their careers or retired. Nearly a dozen of them talked with the Monitor about how they see the Jan. 6 hearings. They bring a unique perspective, given their roles on a bipartisan investigation that persuaded a nation that the president who had just been reelected in a landslide was not fit for office. 

Some of these former staffers see in the Jan. 6 hearings a group of lawmakers who have carefully studied – and emulated – their own committee’s work, often held up as the gold standard of congressional investigations. They praise the Jan. 6 House select committee for doing an admirable job in a far more divided era. One of Congress’ functions is to inform – and this committee, they say, is informing the public, as well as legislators and other officials, on a matter at least as grave.

“You can always nitpick,” says James Hamilton, an assistant chief counsel on the Watergate committee, acknowledging criticisms that snippets of video are being selectively presented and some of the testimony is hearsay. But he adds, “The overall effect and import of what they’re presenting should not be outweighed by these criticisms.”

Senate Watergate Committee/Courtesy of Gordon Freedman © 1973-2022/www.Watergate.org

James Hamilton, assistant chief counsel on the Senate Watergate committee, is shown as he was involved in preparing former White House counsel John Dean to testify to the committee.

Others, however, would have preferred more of the Watergate committee’s impartiality, with more GOP participation and robust questioning. At stake is not only the outcome of this investigation, but also the ability of the legislative branch to serve as a check on the executive branch. When that wanes, it’s not good for either party, says Searle Field, who worked for Sen. Lowell Weicker, one of three Republicans on the Watergate committee. “At the end of the day, Congress loses its credibility.”

Even if the Jan. 6 committee could have done more to project fairness amid the current polarization in media and politics, former House historian Ray Smock says it would be unreasonable to expect it to overcome those forces. 

“This committee is not going to solve the deep divisions that have been in our country for many, many years,” says Dr. Smock, co-editor of a two-volume tome on congressional investigations. “And in fact, they may exacerbate those divisions.” 

Long-running soap opera vs. Netflix special

For 20 hours a day, former elevator operator Emily Sheketoff buried herself in the Watergate investigation. When the young investigator for the GOP minority wasn’t in Miami calling locksmiths, she was working in a converted Senate auditorium with dozens of other staffers from both parties. 

Despite the long hours, and the stream of celebrities like John Lennon and Yoko Ono attending the hearings, she didn’t fully realize the impact the committee’s work was having until the end of the summer when Fred Thompson, the top GOP lawyer on the committee, took a group out for drinks before one staffer headed back to college. 

“People started applauding us as we walked in,” she recalls. “That’s how many people were watching this every day. It was like a soap opera.”

Sarah Silbiger/Reuters

Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, and Stephen Ayres, who was a participant in the Jan. 6 attack, are sworn in to testify before the U.S. House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on July 12, 2022, in Washington.

The Watergate hearings were broadcast for 237 hours. The Jan. 6 hearings, by contrast, have aired for fewer than 20 hours so far. The June 9 opening night attracted 20 million viewers – a quarter of Watergate’s peak audience. 

Part of that is America’s reduced attention span. But in a way, the story of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is also an easier story to tell than Watergate, since much of it unfolded in public. The committee has been able to incorporate videos from that day, along with selected clips of depositions, police radio recordings, screen grabs of Twitter and texts, and other multimedia components, all woven together with the help of a former ABC News producer. 

“To me, this is choreographed almost like Netflix. Ours were much messier. ... We were discovering things as we went,” says Gordon Freedman, a college student from rural Michigan who left before final exams to stand in line for the hearings each day and later got himself a job on the committee.

One Saturday night, Mr. Freedman was heading to a party when he heard on his car radio that President Richard Nixon had just shaken up the Justice Department, and the young staffer had to make a detour to grab his files in case the FBI raided the committee’s office.

But while the Jan. 6 committee has more technology at its disposal, these former staffers say its job is harder in other ways.

“We weren’t fighting the head winds of Trumpism,” says Ms. Sheketoff.

Senate Watergate Committee/Courtesy of Gordon Freedman © 1973-2022/www.Watergate.org

Emily Sheketoff and Brenda Robson, researchers for the GOP minority on the Senate Watergate committee, in their cubicles. Ms. Sheketoff also served as a minority investigator.

Whereas the Watergate committee was established with a 77-0 vote in the Senate, only two Republicans supported the formation of the House select committee on Jan. 6: Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, both outspoken critics of former President Donald Trump.

Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger, the only two Republicans serving on the committee, have become virtual pariahs within the GOP. Neither had the support of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who boycotted the committee after Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed two of his five nominees.

In contrast, Ms. Sheketoff and others who worked for Republican senators on the Watergate committee say their bosses faced no partisan pressure from GOP colleagues. 

Mr. Field recalls joining Senator Weicker for nighttime conversations in the street with the senator’s neighbor, John Dean, who had served as White House counsel until that spring and would prove to be one of Watergate’s most pivotal witnesses. Barry Goldwater Jr. also lived nearby, and his father, the Arizona senator, would sometimes join them. During one such meeting, Mr. Dean said he was going to have to refute the president, and Senator Goldwater encouraged him to go ahead, putting the truth ahead of partisan interests. 

“You can’t imagine a senior Republican today saying to go after Trump,” says Mr. Field.

“Right back in another Watergate era” – but with a weakened Congress

As much as the revelations of President Nixon’s behavior shocked the nation, many of the Watergate staffers – though not all – see an equal if not greater threat in the Jan. 6 attack. 

“I think this committee is doing a superb job of bringing to the attention of the American people the lengths to which the administration has violated laws and morals,” says Bill Shure, who served as an assistant counsel for the GOP minority. “I think what they’re doing is absolutely essential to alert the American people to how much danger democracy is in.”

On the eve of a staff reunion last month, held on the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, some of the surviving staffers organized and signed a letter highlighting the threats to democracy today. They urged the nation to reflect on Watergate and consider what further reforms are needed. They see themselves as guardians of a special chapter in American history – one with renewed relevance today.

“We’re right back in another Watergate era; we didn’t learn the lesson long,” says Rufus Edmisten, the committee’s deputy chief counsel and the most senior staffer living today.

For almost 10 years before Sam Ervin was appointed chairman of the Watergate committee, Mr. Edmisten had worked for the jovial North Carolina senator, driving him around in a rickety Chrysler and serving as his chief counsel on a congressional subcommittee on the separation of powers. Senator Ervin, who was tapped by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield as a respected constitutionalist with no presidential ambitions, viewed Congress’ investigative role as central to holding other branches of government accountable.

Today, many Watergate staffers see a Congress that has been internally weakened by partisan polarization, significantly hindering its ability to act as a check on the executive branch. In recent years, it has avoided thorough investigations of controversial issues, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to systemic problems in the economy. 

“How are they going to be a powerful part of the separation of powers when they can’t even get their own house together?” asks Mr. Edmisten. 

AP/File

After the conclusion of a Senate Watergate committee hearing on Aug. 3, 1973, in Washington: From left are Democratic Sen. Sam Ervin of North Carolina, chairman; Sam Dash, chief counsel; Republican Sens. Lowell Weicker Jr. of Connecticut and Howard Baker Jr. of Tennessee; and Rufus Edmisten, deputy counsel.

The Jan. 6 committee’s credibility challenge 

The divide in Congress in many ways reflects growing polarization in the country, including in media. While MSNBC and CNN have provided hours of blow-by-blow commentary and analysis of the Jan. 6 hearings, Fox News opted not to even air the first hearing, held in prime time. And while Fox aired the subsequent daytime hearings, many of its viewers have responded by changing the channel.

Polls show that Mr. Trump’s popularity has barely been dented since the hearings began on June 9, despite extensive testimony from former Trump administration officials that he was told there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and that blocking the counting of electoral votes would be unconstitutional. 

Since the first hearing, the former president’s average favorability rating has dropped by fewer than 2 points, to around 40%. A poll conducted within two weeks found that a similar proportion, 38%, did not consider the hearings to be fair and impartial while 60% did. 

Nevertheless, some Watergate committee staffers believe a more open-ended investigation with more GOP members, a wider scope, and more robust questioning could have increased the committee’s credibility in the eyes of the American public. 

“If that were done, you would get a broader understanding and acceptance of what is going on with these hearings,” says Barry Schochet, an assistant majority counsel whose ’70s handlebar mustache became a fixture behind Democratic Sen. Herman Talmadge of Georgia during the hearings. He would have liked to see the investigation examine not only Mr. Trump’s culpability but also whether his administration sought additional protection for the Capitol ahead of Jan. 6 and whether there are civil liberties issues involving a number of people arrested in connection with Jan. 6 who remain in jail a year and a half later.

To some, it seems as though the Jan. 6 committee knew where it was heading from the outset and pursued a single-minded line of inquiry to get there.  

“They were working toward a conclusion that they already anticipated and expected and hoped would be the conclusion, instead of proceeding with ‘What is the truth?’ and doing examination and cross-examination,” says Gene Boyce, who was brought on for his trial experience in the courtroom and was part of the interviewing team that got White House scheduler Alexander Butterfield to reveal that President Nixon had a secret taping system. 

But at least one witness brought before the Watergate committee doesn’t feel that those hearings were an impartial search for truth, either. 

“Watergate was really aimed in a political sense against Nixon,” says Donald Segretti, who was recruited by White House aides to execute political “dirty tricks” against the Democrats. It was “more of a political show than the Jan. 6 hearings, which are much more of a factual presentation.”

Is real bipartisanship still possible?

The Watergate committee has often been held up as a paragon of bipartisan comity. In reality, however, partisan divisions and suspicions caused significant turmoil, particularly in the early days. GOP Sen. Howard Baker was seen as too cozy with the White House, and GOP Sen. Edward Gurney was accused of being a Nixon apologist. But Chairman Ervin and Vice Chairman Baker made a pact that in public, they would present a united front. In one instance, Senator Baker reamed out chief counsel Dash behind closed doors for leaking information, then walked out and told reporters he had full confidence in Mr. Dash. Many of the committee’s decisions, including to subpoena the Nixon tapes, were unanimous. 

Mr. Edmisten says Senator Ervin would be disappointed by the animosity between the two sides today. “It is impossible to set up a Watergate-type committee,” he says. 

“I would wonder whether Senator Ervin would have ever put on the hearings were cross-examination not allowed,” says Mr. Schochet.

One of the GOP picks whom Speaker Pelosi vetoed was Rep. Jim Jordan, a Trump ally who was in touch with the president and senior White House officials on Jan. 6, and could be seen as having a conflict of interest. Some on the right see his tough questioning style as just what is missing from these proceedings, while critics say it would have derailed them. 

“I understand why Pelosi vetoed Jordan,” says Mr. Hamilton, author of the forthcoming book Advocate on his 50 years in law and politics, which included representing retired Adm. Mike Mullen during one of the 2013 Benghazi hearings. “Jordan was disrespectful to Mullen and interrupted most of his answers.” 

“The good part is that we don’t have what I’ll call flamethrowers on either side [who are] just grandstanding,” says Mark Biros, an assistant majority counsel and Dash student who went on to teach at Georgetown Law School for decades. “You’ve got what appear to be very serious people, thoughtful people, attempting to get at the facts as best they can.”

It is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for the majority to reject the minority’s choice of committee members, especially in such a public way, says Mr. Smock, the former House historian who now serves as interim director of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education at Shepherd University. And two of Speaker Pelosi’s own picks are seen by many on the right as highly partisan: Reps. Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin, who oversaw the first and second Trump impeachment proceedings, respectively.

Still, many disagree with Mr. McCarthy’s decision not to participate, with some calling it a deliberate ploy to undermine the committee. 

“You can’t take your marbles and go home and then complain that you weren’t allowed to play,” says Ms. Sheketoff. 

As much as these Watergate staffers would like their committee to be held up as a standard for congressional investigations, there is a resigned sense that, for now, its bipartisanship would simply be impossible to replicate in today’s environment. 

“It brought independent views, without any sort of animosity,” says Donald Burris, an assistant counsel for the Democratic majority, who recalls shooting hoops with Mr. Thompson, the minority counsel. “It’s like nothing else I’ve done in my life. It seemed like a kind of civic service.”

The red and white sachets are a familiar sight in disaster zones around the world. They contain a thick peanut butter-like paste of so-called ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), which has become a global frontline against child starvation in the last two decades.

But earlier this year, Riaan Oosthuizen noticed a troubling set of trends at the RUTF factory where he is managing director at GC Rieber Compact in Cape Town, South Africa. On the one hand, demand for the sachets was rising as drought and conflict pushed millions of children in the Horn of Africa to the brink of starvation. 

At the same time, the cost of his ingredients was skyrocketing. Fueled by price speculation and growing scarcity of staple foods caused by the war in Ukraine, the cost of vegetable oil climbed 50% in just three months. His bill for milk powder, another key ingredient in the paste, nearly doubled. And fuel prices were also ticking upwards, driving up the cost of running the factory’s generators whenever the South African power grid failed. 

“We have our backs to the wall,” he says. 

The factory is currently producing at a loss, while another RUTF factory in South Africa recently folded. 

Around the world, the war in Ukraine has driven a massive spike in food and fuel prices. But nowhere has this been felt more acutely than in sub-Saharan Africa, where in many countries the rising costs have been heaped atop existing crises – drought, war, extreme poverty, and the lingering economic trauma of the pandemic. 

And the case of RUTF offers an urgent cautionary tale about a fragile global food chain. That a food formulated to reverse malnutrition has become a major casualty of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine highlights the deep inequalities of global food distribution. With food a weapon of war, the impact is reverberating through the lives of the world’s poorest people. 

Barometer of health  

Almost every ingredient in RUTF, often called “Plumpy’nut” after the original brand name, is a barometer of the global staple food supply lines.

Invented by a French nutritionist named André Briend in 1996, RUTF was an improvement on previous malnutrition treatments that required clean water and preparation by health care workers. Inspired by a jar of Nutella in his cupboard, Dr. Briend formulated a paste made of peanuts, milk, sugar, oil, butter, and vitamins. It could easily be eaten by children without assistance, and stored without refrigerators.

In the years since Plumpy’nut’s invention, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says RUTF has saved “hundreds of thousands of lives.” UNICEF, the world’s biggest buyer, purchases around 49,000 metric tons annually, or 75% to 80% of the world’s supply.

Sally Hayden / SOPA Images/Sipa USA/Reuters/File

Medics from Doctors Without Borders stand over a pile of the food Plumpy'Nut in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's Borno State. Also called ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), it is designed as a frontline tool against child starvation. But it has been growing costlier to produce due to the war in Ukraine, even as food insecurity in Africa has been rising.

But earlier this year, UNICEF’s suppliers began reporting that the costs of their ingredients were spiking. Ukraine is among the world’s top suppliers of cooking oil, grains, and fertilizer, and since February, most production has halted or is being held hostage inside the country by a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. 

The shortage of wheat, in particular, has had knock-on effects throughout the global food chain. Dairy prices – including for the tons of powdered milk that factories like Mr. Oosthuizen’s need to make RUTF –  have soared, because cows eat grains too. 

“So many of the ingredients [of RUTF] were affected by the war in Ukraine,” says Christiane Rudert, a regional nutrition adviser for UNICEF for southern and eastern Africa. UNICEF now projects that the overall cost of RUTF will rise 16% in the next four months. Meanwhile, sanctions against Russia, the world’s second-largest exporter of oil and gas, have caused fuel prices to skyrocket globally, making it much more expensive to deliver RUTF as well. 

“We can reach 600,000 fewer children with the same funding” as before the war started, she says. 

That could push people already on the brink of starvation over the edge. 

In the Horn of Africa, rising food costs have collided with the region’s worst drought in 40 years. Over the past two years, four consecutive rainy seasons have failed in Somalia and parts of Kenya and Ethiopia. About 1.7 million children regionally are in need of treatment for severe malnutrition – treatment like RUTF.  

“The prognosis is not positive for this region” over the next several months, Ms. Rudert says. “Famine is looming.” 

Alternative solutions

Even in countries where the crisis is less severe, rising food costs are battering communities already reeling from two years of a pandemic and its lockdowns. In Malawi and Zimbabwe, for instance, the cost of bread has risen 70% since February, according to ActionAid. 

In Tongaat, an old industrial town flanked by sugarcane fields outside Durban, South Africa, Nozipho Zungu says she has watched the price of staple foods tick up every month this year. “But what choice do you have when it comes to food? You spend more,” she says. 

She and her three children have cut back on other parts of their life: They walk longer distances now, instead of taking public transport, or forgo new school uniforms. The money she brings in each month – about $125 selling socks and dish towels at a local bus rank, and another $100 in childcare grants from the state – isn’t rising to match food prices, she says. 

The continent relies heavily on imported wheat because of unpredictable climate patterns and outdated farm technology – and almost half of the continent’s wheat imports typically come from Ukraine or Russia.

“That makes Africa particularly vulnerable to shocks like the war in Ukraine,” says Noncedo Vutula, an agricultural trade expert and senior research fellow at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town. 

In Ghana, for instance, inflation hit 27% in June – the highest level in two decades there – sending protesters into the streets demanding the government stabilize the prices of staple goods like food and fuel. 

Beleaguered citizens have begun to look for alternative solutions to stabilize food prices. In West Africa, a group of leading bakers met in June to form an organization that lobbies for more local grains, like cassava, to be used in breads across the region. Local ingredients could “solve food crises,” Marius Abe Ake, an Ivorian baker, told France 24. 

Back in Cape Town, Mr. Oosthuizen says his team is hurrying to develop and test new recipes for RUTF that rely on cheaper ingredients. But because the therapeutic paste has to adhere to strict nutritional standards, there’s “no quick fix.” 

In the meantime, the factory has been forced to lay off about 40 of its 120 workers, Capetonians who are themselves facing food prices that are up 12% over the past year. 

For Mr. Oosthuizen, it’s another domino in the chain started by the war. 

“Those are breadwinners for their families,” he says. “Now what happens to them?”  

Nic Coury/AP/File

Firefighters light a controlled burn along Nacimiento-Fergusson Road to help contain the Dolan Fire near Big Sur, California, Sept. 11, 2020. Prescribed burning gets rid of vegetation that can send flames into the forest canopy, where fire can spread easily, and makes the forest more fire-resilient.

The bear clad in a ranger hat and jeans has stood the test of time. Introduced during World War II, Smokey Bear still reminds Americans that “only you” can prevent wildfires, finger-pointing à la Uncle Sam.

But many forest and fire experts see a role for periodically starting a controlled or prescribed burn. Also called “good fire,” these terms refer to regulated burning for land management goals. On private or public land, prescribed fire can be used to enhance the health of ecosystems by burning off buildups of vegetation – or “fuels” – and thereby lowering the risk of severe wildfire. In an era of increasingly frequent and larger wildfires linked in part to climate change, fire ecologists say it’s a mitigation measure to trust. 

“Prescribed fire is one of our best tools,” says fire ecologist Susan Prichard, a research scientist at the University of Washington. 

This year, however, New Mexico is home to a record-setting wildfire resulting from two different prescribed burns overseen by the federal government. That has inflected discussions around the practice and resulted in a pause that some experts argue could actually hamper wildfire prevention.

Intentional ignition may not seem to square with Smokey’s avoidance approach, but the two strategies have a tangled history. 

What’s the evidence that prescribed fire curbs wildfires?

Research supports the effectiveness of fuel treatments like prescribed fire – especially when combined with “thinning,” such as tree-cutting to reduce forest density, which some find controversial.

Many experts argue that more than a century of fire exclusion – including the loss of Indigenous burning as well as fire suppression – has actually made lands more prone to wildfire. 

The federal government began to shift away from suppression as policy in the 1960s, says fire historian Stephen Pyne, but the practical application of it has been gradual. Prescribed fire has widest use in the Southeast, where Florida, an early adopter, has lowered legal liability for landowners who set controlled burns. Proponents call for increased use of this treatment in drought-wracked Western states. But because the West holds a greater share of public lands, expansion would likely involve federal agencies, which have agreed to ramp up this approach.

SOURCE:

Wildland Fire Interagency Geospatial Services

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Prescribed-fire fans tout a record of security. Figures from the U.S. Forest Service, which runs the largest federal prescribed fire program, indicate its burns rarely go off the rails. Out of 86,571 fires ignited by USFS between 2003 and 2021, the agency counts 128 that were declared wildfires – often called “escapes.” That’s less than 1%.

And yet, escapes make headlines. 

How did fire in New Mexico put a pause on certain prescribed burns nationally? 

With 93% of its perimeter now contained, the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire that started in New Mexico this spring has spanned over 340,000 acres. Size-wise, it’s the largest fire in recorded state history. And it was caused by the merging of blazes that resulted from two prescribed burns overseen by USFS that didn’t go as planned.

Facing frustration from residents and politicians, and citing “extreme wildfire risk conditions,” U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore on May 20 announced a 90-day pause on prescribed fire operations on national forest lands as the agency reviews “​​protocols, decision support tools and practices.” A report on the origins of the Hermits Peak Fire includes a major takeaway echoed by ecologists: the need to better adapt to complex conditions.

“Fires are outpacing our models. ... We need to better understand how megadrought and climate change are affecting our actions on the ground,” Chief Moore said in the report.

This isn’t the first time federal officials have publicly atoned for poor prescribed burn planning after escapes. The current pause has drawn critics, and the Association for Fire Ecology, where Dr. Prichard serves on the board, has called for a reconsideration so that prescribed fire can continue “where safe.” Still, she says she appreciates the USFS’s commitment to “adaptive management.”

“That’s like making a mistake and learning from it, and then adapting your work to hopefully do better next time,” says the fire ecologist.

The full impact is unclear. Asked how many prescribed fire operations on National Forest System lands were canceled due to the pause, USFS spokesperson Michelle Burnett stated in an email, “It is very difficult to estimate how many prescribed fire operations have been impacted,” in part because several conditions, including weather, must be met for a planned fire to move forward. It’s also not peak season for USFS prescribed fires, over 90% of which the agency says take place between September and May.

What can be done to sustain public trust in fighting fire with fire? 

Prescribed burning won’t eliminate wildfires on its own, and experts say it’s important for messengers – agencies, scientists, journalists – to highlight not just benefits but also risks. Beyond escapes, those include potential air quality and health impacts from prescribed fire.

“I think the best approach on trust is to take people out to sites and show them what you’re doing, and why, and what the consequences of not doing it may be,” says Dr. Pyne, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University. That supports research that found familiarity with such land management was a key factor in public approval, as was understanding ecological benefits. 

It helps to recall that fire-lighting has been a constant fact of human evolution. In the fire historian’s words: “This is what we do that no other creature does.”

The little girl was 6 years old, and life hadn’t been kind to her. 

When Catherine Meek walked into a homeless shelter for their tutoring session, she found the child hiding under a desk. 

No questions asked, the volunteer joined her on the floor and began reading to her. For an hour a week, the session would allow the girl to be just a kid, getting the assistance she needed, and for at least a moment forgetting about the circumstances that put the girl educationally behind by about a grade. 

The space remained their meeting spot for six sessions until, one day, Ms. Meek walked in to find the girl sitting at the desk waiting for her. 

“I had, I remember, the biggest smile on my face, and she did too,” Ms. Meek says. “I think even at that young, vulnerable age she understood that something had changed, that there was a set level of trust, that she could trust me.”

Ms. Meek lights up recalling that moment – one of her greatest success stories as a volunteer tutor for School on Wheels, a nonprofit addressing educational needs of children K-12 who are experiencing homelessness. She and the girl worked together for about two years until the child moved out of state and they lost touch. 

Recently, Ms. Meek – now executive adviser to the organization – attended that no-longer-little-girl’s wedding after they reconnected through social media. 

A brainchild of the late Agnes Stevens, a retired schoolteacher, School on Wheels began in 1993 when she started tutoring kids living in shelters on Skid Row, an area of Los Angeles known for its large homeless population. In the next few years, she formalized her efforts, recruited more volunteers, and grew the organization with the help of Ms. Meek, who joined in 1999. 

“She was the inspiration and teacher and had the education background, and I had the business and financial background,” says Ms. Meek. “The need was there in 1993, and it’s just grown astronomically since then. One in 30 kids in California in a classroom is homeless.”

The organization grew steadily, partnering with shelters, school districts, motels, libraries, anywhere homeless families could be – even reaching those living in cars, in foster homes, and on the streets. With year-round operations in six counties, prior to the pandemic, the organization reached more than 3,000 homeless children a year, and it recruited and trained more than 2,000 tutors annually. During the pandemic, the number served dropped to about 2,000, and tutors were down to 1,300. Annual funding reached $3.5 million in 2020.

“Students experiencing homelessness move on average about three to four times a year, and with each move, it’s estimated that they fall behind four months academically,” says Charles Evans, the organization’s executive director. “Our whole goal as an organization is to really try to fill in those academic gaps.”   

School on Wheels doesn’t get into the students’ backgrounds but focuses solely on assessing the kids’ educational needs – like a fourth grader who is two grades behind in reading or a 10th grader who’s struggling with pre-algebra and biology – and matching them with tutors. 

“We’re really here to just support the child, and I think a lot of our families like and appreciate us and what we do for them,” says Mr. Evans. “We don’t pry and try to figure out why a family became homeless.”

Magda Hernandez

Charles Evans, executive director of School on Wheels, says, “We don’t pry and try to figure out why a family became homeless.”

The children are assessed every few weeks to make sure they’re improving. Ms. Meek says that in 2021, K-4 students improved their literacy skills by 21%; in the past six months, fifth through eighth grade students increased math skills by almost one grade level, and self-efficacy surveys showed a 40% increase in confidence in ninth through 12th graders. 

Leavening the community

Before the pandemic, tutors would meet students wherever they were – motels, shelters, libraries. But tutoring sessions have been remote – via donated Chromebooks and laptops – in the past couple of years. The drastic change had benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, students could stay in touch with tutors even on the move. On the other, School on Wheels had to pivot from handing out backpacks and school supplies to figuring out how to get digital equipment into kids’ hands and making sure they had Wi-Fi access. 

The digital transition was already in progress when COVID-19 hit, says Mr. Evans. Now, the organization is returning to in-person sessions, particularly for younger kids. But it will keep the hybrid model.   

The School on Wheels’ Skid Row Learning Center, which closed and was completely made over during the pandemic, is getting ready to welcome kids again. Many clients of the center come from one of the biggest shelters in California, the Union Rescue Mission just down the street. 

Mr. Evans, who runs the learning center, describes its leavening place in the community: Staff used to pick up about 25 children at the Union Rescue Mission as they got off the school bus and walk them to the learning center for after-school programs. They’d sing along sidewalks where people sitting on the ground would put away drug paraphernalia or anything inappropriate for young eyes. Later, the organization worked with the school district to have students dropped directly at the learning center’s front door and is likely to return to that system in the coming school year. 

Erasing stigma

Outside of tutoring, School on Wheels is out to erase the stigma of homelessness. Many of the families the organization works with found themselves homeless through no negligence of their own – victims of domestic violence or economic hardship, doing their best to get back on their feet.

For example, one single mother in her 20s, who for security reasons asked not to be named, left an abusive relationship, and ended up in a shelter with her four young kids. When she noticed her children falling behind in school, she connected with School on Wheels.

“It’s been the best thing ever, because my kids love their tutors,” says the young woman, who works and goes to school. She now gets reports from school that her kids are doing much better: “The teacher did see a lot of improvement in [my daughter’s] math and her spelling.” That motivates her to do better herself, says the mother.

Courtesy of Angela Sanchez

Angela Sanchez (left, with her late father, Richard Sanchez) says a School on Wheels tutor helped her see her career path and sparked the confidence she needed to get her undergraduate history degree and master’s in education. Now in her 30s, she’s an equity consultant, a published author, and homeowner.

Angela Sanchez gets it. The School on Wheels board member experienced homelessness during her last two years of high school, after her father lost his job and couldn’t afford rent. 

“Once we went homeless, I wasn’t sure what my options would be or if I would even be able to go to college,” she says, adding that she hid her circumstances to avoid the stigma. School on Wheels changed her outlook: Ms. Sanchez’s math tutor was a grad student in astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology who didn’t see her as a homeless kid, but understood her dreams and aspirations. 

“I literally had a rocket scientist helping me with my math homework,” she says. 

He gave her a tour of Caltech, the first college she ever visited. The experience opened her eyes to possibilities and got her thinking about career options. She says it also gave her the confidence she needed to get her undergraduate history degree and master’s in education. Now in her 30s, she’s an equity consultant, a published author, and homeowner. 

Aside from a literacy program for the youngest kids and tutoring specific subjects for older students, School on Wheels helps high schoolers plan their futures – getting into college, getting a house, and becoming independent. 

“Homelessness keeps you locked in a mentality of day-to-day survival. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from thinking about what it means for life afterward, and I think we forget a lot about that,” Ms. Sanchez says.  

Reuters

People in Maputo, Mozambique, walk past police standing guard July 14 in anticipation of protests against the high cost of living.

When the United States set up a special command for its military operations in Africa 15 years ago, one concern was that weak governments were becoming a cause of violent Islamist extremism. That assumption turned out to be correct. Offshoots of Al Qaeda and Islamic State have since spread to more than a dozen countries. In the global effort to counter jihadism, Africa is now a front-line continent.

That struggle is particularly acute in Mozambique. Since 2017, Islamist extremists have overrun cities and villages in the country’s northernmost province, Cabo Delgado. Thousands of people have been killed and about 800,000 have been displaced. At the same time, the conflict has compelled an unusual response from a collection of players – other African states, Europe, and civil society groups – to assert a vision in the province of social uplift, common security, and rule of law.

A year ago, for example, a regional bloc of nations, the Southern African Development Community, deployed roughly 3,000 troops to quell the violence. Working with partners from the European Union, the U.S., and Rwanda, the intervention has become one of the most successful joint security operations in Africa. The insurgents have been pushed into remote areas. Last week, regional leaders agreed to extend the mission another six months.

“This is exactly the kind of solutions that the United States likes to see: solutions led by African partners, buttressed by other international partners, and supported by the United States where we can lend a hand,” Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, head of U.S. Africa Command, said in February.

The enhanced security has allowed religious and civic groups to more safely address social and economic problems in Cabo Delgado, reaching vulnerable youth who might be inclined to join violent jihadis. That work, supported by the United Nations, includes building schools and health clinics while providing families with seeds and tools to start farms. The national government has developed a $300 million recovery plan for the province.

Just as important have been efforts to give people a greater say in civic affairs. At a meeting of community leaders, police, and civil servants in June, for example, Dinis Matsolo, a Methodist bishop from the capital, Maputo, urged peace building based on a restoration of trust, honesty, and respect between local government and the people. That call was matched by appeals for unity from religious leaders.

Muslim clerics have also tried to enlighten the jihadis. Islam, said Jamal Mussa, a member of the Islamic Council of Mozambique, preserves life and respects a “healthy coexistence between people regardless of their convictions, be they religious, political, and even cultural,” according to the Mozambique News Agency.

Such messages resonate beyond the Muslim community. Manuel Rodrigues, the governor of the nearby province of Nampula, has thanked Muslim leaders for “defending the noblest values of human life – peace, harmony, love, compassion, and solidarity," according to AllAfrica website.

For Mozambique, the struggle against violent Islamists requires more than a military response. It also means addressing grievances that drive the insurgency by building new norms of governance and shared security.