Bringing Happiness to Third World Countries Through Art

Los Angeles resident Steve Dee is the founder of Jobs-Liberia.com, a U.S. based humanitarian organization and internet company. The company’s mission is to create organic jobs by using its trading App.

Rah-E-Zendegi magazine recently spoke to Steve Dee.

Please tell our readers where you grew up and walk us through your background.

I was born in Tehran, Iran in 1970. My family and I moved to the U.S. because of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and I was raised in Los Angeles, California. Because I was born severely dyslexic, and not diagnosed as such, I was often unable to do my schoolwork. Consequently, I was extremely physically abused, humiliated, and tortured in front of my classmates by my teachers. I had pens put between my fingers and then extremely painfully squeezed. I was forced to hold my hands open while the teacher struck across my palms with the metal edge of a ruler. I was slapped across the face so many times that I had to have surgery to fix a ruptured eardrum. All for not being able to do my schoolwork.

The emotional and physical scars left me thinking of myself as worthless, one that did not deserve to be loved. Later on, I had to drop out my senior year of high school to help my family who was facing economic difficulties at the time.

What steps have you taken to overcome your disability, and what are the daily challenges for someone with dyslexia?

There are different levels of dyslexia and if diagnosed by first grade, one can generally overcome the disability. I am severely dyslexic, and even today I need help with practically everything that involves reading and writing. My parents knew about my condition but regrettably were unable to help, and I was too young to help myself. At this stage of my life, I try to help and guide parents and children with dyslexia as much as I can.

What is Jobs-Liberia and why did you form this company?

During the 2009 crash under infinite pressure, I broke both emotionally and physically. For many years I experienced crippling depression due to my numerous health problems. I couldn't work or get access to good medical care. Then finally, I got a lucky break when an attorney took my disability case on a contingency fee.

The second fortuitous moment in my life was when I heard a TED Talk by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Leymah Gbowee, about some of the dire conditions in Liberia. It was at that point that I realized that I have food in the fridge, a roof over my head, a bed to sleep on, and doctors to help me heal. That’s when I chose to devote my life to humanitarian work.

After becoming enlightened by Leymah Gbowee’s TED Talk, I formed Jobs-Liberia, a “GoodNews” website to create jobs through trade. Since the company’s formation, I have also developed an app where people with no physical address in third world countries can create a GPS location of their home in slums and shantytowns. It is a digital yellow pages to put their products and services on-line. This way, organic jobs can be created in the poorest parts of the world by using trade.

One of my major successes I tackled with Jobs-Liberia was to bring the knowledge of HIV prevention pills, Truvada to the English-speaking parts of Africa called "many voices equals loud shout". The post created a movement of millions of Africans to go to their health care providers and ask for the medication. That post got around 400,000 likes plus thousands of shares and comments. Through the “GoodNews” arm of my organization, I was able to use art to brighten people's lives. Art has no language barrier and can be a powerful instrument to enhance people’s lives both financially and emotionally.

Your Facebook Page has proven to be extraordinarily successful internationally The posts are routinely reaching an audience of over six million with hundreds of thousands of engagements per post. What do you attribute this success to?

The current pandemic and socio-economic factors worldwide have contributed to a general malaise and a depressed atmosphere. Most people are looking for a vehicle to find happiness and our GoodNews posts fulfill that need. I am delighted to see the positive results.

What are your plans on growing the organization?

I'm basically a one-man show and I use subcontractors from Fiverr.com to help me get things done. The site is popular in over 100 third-world countries, I am looking for friendly partnerships to help scale the app and are open to bringing more happiness throughout all the third-world countries. My greatest hope would be to get sponsorship from Coca-Cola as they are ubiquitous in every country. My goal is that this project can grow without any need for additional investment on my side, as I am using my disability money to fund the project. I hope to partner up with organizations that have global scaling capabilities.

As a Los Angeles resident, I am dismayed at the number of homeless in the city. I would very much like to get involved in some manner to improve the status quo. One possible solution would be for the government to make *Slab City a Palm Springs of sorts for the homeless.

*Slab City, also called “The Slabs” is a 100 acre unincorporated, off-the-grid squatter community in the Salton Trough area of the Sonoran Desert, in Imperial County, California.