I think this is your first time to come to Miami. Everybody, so it used to be an elementary school. Right, so it's a refit, and it's an incubator. Right, for new businesses, small businesses, to better your business, economic development, so nice space, it used to be the cafeteria and they should be free to come, right? So it just seems really a great, at least for me, a great idea that happens kind of conversation. I don't want what it was, an elementary school or something. Because we're talking about refitting tonight in a sense. We're talking about how we do partner, how we do the work we need to do better. So again, welcome. We start pretty much on time, as an act of compassion and respect that you've gotten here early on time, others will probably be coming. And in fact, we're still hoping for two conversation starters, but we're gonna start with what would happen. So the restrooms, which are real obvious, are right over here in your art cups by the water families, if you need it, any time to go do that. You're all on your own, we have no breaks, you just do what you need to do. So our basic process of conversation, how many folks, this is your first conversation like this? So we've got some experience in the room, that would really help. There are three rounds of questions, one question each. And our conversation starters, we're right here in the center, so you feel like you need to relocate, so you're closer and you can see them or whatever. They're kind of in a fishbowl, about to put the pressure on. But there's a question, and they talk about it for a while. And then that same question goes out and you won't get to talk about it for a while. And then we come back to the center circle again and there's a second question, they talk about it, and then everybody talks about it. And then there's a third question, they talk about it and everybody talks about it. And then we hear back from everyone. So that's the basic process. So I hope that you benefit from the process, but I'm also hoping that we're gonna learn, we always have, and so that's exactly what we're here, to learn from each other and move forward. This is part two of a four part series on poverty. The first one was in October and it was called Mining the Gats and we looked at economic segregation as well as geography and what were those gaps in terms of poverty and the geography in our city. And we're gonna be looking at the number one outcome from that a little bit, but it brought us to part two, which we're calling Building the Bridges, because the number one thing they talked about at part one, the thing that we needed to do was work together, collaborate, partner, partner, partner. The only way we're gonna make a shift in what's happening is that we've got to work together. So that's what brings us tonight to the Building the Bridges and the Bible steps to span those poverty gaps and economics in our city and services. So I'm gonna introduce our conversation starters. Name is kind of Wade, so Chris is with Equal Public Relations and her conversation ad for the night. So I want you to be thinking about your conversation ad. What do you bring specifically from your life experience that adds to the conversation? Hers or that building that community through design, conversation in the digital world. We've tried to put some conversation starters together that all do community, all do partnering, all do collaboration, they've done it in different ways. Thank you, Chris for being here. Derek Wilson, he's gonna wave. Thanks for being here. He's visiting us from Ireland, where he's done a lot of peace and justice and restoration work. He's a visiting Fulbright fellow at St. Philip's College. Again, reconciliation and restored to practices. And you can probably imagine what that has been for him in Ireland. For a very long time. How long have you been doing that there? Oh, 54 years. There you go. So yes, a little experience. Edward is gonna raise his hand and I had the privilege of still working with him. He just not in the same office as he was with human services, with the city and with myself. And so he also has a lot of experience in terms of partnering. The Migrant Resource Center is a really good example in this last year. So there's this extensive cross sector partnering that he's been doing. And Leonard isn't here yet. I hope he comes. And just this last week, breaking news, he like shifted. So he was up until whatever we can have to go. The former president CEO of Westside Development. And then this last week, he started working with Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. So I don't know who we're gonna see tonight. He might be really busy because there's lots of happenings there. If he shows up, and I'm hoping he does, has had conversation and his economic development at the urban communities. And we have Patty Braydon. We could ask the question, how many people here already know Patty Braydon? This is me. So do I need to send more community organizing for the systemic change? And she has a lot of, and how long have you been living and doing this work in that spot? I've been living in this community. There we go. So, and the show told me that he was coming late because he had another engagement, but he's done this before. So he's just gonna slide in and start talking once he gets here. But he's the guy behind Dream Week. So you probably know more of that from him. But the Mike and Brenda Visioning and Branch Building Tolerance Act. Equality, and I'm so used to doing the equity thing. Equality of diversity in community. So these are their conversation ads. I'm gonna ask the first question of them. And I really like the number. Oh, Sister Denise. It's my sister. Sister Denise Lerach has the Intercrate Welcome Coalition. I don't know if you're familiar with their work, but Welcoming Migrants. And it's through the bus station and airport, but really an important component in the migrant search that we had. But partnering across faith lines and community lines and sectors has been her real good. But also I think visioning and inspiration to people. We could add that as well. So could I get everybody else's? We're gonna do a lot of three things tonight. So I'm gonna bring up the first question and I'm gonna ask the conversation starters not to talk yet. I want you to really think about the question. I'm gonna give you three minutes. So that you have your answer. Cause some of the things that happen when we get into the conversation, we start morphing our answer. And I want your best answer so that you can share that. But while they're doing that mulling for three minutes, I'm gonna invite all of you to find two other people that you've never talked to before. So you will be in threes and you will have exactly three minutes to tell each other what you bring to this conversation. Okay, but not yet. So here's our first question. Well, first we're gonna look at this was what came out of our first conversation in October. And there were about 10 items that kind of surfaced but this one was repeated over and over again that we need to have explicit and intentional connective work across between all nonprofits, congregations, governmental entities and community which basically means everybody. To work together to collaborate. And so tonight we are specifically talking about working together, collaborating as community. What does that mean? From some people to network. Okay, so the first question and conversation starts just think of your answer. Give our ad, your conversation ad, your life experience to this conversation, name one of the most essential and effective explicit and intentional methods in bridging work across lines and sectors of community. Name one really important, essential, explicit and intentional thing that must be done so that we can partner better across different lines and community. Does that make sense? All right, now, three minutes. Everyone else find two people you've never talked to before. Find a spot, I'm going to time it and you need to share with each other what you have conversations that are so ready. So the question again, name one of the most essential and effective explicit and intentional methods in bridging work across lines and sectors of community. So Edward, you said you would go first. I think going first, there's no long answer, right? What immediately came to my mind is the word inclusiveness or inclusivity, right? And I want to spend a little bit kind of explaining what that means to me and why it's important. So I think most of you all have seen those, the difference between being in the middle of a conversation being inclusive and not being inclusive, right? So I think this is a perfect example of any of them were being inclusive, right? So it's one that is participatory from everyone that's invited. I think there are times where we're approaching problems or solutions or anything that we do collaboratively. People tend to think that just getting invited or inviting the right people or the certain people to be on the invite list is enough, but it's not. I think making sure that everyone has the same access to be able to provide input into that process. That's really what it means to me. And I think that's what builds the best collaborations in terms of the work that I'm trying to accomplish. So not only being invited to the dance, but being asked to be in front of us before being asked to actually dance, right? So everyone here was asked to participate in a conversation. And I think that was kind of a perfect example of being inclusive and getting the most impact from things that we as a community want to accomplish together. Who would like to go next? I like that, because I heard you 100% and wholeheartedly on that and taking it a deep step further into it. I feel that one that we definitely need to focus on is cultivating message sharers and encouraging message sharers to move beyond the boundaries of a situational side of it. San Antonio has a lot of them. When I was asked to participate in this, I don't know how I got my name, but Susan just walked over to me. So Susan gave her my name. I've only met Susan like one time and we're Facebook friends, and she found that I would be a great addition or some sort of an addition, and I'm gonna say great. It's been a day. I mean, I've never been in addition to this discussion. So she just cultivated the message sharer and myself at the same time. On sharing this event, I put it in the group called Black Girls Rock, right? And all of them wanted to know, what is this compassion? What is this office? What is this interfaith? They had not been introduced to it, so I became a message sharer. And that's very important that we, one, identify with people that we don't normally are or specifically identify with and then share the messages of information that we have with them and encourage them to now continue that message sharing. Telephone our development. Thank you. I think the most effective thing, one of the most effective things I think that we have done at Inner City Development, which is a small nonprofit, less than a life from here, is to invite people on a personal level, not when they use group, to come to the center and meet the people who are there, people of poverty, most of our staff, our people from the community. I think it's, you know, a lot of people do a lot of good things for our center, but I think it starts to change lives and starts to connect people when they can connect to the person that is engaged in making changes or helping to make changes with the community. I think it's more valuable sometimes to come and get to know the little girl who needs the shoes almost more than giving shoes. Give the shoes. But how much more valuable it is when we personally connect with people who just like to do want to help. I think the filming bridge is one of the biggest things that I've seen is just like meeting people, like finding out who people are and what people do and to be able to say, hey, we have this me, you know, and just ask people. Like when we had all those immigrants coming, like we eat lunches or we need a place through there and you just keep asking people, you know, do you know anybody for this? You didn't know anybody for that and people help you make other connections. You know, I think of how many people I've just met through doing that. Things happen, you know, and the city comes more and all that and we have all those people.  So, you know, how many of you get a response from? But we do get a lot of responses, but it comes from meeting other people, you know? And what you were saying, I like that point, because there's so much about meeting the people who need to, you know, I think that in a fake book, this was like, how do we help people who can't be there to still meet people? You know, because it's that personal connection and interaction. I go to Nuevo Laredo once a week and like, people don't know what's going on with people on the other side of the border. So, how do we help them meet them? You know, we can make context to meet someone else ourselves, but, you know, getting the letters from the people while there's stories and then trying to share that.    Thank you. I think for me, it's, when you bring all these organizations together, there's not a lot of equals around the table. There's a lot of status around the table. And then there's also, if this is group work, people who will be forgotten, people who don't have a voice, people who need listening to, so it's mostly the fundamental principle to argue for and stand for is that each person is a gift, not a problem. And that means that then, the police officer can contribute, it means the dad can contribute, it means the young person can contribute, in a different way to only the ways that they think the office will allow them to do. And it also means that people in the community exercise their voice. For me, that's just an around-clad principle. And then people become human with each other, because if each person is of value, then each person has a voice and they can exercise their agency, their possibilities to make change. For me, that's the fundamental story point. And sticking to it, if anybody doesn't treat the other person and give them their place, you hold them accountable for that. Nothing moves until they treat them well. And I think that sense of that dignity and respect for everyone is really the basis of the whole thing. Because we all have our prejudices and biases. Hopefully we're not all racist. But we all have those, and there's such that lack of awareness.  And it's so easy to just go with that and to judge that other person that does that thing. Well, there's a reason why you feel that way. And to take that opportunity and ask a question, to be curious. You're like, I understand where you're coming from.  And it's not just, I'm right, in my perspective, it's the only one. But I think that curiosity is getting to know other people and have those conversations on it. I really love what you say about the value of people in there, which is value, which is value per second. I do want to talk on patterns of the availability to reach messaging in a fire of different understanding to see things from different facets from outside of the paywall. Sometimes it's being accessible to information, which is saddest, or to decision makers. It's expensive. It's really expensive, and they would buy game look tickets. I was talking about, which is pretty good point of view. Game looks easy, just going to get us to make almost $2,000 on just being able to walk around and to take a look around some dry chicken and some rice. And, you know, it's an expensive movement. And I see I look around rooms and there's not a lot of people that look like me in those rooms. And I can only imagine how many women, black women, women in America that are business partners, women that own businesses, are outside of those spaces, wishing and hoping for the type of access that I had because I can purchase a ticket, or because I can pay for a year's supply of information from the business journal. I can put a strategy on the types of sectors and lines and communities that I can engage with.  And we really don't know how welcoming that community is because we don't have any idea what's going on behind those closed doors, a lot of the times. So a lot of, I find that I identify with a lot of the business owners, whether they look like me or not, whether they've had the same upbringing with me, or not, however, there's an outside culture that will believe that, you know, there's bias viewpoints and there's prejudices, mainly because they just couldn't buy a ticket to see that there's programs happening in your favor. There's invitations that you can answer and respond to, there's trainings, there's resources. There's all types of things. So I like what you said about the prejudices, but I feel like if there was just a little bit of discount, we'd define it, there might not be anything prejudices. I think several of those, and they commented already about the importance of that personalism or coming closer, and I think I've been at so many meetings when there are people running nonprofits or running a church that want to do good, want to do something about poverty, but many times they're not people that are really connected to the community. Their office might be there, but again, it comes back to those relationships that really make the difference and help us to better understand how to make a decision in the work that we want to do. And also, hopefully, the closer you come to the people you want to serve, you find out it's better served when you're all working together that it's not doing something for somebody, but doing something with something with better understanding for the closer you're getting with the people. Kind of sharing a bit of the reconciliation is something we're involved in. Some of our colleagues set up a program for dads of five and six shows from working class areas. Dads in working class areas are not seen as people of value. They're not seen as educators, but they desperately wanted to be seen as that. And this project only takes the dads away with the teachers and some of the senior board of the school and their five and six shows for two nights. And when they arrive, the dads haven't a clue what to do. Often, their heads are low, they're not sure why they came. They came because their partner forced them to come.  That to me is about, you know, everybody has a gift of, everybody has potential. All right, so these are the things I've heard. And not in the order that I've heard them this weekend, but doing it with others. Affordable access into this. Cultivating spaces of curiosity and dignity, accountability, inclusive invitations into the conversation as well as being in the conversation. I show cultivating message sharers, personal relationships, meeting the people with needs and help people meet those who cannot actually meet. To create a culture, a space, where what we're talking about is gift, not problem, which makes me ask the question, how do we take that word poverty and make it gift? But to be seen as well as heard and recognized as people of value. Is that kind of something? Okay, so I'm going to turn this to the triads. You have the same question, to name a method that you can also piggyback on things you've heard, but to name those methods, okay? Anybody have any questions? You'll have about, there are three people, you have 15 minutes, so you've got to have the same thing they have about three minutes each. You'll have to get to this. So today, steps to building a bridge, so somebody can like go with that, can find out that there's steps to building a bridge. There are also 50 steps to building a bridge. So there's no conclusive how many steps there are. That's what it's called, bridge. So the next question, and since we're building community and the relationship as well, if you were to consider those three steps in bridge building, what order would they go with? Be missing, what tweaks might be needed given the content and context of poverty? To add that finally. And where would you begin and then why? So all of you do partnering and you do building, so you've got to start somewhere, right? You've got to start somewhere. And really as far as I know, even building a bridge, you've just got to start, right? You've just got to start. So a lot of what does happen in our community conversations, we come up with a lot of ideas, but we're going to start to build a concrete bridge. We want to make this real. So we got to start thinking in real steps. So I'm going to hand this and their challenge, I think they're thinking, I don't know what is the answer. I don't know if you know who's first. If you talk about, what order would they go, where would you start? I can relate to what it was like for me when I first moved into the community. And as a white woman in the neighborhood, this 97, 98% of Mexican-American back in 69, I had a speech about whether or not I could be accepted. And we had a conversation back and forth. Well, one of the things he said went in advice for how to start. He said, to begin, don't do anything, just be with us and get to know us and you'll know. And I think that comes at the very root of all the connectedness that we talk about having in order to be connected to have a perhaps bigger impact. But I think it has to be a repeated step. It's a really step, and I think a critical step to be repeated over and over to get to know you before you take action. I very much agree with that. I mean, we gotta be learners first, right? You can't just assume we know the situation and all the components and pieces, but it takes time to learn. And everybody has their bits of information. You know, we tried to build, we came up with the southern order of relief to communicate along the border who's really what and what's going on, because everybody has a little piece of the information. Everyone's situation is different. Like, how do you get the whole picture if you're not getting all those little pieces, right? How do you build a bridge to be over the terrain? You know, you're going in a rock or sand or whatever, but that sense that we need to learn of what we did. And so often, we just jump in I think for me, it would be don't spend much time with people like yourself. I spend a lot more time listening to people who have different life experiences than me. So do you become advocates with them for things that they care about? Because they often want the people who are hurt. We are the ones who are hurt. We need to listen to them. I'm just a big scholar at this, but I'm going to try to answer here. So the very first thing I think is when you build a bridge, you expect travel from both directions. So that's important to note that we're not just building a ladder to at least move around, but we're building a bridge where we're talking about going on both sides, right? And so I think the idea of venturing in other people who are in this environment, who live on one side of the sea and never, ever, ever venture to the other side of the city itself. So just basically when you are kind of dismissed a portion of what can reach you, I think it's important. So poverty itself, it's not just a zero to a hundred scale, zero or a hundred, it has a scale in itself. And when you are feeling yourself dismissed a lot of what is good about other people or other locations, I think everyone suffers. So I think the very first thing we need to address is our dismissal of things that we don't consider valuable. I'd like to start and go back to me as you, right? I think it's important to do something beginning. And when we're thinking about building a bridge, I was having a conversation earlier in the group about, you know, at first I'm thinking, well, we need to build this bridge that everybody can fit on. Maybe we need to make multiple bridges. It's not just one bridge. Eventually we'll get to a big bridge, right? So being immediate and being intentional. And then I think also being, having a hard conversation about communication, right? I think when we talk about poverty, 10 people tend to shy away from having an honest conversation about there aren't people living in neighborhoods that are in poverty. And what does that mean? Sho was just saying that we were talking about this earlier as well. And he said, I'm not sure how many of you are living in poverty, but I'm sure it's probably not represented in this group in this meeting here. That's an assumption. Until we have a conversation about it, it would say it was a continuous day of assumption. But it's important to talk about that and to have the conversation about it in order to look forward. So I think to me, the first step is really to just do something, right? And start talking. And I think the doing is really about the conversation. That's why I chose to come, right? To have the conversation. So bringing that into consideration of the megalodilane and the non-megalodilane, what are people in poverty talking about? What is their conversation? Is it surrounding bridging? Or is it surrounding bridging to maybe a higher position or just getting more money? Is it surrounding increasing the world view or figuring out how to get to work? You know, I feel like when I'm having these conversations about building bridges and merging, building emerging communities out of two different, three different or four different community groups, we kind of lose that smaller voice that's already not being heard for the sake of the solution. People in poverty right now, and I raised my hand and chose that, I'm losing power, I have 40 or 50 dollars, it's too long that it's crippling me. You know, but other people can't pay section eight rent or they don't have bus fare to get across town or the time it takes to get across town on the bus makes them lose their low wage position. So I feel that there are so many different bridges that we need to build. Figuring out which one to do first has to be the hardest question to be asked today because tomorrow morning is another day when people have more worries on top of more worries and we are taking time to figuring out a border. Am I getting a somewhere? It's like a never ending cycle of solution driving and we still have a room made up of people that we are really trying to engage with. Well, I also think that it's not necessarily one size fits all, right? So there are people that are living in poverty that have various situations, right? So I've met people, I've worked with people that are waiting, they don't know where they're at, what's in there? They don't know when they're gonna get their next meal. But there's other folks that are living in poverty that are worried about how they're gonna get their kids to school the next day, so. I think it's not a fit all for everyone. So there's situational things that, it's hard to say, well, this is the prescriptive way to get things to, I think we're thinking more about solutions and kind of the process. But getting back to the process I think it's by having a conversation that there are, what I'm learning from it is that there are different, there's not one size fits all and you have to meet people where they're at, right? Not where we want them to be or where other people want them to be, but where they want. Sometimes it's hard to think about the next, where you want to be in two years and you don't know where you're gonna be tomorrow. I think we all have individual indexes of what poverty means and that's what she's basically stated. So to create a process or an order that we have to determine, I think my idea of poverty is completely different from anyone else's in this room, I can assure you. Because I've seen people, in Lagos, Nigeria, where I was born, if you're a boy, you basically can't do nothing to eat, right? So it's not gonna suffice you to be aware, today's worth of HGP bread is down to new events and you're poor here, they're all like, what's the bet and what effect? My sister feeds homeless people every Saturday, 250 and some of them inject the food. So that's, so food in some areas is an indication of what poverty is. Here, that's not the case. So an international kind of job and I would look over that and still feel all these seven areas might be a fiction of some sort. So we have to make that determination as to who defines, who, what's that stand, if it can't be yours, it can't be Mrs. Remain. And people, I can tell you that I'm poor in some areas. I mean, but you can talk about just well-being a house, a room, and an income, then let's just step over that and we can address it, but that becomes politics. There's been some disastrous bridges. I think a lot of this is a permanent, one of them last that I just wasn't going anywhere. I went to the school in Ohio and it was bright, but I wasn't quite at home. But I went to the school in Ohio and right across the bridge was West Virginia and they were gonna build another bridge. So West Virginia is building their half of the bridge. Ohio is building their half of the bridge. They got close, they realized the bridge was money for them to meet. I mean, this is true story, true story. I mean, I had to deconstruct and all that, but I think for me it's kind of like the next step that we're talking about. I mean, first it's just like, okay, let's see. And then it's just like, oh, we're trying to get to. And both sides aren't really, you know, it's not like that. You know, that's what people are saying. It's just like, okay, those living in poverty, you know, they have their goal where they wanna get to and they're like, oh, we're gonna fix the world for you and this is what we're gonna do for you. And it just doesn't match, you know? And it's just like, why is this not working? We did this for you, that's where you play. They're like, oh, you didn't ask for that? That's not what we want. That's not helpful, I still can't get to work, you know? Well, I think I'm sort of frozen with the idea that, you know, I don't know if there's a mindset of everybody coming together and discovering how to solve poverty, you know? And I think there are deeper things. Again, I think it comes back to these relationships, but I think some of the comments like, you know, it's not one size fits all. It's again that everything, I think it somehow has to be personalized. And again, I emphasize the idea of doing things with people. And in our community center, the people who run the programs today are the people, the person who runs the clothing room, needed clothing 50 years ago, the person running the lunch line for the homeless who welcome half the people that are coming to the sat lunch program sometimes. Because it's very community-built. And as I said, there's different levels and people are on the bridge and don't have anything to eat if it's not for some programs like the non-profits offer. But, you know, I was involved in the establishment of Haken for Hope and has wonderful, wonderful services, but it's not the answer for everything. We try to get every answer inside Haken for Hope, but it's still, it's not enough. But what makes it done do good, I think, is the love and the caring that's at the base and the development of relationships with the people who are there. But I think it's overwhelming to try to think, you know, what is that answer? What can we do? Come on, there's a lot of us. We know, you know, we've been working at this for a long time. What can we do? But I think we have to remind that it's somehow or other that comes into our own personal talents of how we can engage, the willingness of the community that we may be trying to engage with. It is complicated and I'm, you know, just going to promote the idea that we've got to find a lot of creative ideas that's going to be based through engagement in person. You know, I'm with you in this, I'm not romantic, but since the beginning, I'm sure it has all the abilities like all of the institutions, but I think there's a wonderfully transformative college. Because what I've experienced sitting there is many staff who themselves have that hardship in life, sitting with students, great stories, real literature, talk about their lives and find that they're not alone, not alone because a tutor understands them, they've sat where they've sat, and not alone because they also find other members of the class are on the same struggle and the same journey. So something that's this notion that a poverty of isolation is overcome for me and some of those wonderful classrooms that students really begin in a small way to take off and fly their wings because they know they're not alone. But I think that's a form of poverty that really helps people over the world. I'm going to get a little bit of a rise with the time since I'm going to send Antonio from Detroit. I worked with two organizations. One of the first was SAM Ministries and the second one was Workforce Solutions, Alamo, and both of them used the term before their issue, which was either homelessness or unemployment, and that term was chronic. Chronic unemployment, chronic homelessness, and that was the term that was defined as the people that kind of want to be there. They've used the care options, they deny the additional solutions, and if I'm lying, I didn't want to understand it. I didn't want to believe that people would refuse care that can level them up on poverty or give them a step forward. And in my business, of course, my motto was we can define it, and we can move past it because that's what you're about to pay a ton of money to do. And once it worked, was the other time it didn't. So parking into the chronic lander and your employee, those people that need second chance positions, people that need to be hired without a degree or have been incarcerated or fired for some arongous reason. Those people, those chronic lander and employee, as we market them, we saw lines around homeless for jobless, as we market it to those audiences. And when we attempted to engage with the chronicly homeless, the people that accepted drug addiction, that repeatedly been kicked out of apartments, whatever their circumstances may be, we saw a little to no trickle in of people available to receive care. And I began to ask the questions of access, one, and then to fill in my career along with it. Fill in like you don't, and like no one else is seeing your perspective and understanding your point of view and understanding your circumstance. So why get the care, because it's not what I needed. The unemployed persons saw that you were giving them an in and an open door, whereas the homeless person saw that you were trying to release their situation and wanted to wade them away from some others. If you have a physician who's getting a full-time job and you know that your employers want to take some sort of care of you, whereas if you're jumping into some state or federal assigned housing, you're being watched, you're being overlooked there. What is the standard of care our resources are willing to provide that is an oversight? I think we're gonna break the place to transition. So these are the things I heard, to be learners with others, to get that full picture of what is, where it's going, to consider our own dismissal, to venture to other parts, do something immediate, have honest conversations, the critical conversations, that we need many bridges. What's the scene, where are we trying to go to? Love and care, not alone, out of isolation. These are the things that I heard. The critical thing is, we're moving into the next, sorry, I'm jumping ahead myself. So I'm putting this back out here into our triads. I will have about 10 minutes for the conversation to continue among everybody else and then we'll come back to our third question. And there's nothing wrong with that. And if y'all, there's nothing that you can do with it. Conversation. There's more of a change of the process. It's close in, and this question is generally the question, and it's a lot messier than that. And so it was really great, y'all didn't like this revolving. If we don't take a step, nothing happens. So something has, some step has to occur. So one of the best news parts of that is that we're taking a step and y'all showed up tonight. That's a step. But when we leave this room, what happens next? It's a question. So question three, in your conversation circles, agree together upon the necessary first step. What do you think? What could be that next step, a step? And specifically define it, need to go talk to. What is that thing? When, how are we to working together and collaborative action in addressing this? Now I've heard something, I've already got an idea, but I'm not sharing it. But I've been listening and I think a step has been defined. When the conversation starts, what step? If we were gonna really, don't make this night worth it, we're all invested time and time is one of those most valuable gifts. So what's an important step that could be taken? Now that might be because we have many bridges. And not many of the groups we have here, but if we have 20 little groups, it can be 20 bridges and 20 steps. Not that they all connect to each other. So in a sense, we're not coming up with one step for the group. But the conversation starters are going to focus on each step. A small story, about eight months ago, I went to Mark's side, I went to East side. And I was like, all the time I was gonna have a burger all by myself. And there was a group of five who were there and they were having a meeting about the stuff and I was e-struck because of the ending whether it was Twitter or just random conversations around me, I'm too impudent. And they were kind of wrong with a lot of stuff.  So in a way, they were kind of poor with the money information that they had. I just don't have to have a lot of information. So I hooked them up with it, right? Usually I charge people a lot of money for that. It was a consultation call, so it said kind of like, so people could come in and I was just pointing to kind of stuff that I found out since I've been here only nine years. Back for eight months, we've been meeting here every Friday at 11.30 and all over the business are open to joy, it's called free game Friday. And we call it free game because we give it in game it's like open to joy in terms of like skews and stuff. And so we call it free game because we don't charge for our consultations and no one really believes that all of our information is all of the information. So it's a really great open source opportunity to get insights and scoops and opportunities and whatever it may be, maybe even a couple laughs and definitely not a free burger because burgers cost $10. But it has become our thing that we use to make sure the messaging that we need to pull in is shared to another community, right? And it's our group, it's our what, it's our win. And we don't know what it's going to become but I know it's something that I have my all to join in and do and really encourage you to give what is a free game and encourage you to kind of build your own little table. It doesn't have to be a workshop on 11.30 on Friday but you know, it could be. You decide on what you're doing together because we're working together so just to make sure we're clear on that. We're gonna do this together. Well, I am there as an example. I'm old and I'm frustrated in at home we have not really got this going. But I am really convinced that all the contribution will be to create schools where everybody is expelled from. To create places such as schools where everybody has to find a new way of negotiating with one another so that the best for children and young people is found. That teachers don't have fear, that parents need safe and staff feel valued. For me, I would build, I would build restorative schools. I would get all the members of the board and come from religious communities or trade unions or humanitarian groups to all my into this. Why? Because if you train six and seven and eight year olds to resolve conflicts, to treat one another well, to mitigate one another and contribute to one another's well being because that's what a restorative school would do. When they become 15, they carry that message. When they become 20 and they fall in love, they carry that message. When they become parents, they then resolve things differently. I personally think that will be one big contribution out of aloneness, out of isolation and for some people out of poverty. I've seen it work in New Zealand, I've seen it work in Minnesota, I've seen it work in Britain, I've seen it work in Ireland. I just think it would be mind blowing to give people new ways to live without being conflictual and without scapegoating and being violent to one another, especially in my society, expelling kids from school that costs 25,000 pounds a year. How could that money be used differently if it was kept in the school because the school didn't expel anything? We have to decide that every engagement we have shouldn't necessarily be transactional and what I mean by that is that when we step out of this space and the next individual we actually meet can be a decision kind of voicing their intent whether that individual is worthy of being invited to your life or you're just not being acknowledged at all. So I think poverty, the way we define it, it's not necessarily just, to me, it's an imbalance. It's not necessarily just homeless or individuals who don't have enough. It's individuals who are holding too much and that's why I think it works as your project and I thought that as well. Also what I think with the school as well, I think that is something that we need to decide. So it's not just something that we address and something that we also address if we don't feel poor in ourselves as well. I just think it's so important to keep mentioning that. So if you are dismissive of something, you are in a way, I don't know, I don't like to explain it better than, you know, I know that I only discovered, I'll give you an example. I know it's kind of far-flung, but I found that the noodle tastes exactly like a soup that my grandmother used to cook in my beach. And the only way I could figure that out was like, you know, the strike, one day, this went out and he said, exactly that and I have that every Sunday now, right? Now I'm finding my chain of restaurants so I can dismiss it a little bit, but it was a great substitute.  It then reaches me, but it's something that for a lot of people might be considered less important. The ideal venturing is so important. It's so important. When we talk about kids not being magma or the witty bingo in public access and you don't, there's no way you can find African American youth walking around the area under magma and not being challenged and stopped several times. So whether the museum is open and free and it's, they don't have to pay for it, they still can't get back in itself. But that's the first field that we don't see. So poverty, in a way, it's a way, it's kind of an enforced thing for people who are not necessarily poor as well. It's so important to, it's not something that is one-sided, it's a balance. Okay, that makes sense. I think the, you know, there's community organizing groups here in San Antonio that do a lot to bring people together and let them speak about, you know, the needs in their community and all those things. And I think such a big piece to this whole process is like empowering those who are having that need who have the problem who need the solution. And so often it's just other people, putting the solution on them.  And I can be accepted, you know, while I speak up or people, you know, crazy for speaking up or, but you know, how could those community organizing things be done on a bigger scale so that we're reaching more neighborhoods or not necessarily we're reaching more neighborhoods, but that more neighborhoods are involved in that kind of thing, you know what I mean? And that they help make those schools for getting to know each other. We don't know our neighbors anymore in certain places.  And now you have to be able to then be an activity. And, you know, how can we get some of that back and then use that to really see, you know, what are the issues in our area? You know, where we live, you know, if you go on the North side, it's gonna be different than on the South side. So it's not all gonna be the same, but you know, to create the atmosphere where people, where everybody has a voice, you know, and it's easier to say that you do it because some of us just have, you know, the answers, right? I'm not sure if we've decided on what our step is, right? I think I'm hearing a couple of different things, but for me, I think personally, I think the step is to just do something, right? So I think we've, I'll commit to doing something and doing something through our networks of things that I can't do, right? One, and then being able to circle back with this community and be part of a larger coalition or a larger body of being able to say that we're doing something, right? So I think it's hard to put the steps in chart. You would explain these, I will tell you that on Thursday, there's gonna be a presentation at the city council about power and what the city's planned, what the city's approach is to be going forward. And I think, you know, I definitely can be part of that. And I think we should probably all see how we can put some synergy and energy behind that, specifically with everybody that we have contacts with, right? So I think just in this one group, we talked about several stakeholder groups and communities that we're part of. How do we influence those communities too to do what we haven't defined to do yet but to just commit them to doing it? I guess as a personal step, I don't want to create a first step without a room that's engaged with people in poverty. If that's what we're doing here and it's trying to do what that means to you. I think we, if there's any step, I think we have to figure out how those of us here can have this conversation with people in poverty. Oh, is that right? What is the first step being, how are you gonna get them in a second? Well, people need to engage with them on some level. Figure out how you will know them and there's some of us in this room who know people in poverty, but they're not here. Yeah, I mean, does anyone consider themselves poor? Is there a very nice room here? In any way. In any way? Of course, poverty is poverty here. And we can't define poverty for whatever it is.  That's not, you know, we have a financial poverty, we have emotional poverty, spiritual poverty. Anyway, and that's true, but I think, it seems to me like a lot of our focus has been around the poverty that is very physical, very physical, and in that regard, I'm speaking of because those are the people who know, how they speak, they know what their dreams are, they know what their needs are, and it may be very different the way they think, but we know what's been good for us. It's not necessarily good for them, and we need to hear those voices, and I think it's invalid to move forward. We're gonna move from here into your conversations, but just so you know, these books continue to converse, right, when you're conversing, it moves forward. And so we're gonna talk again for another like 10 minutes. Try to be as specific as possible so you know what you're gonna do when you walk out of this room. And the thing that I heard in this overall was like a gating imbalance, and then that community organizing in a way where everyone has voice in rooms that are diverse, and to do that through networks and come back. And then I'm suggesting maybe the building of circles and like school aspect, those are examples of where that could move into. That's what I'm hearing, but we still don't have like what have we done in the walk out of this room, right? So, I gave you time to talk amongst yourselves, and these folks hopefully are gonna wire that out to them themselves. We'd love to hear from others, but we need some like concrete specifics when you turn back. We're on the outreach committee, and we were just talking about the idea of taking this stigma away from what poverty is, this actionable first step. We all have three and a half, four months until we meet again, right? We all came here from some organization that works in communities with, we're here for a reason, we all spend a night and for a reason, what if over the next three and a half, four months, we went back to those places and made real friends? Like an actual real friend who listened and found someone who was experiencing a different type of poverty than we are, right? And came up with a synergistic, healthy, functioning friendship with someone and brought them next time. There's enough space there to enter into this room for all of us to be friends, but not a friend who's experiencing life the same way we are with a friend who's experiencing poverty and almost the flip side of the point that we are. He was applauding. Danny, discussing different perspectives of what poverty is, and I've had the pleasure of experiencing a poverty simulator and I think it is a depth experience that enables you to see it from a different standpoint because I believe we all have our story of what our poverty was, right? We all have our stories, but a poverty simulator is just that, it really gives you a true in-depth experience of where you're having your life to be able to compare and contrast what the realities are for people who are in poverty today compared to where we're at today. So decisions that are being made at the poverty simulator is, do I make the house payment or the rent payment today? Yeah, I know.  These are decisions that our families are making on a daily basis, but on some level, we're not making those decisions. So when we say let's invite somebody who's really experiencing those situations right now, poverty simulator is very real and very in-depth and it takes about an hour to an hour and a half of your time and I think collectively together, if we could share that experience together, when we're looking at the who, what, when, we would really have a very good platform to execute, to be able to start making decisions on what does that truly look like until you're truly experiencing it and you're making those decisions directly impacting your family and that given situation. We think we have the solutions, but we don't. We don't because we are not in it. We're not living it and we're not making those decisions. Some of you're suggesting poverty simulator to amend your gathering. Another great idea that needs to be shared wants to be shared, of course, sister Jan. Well, there's an organization that's been in town for almost 50 years, it's called COPS, Metro. COPS, the COPS organization is very organizing. It was organized, oh, I don't know how many years ago, in the 60s, I think it's 50 years ago, actually started in Catholic churches on the West side and what it does is exactly what we're calling for, it provides an opportunity for people to come together and talk about their needs, to be done at homes and to be done at larger communities, but the process is established, they train the leaders to work with this. It's, they probably put almost half a billion dollars into neighborhood improvements around the city of San Antonio over this time. Do people think in getting organized, they were pretty ruthless in tactics to get the attention of leaders and they're still being blamed for that. However, Tom Frost, who got us his son, was converted, his bank was converted in East support. He ended up a huge supporter of COPS. I suggest that neighborhood groups, church groups, parish groups, organized groups of other kinds, participate in the process, have leaders trained to facilitate these conversations. It's not, it's already in place. So why don't we use it and not be afraid of it and support it? So that, I'm gonna continue to be a member of COPS Metro and attend their meetings. I think thanks with that. One, if you have individually or as a collective, a great idea, because we're not gonna be able to be here tomorrow. I would really like it if you could write that down and give that to me before you leave because we don't wanna lose those things and we can get that information to everyone. So I do have some index cards if you don't have something right on and Cynthia's up there too. So if you need a card to write your idea down, just raise your hand to bring that to you. The other thing that I've heard listening to this circle and now I'm listening to the ideas is that there are many bridges in this room, many bridge builders. So it's not necessarily going to be the one same step, right? But I think the step is to do something. You're gonna take a step. Yeah, we're gonna take a step together. Is there like one more great idea that just needs to be shared? I'm kind of hoping maybe one from the center circle would do that. Well, I'm really encouraging you to write down those ideas so we don't lose them and they'll also be going out in information and then form together. So I'm gonna tell you my next step after listening to all of this. So the future conversations that we're having in this four-part series, the next one's March 31st and it's entitled Changing the Landscape. And it's gonna feel really nice I can get to this one. It'll be 630 to 830, just like this. I don't know where yet, but it's starting to develop in my head. So my invitation is this and this is the step I'm going to take. So it's gonna sound familiar because I've been listening. I didn't have a step before, right? But that we do leave this space and intentionally meet people and see them for who they are. So to be awake, right? And engaging. And try to get to know someone at least or to appreciate the someone you already know. And to continue to involve the networks that I know as well in this process. And I want to invite all of you to work with me to come back on March 31st with your someone's new friends, the people you now know, so that we can learn together on how to change the landscape, literally, of our city when it comes to poverty and archaeography and how we're dealing with each other. But we need to be learning from each other. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna work towards that. And you don't have to limit how many people you bring to one someone. And so I know what that means with Patty. So she's gonna fill the room.  Right? Seriously. So that's what I'm inviting you into. So then closing, because it's 8.28, I don't know how to expect your turn, three things. Email. If you aren't getting the news we can use each week from the faith-based initiative, and you would know what it was talking about if you do, if you don't, I would encourage you to give us your email. And Cynthia can take that as well, again on the card or scrap piece of paper, because it will keep you informed and also getting that information. But we'll keep you informed about the next gathering on lunch three first. On your chairs, you receive a very fancy professional looking word document in white, right? But a menu of meaning. So perhaps tomorrow or tonight, there's an area that you're already very interested in working on. This is up-to-date information of areas of concern and bridge building and work that's going on in the community, how it relates to poverty, things that are happening, but also two contact names, one within the community and one within the city structure. So if you or your congregation or organization want to get involved, you have somebody that you can go to. So that's what that menu is for. It's for you to be about the work. And we always have a table and a space in terms of our resources. So next time you come, if you want to bring a flyer or a brochure or something that you want to have people to find out about, there's a few of those on the table by the exit, but I really want to mention, it's safer to you, the San Antonio Community Resource Directory, because it's already doing that work of connecting community with the needs and the resources. So if you don't know about it, Keith is over there, he's going to wave his hand and you can stop and talk to him about that. But it's a free online resourcing directory. And refillations. Oh yeah, it could use money, but like more money. And I'm just going to ask, I'm going to put Edward on the spot at 8.30. He just moved to his new position on January 15th. So, I'm going to put him on the spot. Is it true that in neighborhood and housing services that they're working on an effort, and I don't want this for sure, that they're working on an effort to break together all the neighborhood association leadership and do some work with them? Am I right? Do you know? That's the story. Oh yeah. Do you have any details? Sure. Maybe. Because I think it relates to what we've been talking about. So we're trying to gather input from existing neighborhood associations that are registered with the city of San Antonio to gather input about framing some policy around how to create boundaries. I think there is recently been some discussion. I think we haven't had this problem in the past where there's a neighborhood, there's a neighborhood association that boundaries set. But most recently there's been some instances where people that either are not unaware of the neighborhood boundary or want to create a new great neighborhood boundary about what's the process to create another neighborhood boundary or separate that overlap. And right now we're trying to see how do we do that? What's the best approach for that? So we're trying to get input from the neighborhood association of the community on how we address that. So there's not a clear kind of well-existent. The way that code works now is if you're a registered association with a boundary, then that's the neighborhood. We don't govern what that is. We're the people of record. But there is some discussion on how do we deal with that instance and we're trying to get some input on that. I'm thinking neighborhood associations would be a great place to create community where you can tell where the boundaries are. Right. I just think the other thing is it's really a great communication tool. So we're utilizing it obviously for things that are important for their community that they live close to. So if you have your own case or you have something in the development code, you get notified. But it's also a series of bonus community meetings that once happening tonight, I think, or just every night this week. And we set that up to all the people that are registered in that community registered. So it's a great communication tool. We're trying to make it so that it's two-way, but at this point it's one-way. And how many approximately neighborhood associations are there? So there's a little over 300. But we know that there's close to 1,000 that are on the next door. So think about if we were to really strategically think about that, what could happen. And? Yes, sir. We need to cross it. I know you need to cross it. I'm not going to say much, except we met. The neighborhood leadership academy met last Tuesday. It would have been nice if they invited here tonight. You can do that next time. How many were there? 80. Oh, see, so Patty's still in this room. You're bringing 80 next time. I'm getting a bigger space. Thank you all for coming. Please let us hear your email.


Insecurity would have worsened in Nigeria without Bihari's special assistant on media and publicity, Femi Adishina, and calls Intentify to prioritize the Sudanese people first as fighting intensifies in the four region. This is Plus Politics, I'm Mary Anacol. The special assistant on media and publicity to President Mohammed Bihari has said, the security would have worsened in Nigeria without the president's input. The presidential spokesperson noted that Bihari's administration greatly improved security in Nigeria. According to Adishina, Bihari surpassed the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, on security because Nigeria's armed forces moved from 7th to 4th place, rating in Africa. He further explained that Nigeria's insecurity would have been worse without Bihari's intervention. Meanwhile, ahead of the inauguration, a group under the auspices of the Coalition of Niger Delta Civil Society Groups has called on President-elect Asiwaju Bolaamit Tinibu to also extend the tenor of the Interim Administration of the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Joining us to discuss this is Fine Face Dunaminé. He is the Executive Director, Youth and Environmental Advocacy Center. Thank you so much, Fine Face, for joining us. Good evening. Thank you, Mary-Anne O'Connor. Thank you for having me. Good evening to everyone. Great. Let's start with the position of the presidential spokesperson. Of course, we know that the administration of President Muhammad Bihari is grinding to an end, and if for anything that's worthy of note, the president is really excited to be going home to Darra. But then, of course, we cannot but assess the performance of Mr. President over the years, especially for an issue that's a hot topic as insecurity. Now, I'd like to quote, you know, his presidential spokesperson, Femi Adish, you know, he said, and I quote, that the Bihari administration has greatly improved insecurity or rather insecurity has improved greatly under President Bihari's administration. So I'm going to pose that question to you. How greatly has the Bihari administration improved security and in what ways? Thank you very much. I think, basically, the primary responsibility of governments is to protect lives and properties. And the Bihari administration is not different from any other government, be it at the local government level, state level, or at the federal level. So the president has simply performed his job, but whether or not it has been greatly is what I cannot really be able to confirm, that the president has actually reduced insecurity greatly because the most significant thing that happened under the former president of the religion administration were things like the kidnapping of the, you know, Chief Burgers, the attack of the UN House and other, you know, insurgents activities that sprung up during that time. But government being a continuum, he has come into office and he has made his own impute and contribution towards the mitigation of, you know, the security situation in the country. But that does not mean that under the Bihari administration that we never had incidences of insecurity that affected the country. It is a common saying that someone cannot stop a moving train, but that parable has gone underground in Nigeria that under the Bihari administration, a moving train was stopped by some terrorists and some people kidnapped and taken into custody. So we've also had pockets of kidnapping across the country. So it may use that, you know, analogy of security rating or index that the country is now in court position instead of some position under, you know, Gulag Jonathan. But to me, I don't think self-target are not being targeted and that single indices is not enough to say that, you know, insecurity has improved greatly. Our train is no longer working on the way today because of the issue of insecurity. So we are not better off. It's not yet a hoodoo. There is nothing we should celebrate. But what we need to do is that we can commend the president. He has tried his own best. He has contributed his quota to the improvement of security, which is why he got into office, taking the auto office to protect lives and property. But to me, I don't really 100% agree with him that maybe under Bihari, we are already celebrating a total great achievement in the area of insecurity. What brings about the reduction in security is that there is cooperation between the people and the government. So if the presidency has enjoyed some form of cooperation from the people, it's not enough to say it has improved greatly. Now, also, we will have a former President Gulag Epile Jonathan. There was the increment of work from just about 70 something to 90 something out of there about in 2012. And there was mass protests across the country. But under the Bihari administration, we have increased from 165 to 700, 600, 500, and people cooperated and never went on the street. So if some of those steps were taken, it would have gone a long way to know the image that is trying to open now. Answers happened under this administration. And these are issues that threaten security in the country. So to a very large extent, I won't say that the president performed beyond what others could do. But to a very large extent, I believe that there was some reduction in the way that attacks were happening from across the country compared to under former President Gulag Epile Jonathan. So I wouldn't just agree with him that under the current administration that it is something we should celebrate 100% because there is a kind of high rating of the Nigerian military from his seventh position to the fourth position Let's look at some statistics. Today, a lot of part of the country is under siege by insurgents. Let's look at some statistics. I'd like to go with facts and figures. For a government that rode into power saying that they were going to deal with insecurity, especially Boko Haram. And of course, we've heard the information minister over and over say that Boko Haram has been technically defeated and it's been pushed to the fringes. And that at the time when they took power, Boko Haram was occupying local government areas, but now they are no longer occupying certain local government areas. But let me give you some statistics on the number of people that have been kidnapped in terrorist attacks in Nigeria from 2017 to 2019. I didn't want to go all the way back to 2015. Now, in 2019, 390 people were kidnapped in Nigeria in terrorist attacks. Several militant groups that were active in the country had attacks both on civil and military targets. We remember this. We also know that the kidnapping of 276 female students from a secondary school in Boronu, which happened in 2014, received a global response. But there was another that happened under President Buhari. Now, as of January 2021, I must let you know that 112 girls were still missing. Six students were believed to have died. And we also know that this has so far been 2021, I beg your pardon if I'm not mistaken, is the one that has had the most terror-related deaths, according to statistics. Again, there's been a lot of, I think 1,245 people who have died in Nigeria since 2019 based on terrorist attacks. And we have statistics also that despite the overall increase in the number of deaths, Nigeria remains one of the countries with the highest terrorism threat levels in the world. Now, in the year 2021, in 2019, I beg your pardon, even if the deaths due to terrorism experienced a decrease, Nigeria's deadly terrorist group Boko Haram became more dangerous and a number of attacks on both civil and military targets increased. So, yes, it looks like people they killed were reduced, but the attacks were on the increase. So, again, we seem to be the only country, as we speak right now, according to statistics, that is experiencing a high level of terrorism. And we're not even a war-torn country. So, again, it's beautiful for a family additional to say that, oh, well, our armed forces have moved a notch higher. But looking at how we're fighting terrorism, could we have done this a better way? We've seen that these people have had the F-antry to go into a naval, into an army training school and attacked, they kidnapped a soldier. We've seen these people hit targets like the presidential convoy, testing the body language of the government. And all we have heard is talking tough, declaring no-fly zones. Can we really have family additional keep this blanket statement in terms of the fight against insecurity? Fine face, are you there? The statistics that have been mentioned, I believe, is a product of research and there is something that is out there. And I believe the statistic is a source that can be depended on. But looking at the statistics you read out, I don't think anybody should be celebrating greater achievement when these kinds of things still happen under this present administration. And you know quite well that during the time of Jonathan, attacks of this nature, terrorist attacks of this nature were something that was alien to Nigeria. And when it was happening, a lot of people were believing that, ah, this kind of thing wasn't part of Nigeria. So a lot of people talked about it. But we are now getting used to this kind of system that we now have. So I think that if we have even a kidnapping under Jonathan taking of the school girls and it also happened under Buwari, and then you conclude that, okay, for that reason, you know, it is best under this administration. I think in a way, I believe that I can only go ahead to say that, okay, government is a continuum. The president has come, eight years is about to grow, how far has he gone? Well, he has tried his own quota, has computed his quota for the issue of insecurity, the fighting insecurity in the country. But I do not think that it did better than the previous administration because if the war was as strong as it was under Jonathan, under the current administration, we have been difficult for, you know, President Muhammad Buwari to also be able to manage it. So the insecurity, as I know, is like stress. It's part of us. It's something that we can manage and it's not something that we can eradicate because it's already part and parcel of the system and society. And the way it is in Nigeria today, a lot of people don't want the issue of insecurity to die down because that is the oil company of many people, even those who are within the security formation. They know what they're making from that. So they don't want it to go out so that they can continue to benefit. But in a way, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm gonna stop you there, fine face. I'm gonna stop you there and question you a bit. When you say that there are people in the security business, these are people who are supposed to be law enforcement, helping us to fight insecurity. You're saying on national TV that this is their own company. In other words, they're really benefiting from it. So it has to continue. Is that what you're saying? Definitely, that is what I'm saying and that is the situation. It's just like we have in the Niger data. There are security personnel that have been posted to the Niger data to fight the issue of group or attempt. Illegal boundary and artisanal refinery. But they are aiding and abating the process and that continues. So in as much as you have people who are benefiting from a system as part of that process of fighting that system, the system will never go down. So the reason why you continue to have this security and even at the level it is now is that if it reduced to a very large extent, a lot of people who benefit from that, those processes will not be able to benefit from that. Just that we have the issue of pipeline ban. That is in good or attempt and illegal boundary in the Niger data. No matter how you fight it, you still see it's surfacing because the security personnel that are posted to the Niger data to fight the issue of group or attempt are allegedly aiding and abating this whole process and that is why it has to continue because people are making that they are oil company, they are making that they are tapping point, they are making that the alternative source of revenue at the expense of the society, at the expense of the country and the expense of the image and the name of the country. So you continue to have this system running. So that is happening because if you look at how much they make from Boko Ara, what happens when that happens. So a lot of things are happening and I believe that they know what I'm talking about and they believe and they know that it is the truth because a lot of people are benefiting from it. They wouldn't want it to go down because if it goes down, where are they going to continue to trade their oil? Where do they make a lot of money from? So they need to be able to work according to the tenants and the rules of engagement of their offices and ensure that we have a reduced security incidences across the country because the name we are getting is something that I don't think anyone is proud of. Okay, let's talk about the handling of the issue of terrorism and insecurity in general in this country. There seems to be a lot of tough talking and speech giving as opposed to the action plan that is on the ground. I have also spoken to several officers who are in the theater of warfare and many of them have not given great reports as to how they have been treated in this fight against insecurity. But let me take you back to former president Goodlock Jonathan's cry for help at some point when he said that there were saboteurs in his government and he felt that there was people who were aiding and abating Boko Haram sponsors of Boko Haram in his administration. Now, fast forward to the Bohari administration. Our country is a country that's facing this terrorism and insecurity. Well, we ought to have one way or the other found the finances of this, you know, insecurity. But then countries like Dubai were able to give us a list of people who were financing this, you know, insecurity. What has the Bohari government done till today? We've not heard anything about that particular list or the financiers. And President Bohari at some point also pointed to the fact that there might be people in government, powerful people, elites who may be sponsoring this insecurity. But what has been done? How well has the Bohari administration handled this? I mean, because this is one of the reasons why we voted the Bohari administration into power because many had thought that the Good Locked Genocide Administration did not handle this insecurity and terrorism issue. So how well did they do in terms of that handling? That's exactly the situation. In part, what President Guloka Bela Junatan said when he said that Boko Haram has infiltrated his government and you cannot really distinguish from, you know, those who are in it, from those who are not in it. Confirm the fact that there are people that are benefiting from the security in Nigeria.  Those who benefit and make money from conflict. Now, look at the Bohari administration. What has actually generally changed in terms of how the former president managed the issue of insecurity and how this administration is managing the issue of insecurity? They are located to the army. They buy weapons for them. They also try the much they could. But does the money trickle down there? That is why I also challenge Nigerian media. We should go down to talk to the people at the Theater of War. They will be able to tell you what is really happening and what is running on ground. Investigative journalism is very, very key for us to really know the effort and the step that is being taken by the previous administration and the current administration in the fight against insurgency, insecurity across the country. What I think addresses the issue of insecurity and insurgency or whatever is the cooperation of the citizens to volunteer information, to security operatives that they can use to counter some of these violence, extremism, insurgency and all these terrorist attacks that we have around. But if you don't have that becomes an issue. I know that one of the things that helped the Guadalupe administration somehow was rolling out certain social security schemes that put some stupence in the pocket of some people who may not have had that and may have also reduced the way they go into the issue of creating security issues across the country. But to a very large extent, it is not yet time for us to celebrate. We seem to work together as a people to volunteer information, work with the people, gather intelligence, invest into research. I don't think we research in this country, especially people that are in authority. The moment they are on the dining table, you don't see them spend more time, spend more resources to gather information. Other countries spend so much to gather intelligence and it is only through intelligence gathering and sharing of information that we can be able to win the war against insecurity in Nigeria. But if we continue to stay in our offices, make a lot of comments, send money and we don't monitor how the money spends to procure military software and hardware, then it becomes an issue. How much are we able to even pose the morale of the security personnel we pose to the field there? And a lot of them are having a lot of these issues and they don't even have a way of challenging their problems. So I think that the Guadalupe administration have tried its best, but its best is not enough because we are not yet where we should be at this point in time. Because if you look at the promises that were made by the Guadalupe administration in 2015, when it came into power, I was going to tackle insecurity and eradicate insecurity. That very language of eradicating security came and I also came to the public and said, you cannot eradicate insecurity. You can minimize and reduce insecurity, but you cannot eradicate it. But it's part and parcel of the entire system. Fanfevers, what do you think is the major challenge? What do you think the major challenge of government is? And I'm not just talking about the Pahare administration because it seems like it's the same question I could have asked if, you know, under the Jonathan administration, what do you think the major challenge is in terms of naming, shaming, and prosecuting these people? Because I mean, if a country like the UAE was able to tell us that these are some of the people they found to be people who are financing, that could have been a thread of sorts. That could have linked us if we were serious about it. So what exactly do you think the challenge is in dealing with this issue? What's stopping our government, especially a Pahare administration that everyone looked at as a no-nonsense government that would deal with this issue once and for all? What is stopping the Pahare administration or any other administration to tackle the issue of insecurity even when they know those who are perpetuating this is lack of political will and lack of capacity on the part of government to demonstrate that leadership such that they can take the issue of insecurity by the home. So they also understand and they know that the process that brought them to power, one or two persons whose names have been mentioned has been part of the process of creating insecurity for the country is in there. So they are afraid of taking on the person because they don't want to step on toes. And unless we begin to fight insecurity head on without any sacred cow, without no matter how highly placed the person could be, when you are linked to the issue of insecurity you are taking on, that is the only way we can be able to reduce the issue of insecurity to the barest minimum. You can imagine what the UAE did, naming some persons that are allegedly sponsoring the insecurity and terrorism in Nigeria. But Nigeria never took steps to investigate those people. It never took steps to kind of prosecute those people. And I tell you, after God, the next all-knowing institution we have is the government because the president received security briefing from across the country every day and he understands from different security formations from the DSS, to the police, to the army, to the Navy, to the Air Force, to the Nigerian security and single defense corps and just name them. The president has security information fitted to him every day and he knows who does what, how, when and where. And we also have our phone lines that have been tapped to a very large extent because a lot of people that are at the level that they can create the issue of insecurity in Nigeria are politically exposed. And we have all these things done but they are unable to tackle the issue of insecurity. I think government needs to summon that political way, not minding anybody that is highly placed in the country and try as much as it can to prosecute, investigate and prosecute anybody that they said or found to have been contributing to the issue of insecurity in this country. Because why they are smiling to the bank because they are conflict-enterpreneurs? Others are going to the grave sad. Others are going to their home destroyed. Others are going and crying because their people have been killed. Others are crying before their people have been kidnapped and a lot of people are unable to go about their normal businesses and it's making the foreign missions to labor and least Nigeria as no-fly zone. Advising their citizens that the country is a hot zone, people should not enter, it's painted red. So it's a big problem. I have experienced a situation in this country whereby a senior citizen of the UK wanted to come to the south side. And the person was advised not to come to the south side because the south side is under security threat area. That place is not safe. So it became an issue for the person to come in. So what causes this? I think we need to take steps to address this issue. And the government is the right person because the resources is there, the intelligence is there. The political will should also be there to address the issue of insecurity so that we can have a safer environment where investment can thrive, business can thrive and people can go about their businesses and be able to enjoy their lives the way they want to enjoy it without any fear of being attacked, fear of being kidnapped, or fear of terrorists attack within the area they go to. So I think that intelligence gathering is very, very key. Government should summon courage to use political will to drive the process of providing security for Nigerians because the primary responsibility of government is the provision of protection of lives and property. And that is what the government should be because the resources is there for the government to do so. Let me ask a quick question before we go to the amnesty part of this conversation. Now we've seen millions, if not billions put into fighting insecurity. So let's not talk about this without talking about the army and accountability. Monies have been, I mean, when it comes to security monies, including security votes, it seems to be shrouded in some level of secrecy. So even when the National Assembly is asking questions, we barely get to get answers. And of course these monies belong to us, the taxpayers, and it is our right to know how these monies are being used, if they're being put to good use. We've seen, like I said, I have had conversations with people who are fighting in the theater of war. I have spoken with soldiers in different parts of the North who are in the oppression-safe corridor, in Hadinkari and all of those operations. Most of the most common denominator is that most of these people are not armed with the right kind of ammunition to fight these terrorists. Don't forget, half the time these things are reported, we hear that these terrorists have superior firepower compared to what we're giving our people. Aside from the firepower, what is the welfare of these men and women because they are, whether we like it or not, protecting us and our borders. And if they're protecting us, putting their lives on the line, what are we doing to make sure that they themselves are protected and they have something that can keep them going and encouraging them in the fight against insecurity. How well have we done in terms of that and how do we get accountability from the army? Yeah, to a very large extent, I think that they hardly want to disclose security in a project. But in some other climes, you can just go online and you can find how much the United States, the United Kingdom are spending on security. What they may not do is to actually break down to tell you the nitty-gritty of what the money is being spent for. But to a very large extent, if you have reason to seek for that information, they can give it to you. Like in Nigeria, we have the Freedom of Information Act that can grant people access to such information. But in a way, they are also being careful that maybe if they make those information available and to the public that some of those telluries, the criminals, the insurgents, they are fighting may have access to that information and going to plan a counter which will affect their operation. So they are also trying not to make that available. But to an extent, citizens that are well-meaning are able to get this information. And I know quite well that if government is trying to fight insecurity the way they are attempting to do, even using the security boat which has been a controversial issue, they can do it. I think that the resources they need to fight insecurity is there. And insecurity is something that they put more money to than most other things that you can ever think of because when they attempt to carry out the function of government that has to do more with protection of lives and property. They try to put in some more money to get their job done. We need to boost the morale of our soldiers who are the theater of war. These are fathers, these are uncles, these are brothers and husbands. And a lot of people are like, trying to see how they can also be well taken care of. Often times when funds are released to take care of them at that level, often times they don't get to them. And again, they have the training but the equipment to use and fight is not always readily available to them. Often times we've had when we hear that the type of guns that the telleries they go to fight have is more than what our security operated have. And a lot of time they fall to those superior guns, not because they have superior firing power but because they have better gun. The security people have. So everything needs to be overhauled. There should be the overhauling of our security architecture to be able to drive the process of having 21st century policing and security and defense for the country. And that is why we need to train and retrain our personnel to give them that modern training and capacity to be able to counter insurgency and counter telleries actions and other security threat that we have across the country. So it's from the mentor that we bring our security personnel up to date with what we have. And that is why training and retraining is very, very important for us to oppose their morale. And if any of them happens to lose their life allegedly the people, the families should be able to feel the impact of them going to the theater of war to put them on. Because when people are not taking care of they are unable to be petrotic and do more and put their lives on the line to defend other people. So I commend the military and all others who are the theater of war fighting to making all of us a car in the hinterland to have a safer society. And I think government should do more to appreciate them for what they are doing. Finally, fine phase before I let you go. Talking about the amnesty program, a group is calling for an extension of the tenor of the guy who was at the helm of affairs. But before you answer that, what do you perceive the body language of the president-elect and whoever is in charge of security and the people that he surrounds himself? What do you think it would be in terms of dealing with that? Because of course we saw the heightened level of insecurity, tension, violence during the election, the election that of course he merged from. And we've seen, even after the election, a resumption of all of the terrorist activities, et cetera, et cetera. How do you presume he's going to deal with this? Is this something that he will prioritize from your perspective? And again, talking about prioritizing things, will this amnesty program be top on his agenda? Yeah, I think the president-elect, Ahmed Bolatini is going to prioritize security issue, is going to also look into the issue of the presidential amnesty program. Why I think so is that looking at his body language, he understands that this is what Nigerians want at this point in time to address some of these issues. And I think the president-elect also understands that if you look at how he emerged presidents, there were four major political parties that ran the election. We have the Labor Party, we have the People's Democratic Party, the PDP, then we have the APDC, then we have the NNPP. If you put the votes of the PDP with that of the Labor Party and that of the NNPP, you will see that the vote is more than the vote votes that the president-elect used to win the election.  So I think what he's going to do is to see how he can appease those people by making sure that he does things that people want him to do and things that we make Nigerians to be happy with him. So looking at him from that perspective, I think he's not going to take any action that will be so drastic. So things that people will begin to talk about and there will be action across the country. So we may decide to look at the presidential amnesty program and then address it because the Niger data people want that program to continue so that we continue to have a safer Niger data for the oil to continue to flow. All right. Well, fine-faced, Dum Namene is the executive director youth and environmental advocacy center. Thank you so much, fine-faced, for speaking with us. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. All right. Up next, we turn our attention to Sudan as the countries across the world evacuate their citizens to safety. Stay with us.


T F N N headline news update Welcome folks. We had the Dow industrials finished up 375 nasa cup 176 S&P's up 58 that gave you a gain in that inside the nasa composite folks of 2.2% S&P's 1.8% and the Dow industrials 1.4 gold gold contract down $4.70 trade in 1514 an ounce gold rejected lower price at 1501 came roaring back does it it's the confirmed ABC structure in the way up with the 1575 to 1580 price target silver also rejected lower price down 21 cents here at $16 98 cents that thing is looking to trade into the 18 dollar level Light sweet crude up a buck 70 52 dollars 79 cents bottom line The Saudis are trying to do anything and everything to get that price up can't handle it Lots of oil out there oil looks to me like I want to run down to the 50 dollar level lower than 50 Notes and bonds once again with a story out here today. You have the 10 year down seven ticks 129 29 30 year off 20 ticks at 161 19 What they both did is that a rejected lower price They had light of all him and they continue to want higher price and as we come into The market tomorrow is going to be really intriguing because this could be very well another ABC structure on the way up And both the note as well as the bond market We had the the note market the tenure note down seven six You did volume of what 1.9 million contracts and you're going into a 2.6. It rejected that level Bottom line. We'll see if we get another ABC structure on the way up gold Also rejected lower price out here kind of interesting that we're going to be going coming into a Friday and Gold is at highs and pushing its highs with volume.  Yeah, you had a high out here of 15 21 30 I'm really glad it didn't hit the hive yesterday because that's 15 22 70 So what you're doing is that you're pushing against that high and you're pushing with big volume King dollar King dollar sideways move still doesn't have any volume out here folks King dollar, you know This is within a consolidation since last October Every time that we go higher Volume dies in the vine every time we go lower volume dies in the vine the last three days We only have like 15,000 contracts each day inside the dollar sideways move.  We'll come right back


So, what we are doing is to ensure transmitting to primary school ikuwe dabiti. As you can see, going Politics will talk about it. It is good to set a pace so that you can assume inu This is what? The rice 90 For lunch Maragwa Mama, we will give you the mix This is rice, sorry Munaweka ki sub count, ya? We will r Guerinyi ki sub count Yes, cos it is assorted beans and rice Seto? Su Ghila's grade na renda kwa? Exactly, for sub count who your excellency congratlates me. Now, you can't ask me for a last term, we need to ask someone at least to make a protein and starch for protein people. Name is Makzima, nao wakirudi nyumbani, kina mama wakikisha kuna cabbage, kuna spinach, wawangese hapojioni wa toto wa kule, by the time toto nandakulala, amekula balanced diet, na hindi yo nimi mwa mimi kama mama, nia kikisha yo imefanya, ili enginia imefanya, kwa sababia kwenua masomo, ni bursaries, kila wad, naizoni na launch Friday na to nandaku patiana, nimi me patiana 2.2 million pa wad, iyo pesa, ili pesa ya chinisana tu me patiana bursari, na nikuwa primary schools is 3000, Iko me maini wakila, naima kapia 500 liningia program which came in to supplement the feeding program. This massive food disbursement exercise to our ECD centers is happening throughout the nine sub counties. The portion disburse to each region was informed by the enrollment rates in each ward. Mola sub county will receive 200 bags of bins and 450 bags of rice. Yata sub county will receive 182 bins of rice and 420 bags of rice. Masinga sub county will receive 164 bags of bins and 338 bags of rice. Kalyani sub county will receive 154 bags of bins and 338 bags of rice. Matungulu sub county will receive 75 bags of bins and 182 bags of rice. What does this tell us? In some of the areas the ECD classes are not enough. We have to look into Matungulu sub county and see what is happening. Machako sub county will receive 70 bags of bins and 180 bags of rice. This is Machakos. There is Kalama. Kalama which is part of Machakos will receive 54 bags of bins and 108 bags of rice. Kangundo will receive 64 bags of bins and 172 bags of rice. Mavoko will receive 52 bags of bins and 105 bags of rice. As I conclude, I would like to echo the words of Maryam Wright that education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and the world better than the way you found it. As I usually say, Tendawaema nenda zako. I desire to make Machakos the world I desire to make Machakos and the world a better place that is that is why my government is going beyond extra mile to support dreams of our children through bursaries and scholarships. That is the work of MCAs to bring their oversight at their saving. And we are ensuring your assistance will oversight and let people know. But in the meantime, we are changing, we are influencing the way to our ECD, Mazewa or Pate Chakula. Even some nation here on Yamasomo, particularly chair, are transmitting to primary school in Kuweza, Biti. I would like to make a good question that now our ECD people will not be eating at the school. And I can tell you for sure that the conversation has changed. We've earned many other conversations. You see, like when we started your camps, the conversation was cool, cool in this. Lately we entered a new program. The conversation was and who was applying this way. Now we've given them food. I'm very sure they're not asking who has applied this food. But the good thing is that we've changed the conversation, let them come as we proceed.