Thank you for staying with us. You're still watching the breakfast on plus TV Africa It's time for our hot topic and we're talking about 16 of 26 power plants record 37% capacity Amid inciscent grid collapses and joining us to have a conversation is a wisdom a chap jumble as a public affairs Analyst good morning. Thank you for joining us All right, so we're talking about 16 of 26 power plants there are Below capacity at the moment and we've been seen in fact for me I mean, I didn't have electricity for a couple of days, right? We've been seeing all of this grid collapses and I would say this is the most we've seen in the past few years So in the past few months, we've seen a lot of grid collapses even more than Let's say four or five years combined, right? So what is the reason why are the why do we have about 16 of them below capacity? Why are the grid collapsing? Well, thank you for having me once again First of all, we'll just stand by. Why are we having grid collapse research? I mean, we've had like two this year Mm-hmm And the issue is done. That is it. You see the minister of power and TCN Has also been doing this campaign around the reason the consent that has been continues Vandalization of power infrastructures in the country and if you vandalize any of those, for example the tours I mean you're just making the grid to also collapse because These infrastructures are key to making us have those power, you know that we have so first of all Vandalism is a major issue. I mean it has gone high recently unlike other years But in previous years leading to now, I think the issue of grid collapse has just been Overworking the grid itself, you know, the grid like we like to say the sector is really obsolete What we have as a grid now should be what it is for a country of 200 million people and We are overworking it, you know So when you work a system against where points and and what happens is it's going to bring down I want to issue for the grid Collapse itself is gas So there seems to have been limited gas supply To pass some of these infrastructures, which of course we experienced that in the first grid collapse I think it should actually be early this year when there was no power outage for about two three weeks I mean another week or two, you know So some of the issues that have been causing this grid collaboration most recently the major issue has been vandalism I don't know but vandalism when you talk about people vandalizing the equipments the Infrastructure and all that it means there is no security for these things and in other countries there's security for rail lines the security for Power lines and all that. Why is it such an issue in Nigeria? Why are the power lines not secure enough? Oh, yeah, I mean this is a key question as you've asked I think it's a question the minister of power needs to constantly answer I see them doing the campaign more frequently now. I mean report what you see, you know because It's becoming a big issue for them but why those Infrastructure is not secure enough Is the question I'm not sure I can really tell myself because I mean it should be no better Yes, that way we have these facilities. It should really be you know, secure enough Not just anybody to work in but aside that I mean as a people I think we need to This there's a culture issue.  That's of benefit to me But to everybody Taxing the ministry of power to do his parts and government to do his part to secure some of these facilities I think as a people who also need to you know, how do we think or reflection on ourselves?  And this is also an aspect we need to look at the legislation agency to begin to also promote Setting campaigns, you know, that also speaks to this to help the ministry of power to say, you know, look These are key things that you know Power as a people why we don't need to go and destroy the market on the issue is so I think it's a collective I shared a thought for everybody, but I think this is something the minister of power needs to lead I see the minister Is doing a lot in this area raising the concern. I see his treats every now and then So we need to give them the support. Yeah Well, like you've said, it's a collective effort for everybody But I think the ministry of power should be able to have some security agencies that have to be, you know Just have people man manned outside each power station to ensure that not just anybody can can go Give incentives to communities Yeah Because in this this facilities or structures are in different communities You know, maybe it's just speak to how you are decentralizing security itself We're going to be working community policing and all of those things You know, so there's a broad aperture to all of this, you know, because if the different communities where we have these infrastructures Maybe get it in studies and maybe getting them Yes to to make sure you know, they protect some of these things. Maybe it's an approach Yeah I'm not sure the strategy the ministry of power is using As regards this You know, but it should be your way to look at it to say, you know, what these things are in the country, you know, not Most of the vandalism is even, you know From the north centra down to the north and it was so there's a lot happening there Even the south a little bit on the south, but I think there's just some reports On things happening down down the north that we need to really look at I think they need to go to the drawing board and explore every option Here we've given like two options We're just going there and exploring every option Because at the end of the day, you're talking about security and that should be paramount because We can't be having a national grid collapsing like every now and then in fact, it's embarrassing It was super embarrassing when when the electricity companies now came out or minister of power celebrated 100 days of uninterrupted or Great not collapsing People are celebrating 50 years of the uninterrupted part. You're celebrating a week after that the Greeks collapsed And after that maybe within the same month it's collapsed like twice or so And all that but now if you are very inconsistent in Nigeria to say you just they behave like nepa Something about the fact that this infrastructure is obsolete and we agree with you In some countries according to one of our analysts, the the the electricity that comes to 200 million Nigerians is what goes to maybe one mall or one mosque or something And it's from here we're sharing less than 4,000 megawatts in a country of 200 million So we really need an upgrade of this infrastructure Is it so hard to upgrade the existing infrastructure to what you think will be the standard that can serve Nigeria? Wow, that's a good question Is one question we have also been asking within the sector within the space Well, I'll tell you something which I think we are on the path towards that The Nigeria electricity act that was passed sometime last year is sort of a way, you know to work results You know, so that act now Helps to decentralize power to the states You know and the states can now not only generate they can distribute and transmit and they can make their own laws At a present day about four states or five states, you know, I've been able to create their own electricity market and their policy And which is the way to go So when we Decentralize it and relieve the national grid of that overworking Then we make it easier you are beginning because I'm sure some of those states What they are now what they will now put as those infrastructures in their state will not be as obsolete as what we have as a national grid So again, when we reduce the stress When we reduce the stress, you know on the national grid itself and every state begin You know to create their own markets. We can see what abya state has done You can see I know a those states, you know, I also have their own policy legal state has had their own policy Also by the time every single state begin to take ownership of providing power in their different states Will reduce the burden on a national grid, you know And the question of is obsolete. Why can't we do the upgrade? Why can't we change it? I think it's a it's a very good question that we constantly ask government You know, what is taking this in 2013 when we privatize, you know, the sector one We hoped that that would have been the change You know, they agree that the space but unfortunately up to now is still something that we don't even understand Why we are still, you know, using the same system to serve 200 million people So I think this year going into the as we go into this year I want to see a lot of states. Let's see what they can come up with Let's see how they define those policies that decentralize the act You know, I create those different markets and hopefully I again in the mix of things We include the new energy sources like solar, you know, different states So we see a lot of things in the mix, which is why the act itself Allows for those mix with new energy sources, which of course I think can also really degrade Of all of these issues and I want the issue of gas, you know, which is also a big problem For the for the junkers, you know, and all of that. I mean, there's been a rise of about 31 percent So, I mean if we fix the issue of our upside If we if we if we solve the problem of gas itself I think that goes a long way. You think Nigeria having so much gas reserve We should not have a problem with gas, but the infrastructure issues You know that has limited us a lot on the issue of your gas, you know, which we also need to look at, you know So that that's sort of the problem For our power. So there's a lot of things in the mix of things. Right. Okay. So I want to talk about You know privatization and we know that there is the discourse, right? But people are calling for privatization for the entire sector Do you think that would help and let me just put into context We had the telecommunications industry that we had nitel at that point And then when there was privatization now you have several ones So there is some form of competition and then you know that it's a service based industry So you definitely want to give good services because that, you know, brings more revenue to you So now people are calling for privatization of the Entire electricity energy sector. Do you think that would be a good way to go and that way We might not be having the good collapses as we're seeing right now And also another question is if we have that for instance, can 900s afford the rates Because we're talking about tariff as well. Obviously if we privatize this no matter the amount it is We have no choice but to pay and some people would argue for me I would rather, you know, pay that high tariff than to be burning diesel Every night because diesel is expensive. There is also the noise pollution. There's a lot in the mix, right? So if there is privatization in Nigeria for the energy sector Is it going to be a good way to go and do you think the tariff will be affordable for Nigerians? I mean, this is what we did in 2013 The sector was privatized in 2013 We did that Not the entire value chain Governments, they held on to a certain part of it. You know, we also need to look at that But I think the bigger issue in all of this privatization conversation is allowing Nigerians to pay for the actual cost of the power they consume And I believe Nigerians are willing to pay A lot of Nigerians are willing to Excuse me, I'm just going to cut you there, right? Nigerians are willing to pay, right? A few months ago or a few weeks ago the minister of power had come out to say they wanted to take out electricity subsidy Although that's a lot because petrol subsidy has gone within the hike in transportation So adding the electricity Exactly And then Nigerians don't mind paying for, you know, what they consume as long as I'm seeing the power So if we pay for that, are we going to see 24 hours? I honestly, if I'm being honest with you, I can manage 18 hours. I'm not going to be greedy To be honest The people who kind of fought power the way it is Even now with the subsidy are quite few You understand that the tariff you pay in leki Is different from what the pay in Ikorodu for instance And that is like the place like Magoodu pays Yes, so the pay higher for people to Get more electricity and others are not able to get as much electricity because the tariff is low So people are still complaining even at this time So do you think the majority of Nigerians who would want to use this electricity like she asked Can afford it? I think the assurance first of all, I mean thinking like I'm not going to Nigerian I think is that trust that will be power be available I think Nigerians They are so resilient that I mean they can get you know what they want to get but I think is that assurance that trust if I'm willing to pay for this will I get the power I'm paying for Which is now more work on government and the sector itself to say look Can we assure Nigerians that if we say we'll give them 20 hours 24 hours And and they will pay to so amount of money with this power be available Remind reminded that also businesses can even benefit from this largely because they're spending a chunk of their resources You know to provide power for themselves You know where I live And there's a bank or there are two banks close to me And when I hear the generator Every single time I just worry how much he loan a branch Consumes Just to keep the bank running ATMs and everything it's a lot if we can provide power for businesses You imagine that this Companies or organization businesses what money to put back to even employ more people and that tells on the economy itself You know, so I think the issue is Trust you know can we trust that if we say we will pay this amount Will this power be available? Yeah, will you not come and tell me one month after that the grid has good maps again? Availability of the forms to pay I'm running on a 35,000 era in a long wage and I see it's crying for a lot more Adjuvants are saying even 50,000. They're not able to pay how can so imagine someone earning 50,000 Will he be cut off because even now people are paying maybe 10,000 before the end of the month the the newest person always who has to prepay amortization paying 10,000 And then you're earning 25,000. You've not talked about going to work You've not talked about buying garlic which has a small robot paint that used to go for Yeah Now going up to 3000 So if you know all these things you find out that your life remains your life ends in one week Yeah, that's that's what's called make ends meet So you just you just You The I mean the concern I mean with everything happening. Is this the best time, you know, if we even want to You know how the subsidy to put the subsidy on power and all of that, but I think the sector itself is being it's hitting so hard And I can imagine how much losses for example the discos, you know make The losses are a lot, you know, so we need to sit down to agree If we want to make this available in the way for Nigerians, how much will it really cost? How can we begin to gradually make this easier for Nigerians because I know for sure I mean it's it's cheaper than even buying the diesel And the petrol you look at the cost of petrol in the last one year Leading to now look at how the increase has gone. Yeah, you can you can imagine how much, you know People must have consumed using while most of the time I always project, you know solar to a lot of people You know, because that will save you a lot of costs in the long way You can only the initial cost to get a solar for your house might be a bit high But when you look at this in the long run itself, you have saved so much money because your panels can last 20 years your batteries the good lithium batteries can last you for this five to seven years So imagine the cost you will save for the next five years. You don't even have to remember I know people that don't even remember that there is nipple lights as we call it You know, because they have moved to solar. I have also moved to solar because it's it's that's the only sustainable way But shouldn't the government be able to provide power for you? Like are we supposed to be? Yes And another concern I have is if we're seeing the national grid collapse in like twice in a month Are we going to get to the point whereby it's collapsing like every other day? Is it going to get to that irreparable? It almost got to that The collapse was was consistent You know, I was a big issue So the moment I didn't see lights for 24 hours. I just go to twitter to check the grid as collapse. Yeah So that's the way forward now as we wrap it up. What's the way like? How can we ensure that we have? A sustainable energy sector in Nigeria. What would you advise the government to do at this point? Well, I see what the ministry of power is doing Engaging stakeholders constantly MEC is also engaging Stakeholders constantly that is good. We need to continue to engage on the way forward We also need to look at how we can support different states as they decentralize To begin to get power for themselves. There are policies and all of that I know MEC is providing support in different ways for those that is a good way to go And then we need to fix the issue of gas. I like what President Unibu did when he came into office He created a ministry I mean a minister for state for gas and that shows how important I mean the government sees this issue of gas, which is good So we need to look at that entire gas value chain Engage stakeholders. How can we improve this? We need this to power the country What are the infrastructural needs? And we need to put in place. Where are we lacking? Because there's also vandalism In that area, which has made some multinationalists are also leaving the offshore You know to go offshore, you know, so what is happening within there? How do we fix it? I see MNPC is leading that with security agencies a lot around the Niger Delta region We need to do more of that. Okay. Yes. So I think these are just some of the ideas we can Put together to see how do we fix this power issue? We can fix it. I'm not sure All right, thank you so much. We can with wisdom chap jumbo, I remember And we've just been talking about the energy sector and how the incest and grid collapses have been and hopefully we We just hope that, you know, everything will be sorted and then the government would give The adequate resources for the energy sector and if you want to say thank you for coming. Thank you We'll go on a short break on one return. We'll be looking at our next hot topic. Please stay with us


But let folks, we're just letting folks know that this meeting is being recorded and I will call it to order at 205pm. This is the May 15th meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly with the extension of chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. I'm going to just do a quick sound check. Say hello to everyone and make sure everyone can hear and be heard and I'll start with you Ivan. Yes, I can hear everyone. I hope you can hear me. Yes, coming through. Good. Thank you. Dr roads. I can hear everyone and I can see everyone. These those people are present. Great. And as British. I can hear you but I can only see who talks I still can't get this fixed right, but I'm right here. Okay, good, because you're on your iPad is that the.  So I guess that's good. All right. And Pamela, I see your hand is up. Yes, please. Yeah, so I did see Dr Shabazz was in the attendees but he did you move him over. I didn't know. Okay, so he may be trying to get in. Okay. I mean, my eye on that I'll keep my eye on that. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I'm going to turn my. I'm going to turn my camera off, but I'll hang on for a few minutes and in case there's any technical issues. Okay, perfect. Thank you, Pamela. Great to see you. All right. So we, we have a pretty decent agenda today. So I do want to just check in and do a time check for folks to know what hard stops folks might have. Dr Rhodes, what time do you need to leave today. Well, Yeah, right now. No. 330. Okay. Thank you. And Yvonne. Three. Okay. And Ms Bridges, what time do you need to leave today? I really need to leave at three. At three. Okay. So we're going to be really efficient as efficient as we possibly can be. I'm going to start off by announcing free listening sessions that we have upcoming. These are not listening sessions that are public facing their listening sessions with groups in the community and I see Hala is joining us now. So that's excellent. Hi, Hala, can you hear us. That's a little dancing person. I see I hear you. Right. Okay, we'll give Hala a second to get where we're going to figure it we're going to just keep on doing it right. Let's see. We'll just mute Hala for now so that So we have three listening sessions that are coming up. The first is tomorrow. It's with the Poku students. And it's, and that is people of color united at the Amherst regional high school. That's at 345. And I'd like to just get a quick count from who's here to know who will be able to attend that session. I know Ms Bridges is definitely you're attending that one. Right. Yes, I, I'm definitely going to do I forgot that I had a doctor's appointment at 315. I'm going to see if they can move it. And if they can't, they're going to have to move it because I would really like to come. Okay, thank you. That's excellent. Okay, Dr Rhodes. I know you said you would be at that one. Is that still true? No, it's not true. There's, there's a 530 emergency meeting and I, I'm just going to be, I don't have to bandwidth. I wanted to do it, but there's no way to do it. Understandable. Yeah, there's a lot going on. No problem. How about you, Yvonne? Are you able to attend? No. Okay. And Hala, are you able to attend tomorrow and welcome? Can you hear us? I can. Okay. Oh, and we see you do. I'm just checking in to see who can attend the listening session with the Poku students tomorrow at 345. I'm just seeing if I'm working. I'm getting coverage at work. So it's 5050. All right, no problem. You can just come if you can. And, and I will, I'll send out the location. I think I've already sent it via text. And then the second listening session is happening at the Amherst survival center that's on Thursday from 1230 to 130. And that is with the survival center community. It will be happening during their community lunch period and we'll have an opportunity to share some information with the community as well as to be in listening mode. So, you know, just to move us through here, I'm not going to, I'll, I'll, you can respond via text if you plan to be at that session. The next session is last week. It was requested that I reach out to Ms. Pat, who is the chair of the business association of Amherst. And they have invited us to join them for a listening session on May 21 from two to 4pm. And I will send out details. One of the things that I was hoping to get a read on from the group here is whether folks, given that these aren't public, they're not going to be on zoom. They're really just for these particular communities. So how we want to sort of record, and I think that most importantly, we need to check with each of the groups when we get there to see how they would like for us to record whatever they might share with us. I just want that to be in the back of our mind to think about how we want to record the listening portions like in our previous sessions, they, they're available by video to the public. So if anyone has any thoughts on that, otherwise we can move, move on right now. All right. So, I'm going to call a period of public comment. This will be our first period of public comment. And then we're going to move into the rest of the agenda. So if you would like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. And I will read this quickly during the public comment period the chair will recognize members of the public when called on please identify yourself by stating your full name pronouns if you'd like and residential address. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak. The HRA will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during the period but we will be listening carefully. So if you would like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. Okay, so not seeing any. I'm going to move quickly into the one of the items on our agenda today. I'm a member of the Amherstown Democratic Committee resolution in support of reparations. The executive committee of the Amherstown Democratic Committee has written a draft resolution in support of state and federal reparations. I met with Nick Brommel and Diana Stein both members of that committee last week and I sent out to you all their draft resolution. I had no chance to take a look at that yet today. It was just a couple hours ago that I sent it so no worries if. Okay, so we have Nick and Diana here and I'm going to bring them in. We are going to, and Diana and Nick I'm going to apologize in advance given our timeline today I'm going to ask that we move through this pretty quickly here. And what we can do is I know Dr. Shabazz wanted to provide feedback on this. He's not here yet. Others may want to as well. And then we can get that to you in writing. But I do want to welcome you and really thank you for your work on this. And thank you for being here. Can you hear us. You can just, oh, there's Nick. I'm in and there's Nick in. Yes, Nick is here too. Welcome to both of you it was really lovely to meet with you last week and great to see the resolution come through. I want to turn it over to you quickly if you wanted to say anything. I'd like to limit us to about five minutes here I apologize, but I will promise to provide any feedback in writing to you all in the next couple days, but I'll turn it over to you Diana and Nick. I'll start and they can interrupt me at any point. The resolution draws very heavily on the language from from something you wrote and also from the bill that is Senate 1053. I don't claim that it's original but what we tried to do was to give sort of a timeline and lead up to the fact that we would like to have a legislation move forward that would support what we're recommending which is reparations. And I, I think that's really it it's it's rather short. But I hope it'll do the message in a way that people will take the time to read it. So there it is. I think it's right now shared on your screen I think. Yeah, and so that's, that's all I have to say. I'll add one quick word thank you Diana, just to explain or perhaps refresh your memories about the process that we're in here. But first and foremost I just want to thank you all on the assembly for you know your leadership and Amherst on this issue and I think we feel that the Massachusetts State Democratic Party should be a leader in the National Democratic Party because we are a liberal left state and we think that Amherst is even more left and liberal and so we, we should be leading the State Party and the State Party should be leading the National Party in the direction we want to go in which is, you know, more progressive further left than it is. One, one element in among a number of other ones and every two years the State Party has an issues convention. They invite people from all over the state commit Democratic committees from all over the state to petition to have resolutions adopted and then those resolutions. Sometimes, often will work their way into the State Party platform and then become embedded as part of the State Democratic Party platform. So we want to get reparations as part of the State Democratic Party platform. And that's what this is all about and we had to pull it together rather quickly. So we'd really appreciate any feedback that you can give us with the caveat that we really are already behind. And it's not much. We can't really just go back to the drawing board on it so I'll stop there. That's a good summary. Yeah, that's excellent and just quickly Nick and Diana, when do you need. So I should announce that Diana has sent an invite to the assembly on at the Jones library and this was on I'm sorry I thought I wrote it down. I want to interrupt because what I originally sent you was last year's info. So the only thing I know for sure is that there will be a caucus of the Democratic people on June 10. And presumably from 11 to 12 according to the what I learned at the library. And we don't know yet, which we don't know yet the location for sure. But everyone is invited. If you're a Democrat, you can vote if you would like to join the party at that time, then you can vote. So it would help to have you to support this resolution. We'd be really happy to to include you in the Democratic town committee. Thank you very much Diana so what when we have more details about the location I'll send it out and then. So, ideally, are you still meeting on the 18th as planned. So what we'll do is make sure to get you any feedback that we have by prior to then so I'll I'll shoot first the 17th on Wednesday. That would be great. That would be fabulous. Sure. And if there are any questions from the assembly please. Yes, Dr. Rhodes yep. Diana Stein. Hi there. Great to see you. And the same here. We've been on things together. Yes, we have things you were both on the Charter Commission is that true. Yes. Wonderful. Okay. Well, if there aren't any other questions for Diana and Nick, I'm going to, of course, feel free to stay I'm going to return you to the to the audience. But otherwise, we'll get you some feedback in the next couple days. That would be great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a great day. Have a wonderful afternoon. Bye. Take a second here. Wonderful. Okay. All right. Another just quick announcement I wanted to share the Amherst Cultural Council voted unanimously to extend our amended grant application. We actually said that we could use the funds for either of the two options that we discussed. One of them was to transcribe some of our, our meetings. And then the other one was to meet with the group that Pamela had suggested we meet with who does document documentation through storytelling and, and to meet with them and see how they might be able to work with us. To document our work here as an assembly. So I'm planting that seed right now and then our next meeting, given our timeline, we will make a decision one way or another about how we'd like to move forward with that. All right, great. So, on the agenda, you'll see that based on our conversation last week, we identified three deliberations essentially that we need to have that may include or probably will include motions and voting. Those items I'm just going to share for folks share my screen here and share the agenda. So the first is ongoing funding streams, and these are all directly from our charge. So we have a $2 million commitment from the town of Amherst that's based on the cannabis tax revenue that is received annually. And we discussed last week that this number is declining. So it's been sort of steady around 200,000 and so we've now had to transfers from certified free cash in that range. But the concern is if the cannabis tax revenue declines, it will take us a lot longer to get to that $2 million mark. So one of the recommendations that we are charged with making is to identify ongoing funding streams. And my suggestion is that we expand beyond that to also make a recommendation on how to deal with the declining cannabis tax revenue. The second is for us to deliberate on an allocation plan that includes eligibility criteria. And the third is to deliberate on additional means of repair, truth and reconciliation. So we're given, we don't have Dr. Shabazz and we do not have Alexis today. I think that I'm introducing these three deliberative topics that we need to get to for us to begin thinking about. And we'll need to at our next meeting. And in the meantime, as bridges and others who maybe have missed a meeting, I can sort of fill in some of the missing pieces. So what I would like to do with the time that we have here is to share with you. The information that we received today actually from Kerry and Ellen at the Donahue Institute. They have provided all of the, the qualitative and quantitative data to us from the survey, which closed about a week ago. And so we have some decisions that we need to make based on that. So let me just stop my share here. I'm just checking in to see if Dr. Shabazz is, if you, if you all think to check in on the attendees every now and then to in case he comes in that way and just let me know. If you see anyone, if you see Dr. Shabazz in particular. So let me go ahead and pull this information up. Are there any questions while I'm doing this about the three deliberation topics that are that we've been charged with in terms of in terms of how we're moving forward with the process of deliberating on those. Dr. Rhodes. Okay, all right. All right, let me just pull this up here. I'm going to share what Harry has asked. So she says attached to the tables for the HRA survey in an Excel file, each tab corresponds to a question or group of related questions, we include the frequencies and shares of responses. And then she says I made a note when a question or questions was only visible to a subgroup of survey respondents. The total change from question to question. And then the next step here is to dive deeper for them to dive deeper in their analysis by looking at the responses by characteristics for example support for reparations by say race or age. And she says we're happy to do the subgroup analysis based on feedback from the AHRA. We will also make visualization charts and figures for the AHRA depending on what you'd like to highlight. And what we're, what we're tasked with doing is thinking about any subgroups we would like to have analyzed, as well as which visualizations we would like for them to include in their final report. So I'm going to pull this up with that said and we can just review this. Everyone see my screen. Excellent. And I will send this over to everybody, particularly to Pamela and Jennifer to include how we however this might be included in the packet, although you know this is data that we're going to be synthesizing with in the frame or in our final report so depending on how we, how we decide to go about that so I'm going to start here. And we'll move through these just so you can get a sense of what, how, how these look and what the, what the data reported. There we go. This was a question about, do you currently live in Amherst and so most people, 88% live in Amherst and Amherst is their primary residence. And then we also had some part timers as well. The question about, if you've ever lived in Amherst also 70, 70% here. And if you've lived here part time, about 30%. So here we see the amount of respondents that identified as black so we ended up with a total of 99 respondents who identified as black. We talked a little bit about this last week, I think this is 18.4% of the total, which does exceed the black population in Amherst. This was a number that we really worked hard to we tried to reach as many folks as we could through a variety of channels. And this is what the outcome, I think that the Donahue Institute felt in terms of survey terms of how surveys go that this was a good that this was this was respectable. And then we have here. Do you identify as a descendant of people enslaved in the US and 78.4 responded that yes, they did. 61.6 said no. And then coming over here. This is an interesting figure to look at so 61.8 of the respondents said they supported the town's decision to establish a dedicated reparations fund. And the rest of the percentage did not. And interestingly, 18.1% said they did not know or did not have enough information to make a decision on that. Anybody feel free to stop me at any time I am moving through these quickly so we can have an open discussion. Okay, so this was the question that if you've ever personally experienced discrimination or been treated unfairly because of your race or ethnicity. 30% said regularly 40 close to 49% said yes from time to time. And then you can see the rest no 19.3 and 2.3 preferred not to say. No question about the systems. And this question went only to respondents who identified as black. And you can look at this is really interesting actually to look at and see where folks felt, you know, major or minor changes were needed and in some cases where there wasn't much change needed. Yes, in terms of that, the 99 people identified as black. Yeah, was there a further breakdown in relationship to how many of that not those 99 were residents of Amherst full time etc. And that is exactly what Kerry would like us to decide which subgroups to pull out so that's that's a perfect example where we might look at at something like that and that's what we really have to be able to provide and I was hoping Dr Rhodes I know that given everything that's going on in the community right now and your role on the, the school committee it's a very busy time but I was hoping that we could get together and provide that feedback. By the end of the week to Kerry and Aaron, in terms of what subgroups we want them to look at. We can we can set a time offline to set up a time to do that because you know you're right my time is pressed but yeah, we can. Excellent. Okay, perfect. And the people hood question. This I be again very interesting have you ever personally experienced harms associated with people hood. If you remember we did provide some idea about what people hood means. And so 56.4% said yes here 32.7 no and I'm not surprised on the 10 to 10.9. You know, maybe don't know they maybe, you know that was I thought this was an interesting question to include. Okay, and then sorry something's happening with my. So I think this is our eligibility. Sorry, something seems to be cut off of my. So eligibility descendants have enslaved individuals in the United States here 3032 or 43.2% said yes 45.9 said no. I think that's a point eight said, don't know. And would someone mind just checking the attendees for Dr. Shabazz, because I unfortunately can't see when I'm sharing my screen. He isn't there. Oh, yeah, he's watching. Let me stop this so that I can bring him in. And there we go. Alright. So we'll apologize to Dr. Shabazz. Hi Dr. Shabazz welcome. He may not be in a position to speak right now but we'll, we'll wait for him to get settled here and we'll continue. Great. So this was a question that was for folks who do who did not identify as black that asked whether they've ever experienced or excuse me whether they've witnessed anti black discrimination towards someone because of their race or ethnicity. 43.4 of the respondents said yes and 56.6% said no. And again, you know, all of this is tells a story. It's really very interesting when you, you know, once we sort of process and digest this information a little bit more. And like I said, you'll all have this as soon as we finish with the meeting so you can take some time on your own to digest it. I will also send you a PDF with all of the narrative responses. Alright. So this is the response regarding the truth and reconciliation. So the highest percentage here the highest percentages were around creation of home ownership and real estate investment opportunities. The statewide concrete support for black students and teachers also rated very high the creation of a permanent historic cultural site for preservation and actualization. Let's see here. A program to teach black legacy so they all were pretty high here. And then types of repair. And everybody who responded regardless of identity and answered these questions and so this is an example where it, it's possible we may want to look at how respond to identified as black. And then there's questions versus respondents who did not. And that's a subgroup that the Donnie Hewinson could have analyzed for us based on the demographic questions they could pull that information. So that was, this is again really interesting. And then here we have the questions about, you know, how long has your family lived in Amherst. How long have you lived in Amherst. What best describes your housing situation. Whether. So here we had 7.1% of those who responded were college students. Race and ethnicity age. Can you go back to the race and ethnicity. Got it. Yeah. The person is that black or African American percentage the same as the people who identified as black. There was I think a little different differentiation all along. And Kerry and I had some discussions about that but I think it ends it up being. So, yeah, like we said so there were 99 who identified who responded and identified as black 71 here.  Yeah, that's it. That's it's 2028 people right. So there's some something to dig into there for sure. And Kerry and I have already put that on our radar to look at it reflects also in some of the questions where they ask about whether you've just experienced discrimination because of your race. There seem to be a discrepancy with the numbers on that one as well. I'm just saying that I know I noticed like things fluctuating as you scroll as you scroll through. Yeah, I'm going to write that one down too. Ms. Bridges were you about to say some things. I'm sorry. Are you going to send these to us so I can take a better look at these numbers. Absolutely as soon as we finish our meeting I will send you this and the narrative. Absolutely. Yeah, we need to digest in time. The highest percentage of people are between the ages of 65 and 74. Almost 24% of respondents. Yeah, and Kerry actually said that that is very typical for survey. I was surprised by that too. And she said that that that was typical. Which again really, you know, these listening sessions that we're holding over the next few weeks with these various groups like Hoku and others. It's so important because this is only really one. Method of consulting with the community and you can see where the limitations are. Yes, Ms. Bridges. Ages, 45 to 54, 65 to 65. What do I mean, the 75 and older and the 50, 45 to 54, pretty dead close. I was surprised at that. But in my group, yeah, that's the highest. Combining those two groups, it means that's 40% of your respondents. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was concerned about my survey because it was sent to me twice and I put it in twice so I'm very concerned I hope it went in. Um, you could, we could. If you remember if you did you add any narrative data because Kerry could probably if you typed in any answers and didn't just answer the question she could probably make sure for you. Okay, I just want to make sure there was a couple of people that had called me and said the same thing with them it was sent to them twice and they put it in twice so. Yeah, I could mess up some numbers. Yeah, and twice. Yeah, one of the things that Kerry said is there was going to be. Yeah, like people who didn't complete it. People where it may have been duplicated so I don't know I think this is already taken into account things like that but it's a good question to ask yeah. Always things like that happen. Absolutely. Always. There was another. There were questions about the what I thought the answer to the question about whether a successor group. Did anyone see that as I was going through here. Okay, let me see what's, let me see if I can find it. Here we go. All right, let me know that's not. Let me stop the share real quick and just see if I can look at it. Here we. Okay. I know I saw it. It was a lower number than I had hoped responded yes to that. And so I wanted to share that but for some reason I'm not seeing it now. I'll try to find it. I don't want to hold us up here. So, so yes, I'm going to Dr. Shabazz welcome. Good to see you. So I'm going to get that this information off to you what would be wonderful is if you can take some time to read through it. I don't know if you have any questions that you have and just send them directly to me and Pamela and Jennifer. And then Dr. Rhodes and I are going to meet prior to meeting again with the Donahue Institute. We really what I want to open the discussion to now is what subgroups as Kerry referred to, we may want to pull out to look at. An example with the types of repair. Do we want to know the differences in terms of if you if the folks who identified as black. What types of repair they want to see versus the people who did not identify as black. That's an example. And there are, of course, other examples. So, I'm going to open it up now. The first question was which visualizations, we would like to see in their final analysis so we're going to have all of this data but they can visualize the pieces that we feel are most, you know, most important to have visualized. The doors open for comments questions. And again this might be something we need a little time to sit with before we can do that, which is totally understandable. And just kind of looking ahead. So, right now we are scheduled to meet next week on the 22nd. We could meet on Monday the 29th because it's Memorial Day so I was hoping that we could schedule another meeting that week I think missing a week right now could really impact us, given our timeline here so I will send out a doodle for that or ask Jennifer to send something out for that so that we can organize another meeting for that week. So, let me just take a quick peek here. Dr Shabazz before you came we reviewed the three items on the agenda that come from our charge that we've identified as discussions or deliberations that we need to have, including the ongoing funding streams the allocation plan including eligibility, and then the means of repair and truth and reconciliation so we've planted that seed today and we'll take one or two of those up at our meeting next week. But I would say relative to the survey. And to make things simple, you don't have to compare it to the non, because we have all of what you've just done from the overall average of which the 15% or whatever of African Americans are in. So what we just need is the breakout of what those who identify as African American black registered on all of the, all of the same things and then we can, we can make the comparisons if we want to what the general result of the survey was versus African Americans in particular. That's what my recommendation would be. Okay, just to say back what I think I'm hearing. You're saying that for the questions where, regardless of identity, all folks responded to the question, we should just simply break out the folks who identified as black from those questions is that to hear that. Okay. And then we decide. Okay. All right. And again, Dr. Rhodes and I will kind of put together a roadmap for that that we based on this discussion and any other input that we get. I don't know if you all have thoughts right now on the visual piece but again you can just send those along once you've had a chance to really take a look at this. I also want to speak with Matia about the narrative responses and how we would like those, those are very, very interesting. And I think we'll want to include those in our report as well. And all right, so kind of along that line. The listening sessions that we have with Poku the survival center and the black business association of Amherst. By the way I'm also meeting with the director of the bid and the director of the chamber this week to talk to both of them about again our charge. Elicit some engagement from those groups and so I based on our discussion last week. I've reached out to them as well. But for these three listening sessions. I would like to know. And based on what we hear from the groups themselves and how they would like their responses to be recorded, given this will not be videoed, this will not be, you know, we won't be a public meeting. How do you all think would be the best way, like seeking permission to do an audio recording for example at the beginning might be something and then asking them how they would like their responses to be incorporated in our recommendations. So the floor is open for that question. And Dr. Shabazz, do you are you do you know if you're able to make it tomorrow to the Poku listening session at the high school at 345. I'm going to try. Okay. Okay, and then the survival centers at 1230 on Thursday. So we're just we're going to do our best here. I'm going to make sure that we can audio record these if we have permission so that members who were not able to attend will be able to listen as well as for Metia to be able to have any pertinent information that we would want to include in our recommendations. Yes, Ms. Bridges. I think the black business. That definitely should be recorded. Everywhere they say. I think that should be recorded. Asking permission of course but I think it should be recorded. Yeah. I think it should be to ask each of these groups for permission right in the beginning to record the audio and then to further define how the groups would feel comfortable having the information reported on in our recommendations. It's safe at all. You know, listening has been interesting. It's interesting because it's sort of our job to try to really take in all of this information and then, you know, synthesize it into recommendations. And so, you know, I think if we can get audios that's going to be really helpful for us to be able to do that. Suggest. I was, I was going to say it's for all three. More helpful for us. If it's recorded and anything we have to recommend or whatever we can go back. Exactly. Because it's always hard if you're like, well, what did that one say or what did the I mean, it's, it's, I think it's better for us. If we have this. Yeah. When you're listening, you really want to be present, but you're not, you know, necessarily digesting every piece of information. So absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, okay. By the way, yeah, I had one point. I agreed to show up at the Amherst Black Amherst Business Association. And that meeting I will be there. It's on another matter, but it was something that I had postponed before and they said, well come the next time and this is the next time. Oh, good. And the other thing is that if other people on this committee are going to show up we need to make sure that we do not have a quorum or folks there. I think actually, that's a great point. But I think we're okay to be there and I will verify this with our town clerk with our clerk of the council. I think we're okay to be there as long as we are in listening mode and we are not making any decisions we're not discussing any matters. We're really just there to hold space and listen. So, but I will verify that because quite honestly, I think for these groups. I mean, I think that coming tomorrow to meet with the Poku group is going to be, I mean, given everything, you know, that's happening in our community and how active these students seem to be I think it's going to be a really learning opportunity for us. And so as many of us who can be there as possible. And if anybody feels like they can't be there in person but would like to try to zoom in, we might be able to make that work. If you just give me a heads up like Yvonne if you're out of town and you wanted to but again we will try to get the audios so that we can listen. I know that folks need to leave at three o'clock and I want to honor your time. I want to call a second or second period of public comment and ask. Please folks if you'd like to make public comment go ahead and use the raise hand function. I'm not going to read the statement again because I think everyone that was here when I read it last time is still here. So I am going to move here in first. I think I have to leave early. Okay, Yvonne. No, do whatever you need to do. Yeah, no problem. I'm sorry, I'll be here next week. Okay, we'll see you then. Thank you. Welcome. Good afternoon. I have a couple of a couple of comments slash questions. I was, I really appreciated, you know, seeing all the data breakdown. That's, you know, it's really helpful to see. I want to advise or ask that you would retreat. You would retrieve the, the data for the forms of reparations from black Americans or those who identified as descendants of enslaved people, as well as the length of family residents I think that might be a useful data point in terms of identifying some of the historical factors around the black population in Amherst. That would be really helpful to your process. I also want to know if or when that data will be made public, like as a reporter and thing like that. And then also I would like to know just for the sake of public information has the town of Amherst or the HRA contracted with first repair as a consultant for this process or what is that the intention. And what is the process for set that sort of thing would it be like a vote that you all take and that's something that you just that you will decide on the back the back end and then, you know, that's just that's just to do it all the background or what's the process for that I'm just really curious about that. And that's, that's all my public comment. Thank you. Thank you Kyara and I'm going to try to just quickly answer just a couple of your questions here. In terms of the data. I am not sure whether the raw data will be available as part of the public packet necessarily but it will be included in our final report which is due to the town council at the end of June. And then in terms of first repair, I assume that you're talking about former Alder woman Robin or Simmons organization first repair, am I right in that. That's right. Okay. We've had no discussions that I am aware of regarding contracting with first repair either now or in the future. Now that may. I don't, I have no sense around that I don't know if anyone else wants to put, put any, any information forward about that but there have not been any discussions of that, of that kind. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for being here Kyara and I'm going to move you back and then I'm going to bring Lauren in. All right. All right. Oh, sorry, Lauren, just one second. I think you're coming over. Oh, there you are. Welcome Lauren. Thank you for having me. I wanted to just say some brief comments. One, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the ability to duplicate the survey. I wasn't sure if, if I should share that or what time to share that but I just was curious if you could take the survey, more than one so I myself with the survey twice. And so, I don't know how that affects the numbers, but the amount of people who actually took the survey was surprising to me and so I just that kind of my curiosity is if you, if you are able to take the survey more than once and the other thing I wanted to ask is is it I'm sorry Lauren I'm going to stop you because I, we, I at least can't hear you at all. And I want to make sure you can be heard. Okay. Can you hear me better now. Yes, that's great. That's better. Yep. I tried the video thing but okay. The other thing I just wanted to ask is if you have a question about the community meetings on the town website, because I was not able to get the link. I think there was a meeting this weekend, or last weekend and I just want to know if that was a possibility. Also, I guess, from your discussions with recording listening sessions that are more for, you know, private groups. I would just suggest that with certain groups, there are ways to record but not necessarily have their personal thoughts recorded like they could be written down or I just think it should be a possibility to share personal thoughts without audio recording because I think, again, you have to take into account that some people might not be comfortable with recording their personal opinions and thoughts. Thank you. Thank you so much Lauren. And I want to try to answer a couple of your questions. Dr. Shabazz or Hala. Lauren is suggesting I believe that the BAM meetings be posted maybe on our Engage Amherst page or on the town through the town's community calendar and I think that's been suggested previously. And I'm not sure if Jennifer was able to do that for the last one. Is there an upcoming meeting this Saturday or was it last Saturday? There is one on this Saturday and I can post it on the community thing. Perfect. Okay, that would be really great. Thank you, Hala. That would be excellent. And so this Saturday's meeting just since Lauren is here, what time is that meeting? 130. Okay, perfect. Well, we're going to be sending out a link we were just trying to wait on the 1994 report to send as well as something else which I haven't gotten so I might just have to send out the link without the necessary time with the reader at the time. Okay. Yeah, it happens. Sorry, school is getting out so it's loud over here. Yeah, no worries. Okay, and then the other question. Okay, Lauren, I'm going to move you back. Thank you so much for your comments. And I am just I think that Ms. Bridges has to leave if she hasn't already. And so I do just want to quickly for the folks who are still here. Revisit this question about recording of these listening sessions. And this might be something that I would maybe I'm not sure who else to sort of check in with about this, but I want to make sure we, we do these listening sessions with integrity and with respect to the people that are giving us, you know, the privilege of hearing what their experiences are. So, if you don't have right now anything that's fine but please just follow up with me before tomorrow's listening session. And I would definitely advocate not to record the youth because they're protected status in my mind differently. We could share what they want to share but in terms of voice recognition and I just feel very protective of the you that's just my gut right away. Yeah, that resonates with me too. And maybe we, you know, in some ways I think consistency is the best formula because sometimes it's important to make different decisions for different people in groups but I find that if we're consistent and we have a good reason that it comes with integrity that we can apply that everywhere and So my preference, my preference would be actually to have somebody there like Mattia to just transcribe the without an audio recording. And then of course to work with the groups to make sure that we're clear on what they would like to have shared or not shared in the report. And if that if that feels okay to the group, then maybe we'll just go ahead forward with that process. Any objection to that. Okay. All right, wonderful. So we'll be meeting next week on the 22nd, I'll be sending a doodle pullout for the week of the 29th since we can't meet on Memorial Day. And Dr Rhodes and I will be meeting about the survey will take your feedback and provide that to the Dunahue Institute. And I think it's important that we are prepared next week to deliberate on ongoing funding streams again to include any additional funding streams as well as any recommendations we want to make about the cannabis tax revenue potential changes in the future. And then possibly to deliberate then on the additional means of repair truth and reconciliation I think that the allocation plan and eligibility criteria is going to take us a full of really a full session on its own. And so I'd like to sort of get us into a framework to be ready for that. And be there on as best we can. So are there any other questions or comments right now, or announcements or. All right, I know there's some upcoming. There are some upcoming like race amity day Juneteenth will be approaching there are some upcoming announcements that next week when Jennifer is back I'm sure she'll be able to make. So I wish you all a wonderful week and with that I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 306 p.m. Thank you so much.


Ableton On Air is sponsored by Green Mountain Support Services, empowering people with disabilities to be home in the community. Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support comes together. Media sponsors for Ableton On Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, This Is The Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps, Domestic and International, Anchor FM, and Spotify. Partners for Ableton On Air include Jihad, New York, and New England, where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Vermont Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Montpelier Sustainable Coalition. Ableton On Air has been seen in the following publications, Park Chester Times, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, WWW, This Is The Bronx.info, and www.h.com. Ableton On Air is a member of the National Academy for Television, Arts, and Sciences Boston, New England Chapter. Welcome to the edition of Ableton On Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the differently abled. I've always been your host, Lauren Seiler. And before we get started, we would like to say a special thanks to Washington County Mental Health and the Learning Collaborative and Washington County Mental Health Services for sponsoring Ableton On Air, as well as Green Mountain Support Services, and many other partners in our fight for advocacy, including the Vermont Division for the Blind, Vermont Association for the Blind, and the Montpelier Sustainable Coalition of Montpelier, Vermont, and many, many, many others. We would like to welcome Mary Kay Casper of the Learning Collaborative Washington County Mental Health Services. Welcome, Mary. Finally, we get to see you face to face. It's so great to be here, Lawrence, and to be able to be with you now face to face. And explain to us what Washington County Mental Health Services is with the Learning Collaborative and how it's been working during the pandemic and even before the pandemic. Sure. So the Learning Collaborative is a program within community developmental services, and it is for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities and people that are living on the autism spectrum that live in Washington County and receive services from Washington County Mental Health Services. And it is a program that provides diversity of programs, activities, and experiences that range from artistic expression to lifelong learning skills to academic skills to going out on excursions and adventures and physical fitness. So it is so diverse and wide in terms of what we offer during the day for folks to sign up and come in. Some of our folks have support staff that come with them too. And what's really great right now is that we've been able to open up again for people to come and see face to face. How has, I'm sorry, how has the Learning Collaborative been during the pandemic and even though the pandemic is still going on? Right, exactly. So that was a really tough time and challenging for us because when we first got worried about the pandemic we had to close the doors. So people couldn't come into classes face to face. And so we really had to think how can we provide the activities for people so that they can remain connected with us and with each other. So what we did is that we did online classes. So we used Zoom and we got classes online which a lot of people took advantage of. We also did a newsletter on a we started off doing it every day and then we did it weekly where we had a variety of information and activities people could do. We also recorded classes. So if someone couldn't make our regular classes they could go to YouTube on Washington County's YouTube and they could listen to a class and see staff that they normally would see face to face.  Yes, I mean it it what's that's not that worried was that let me rephrase the question was it harder for some folks who are not technologically, I think I'm saying technologically inclined who don't who did or yeah. Yeah exactly. So the challenges with online were one do you have internet access and do you have the technology to do it and do you have someone to help you do it? So one of the ways we dealt with that was to first you know get people hooked up to some of the free online access that the governor had offered in different areas and then for folks that didn't have technology we had we gave out free tablets to people so that they could do they have to return they had to return. No they're theirs they they were given to them yeah and then we did have staff that would help folks get online and also in the newsletter that we gave out to keep people we also had instructions about getting online. You know I'll be honest and say not everybody was able to do it but we tried to get as many people as possible that were connected to it. Did you offer just Washington County in that case just Washington County mental health through the learning collaborative provide computer basic computer classes for those that want to learn how to use. Right that's a really good question we don't have regular classes that we offer but I think that that's something that we are thinking about doing now because really if you're going to have classes to learn about how to use computers we need to have face-to-face you know have them come in so that we can sit at a computer so that is an area that we want to provide some activities and some learning for so I think you're absolutely right. I will say that the other thing that we did for folks that for everybody that wanted we made up these like pandemic packages or party packages that we gave out we would drive to their house. And you mentioned in your form in one of the other editions in January yeah Ableton on there about that can you explain about those. So what we did was the learning collaborative put together a bundle of fun items like it could be art supplies it could be like fun games or even like food like for the holidays we put in holiday cookies with frosting that you can do your own frosting and we put it all in a bag and we'd also like sometimes we'd even put letters from us that said hi how are you doing and we did about up to 80 bags of all of these kind of things different things like sometimes it had different themes like one theme was how to take care of yourself so like like things like personal hygiene yeah that kind of stuff yes no and do you got would you guys provide well because you know during the pandemic grooming is so important and personal hygiene and self-care like maybe you guys would provide a list of barber shops in the area or yeah something like that yeah right right we provided like information about how like the pandemic itself and even when it came time to get the vaccine we would we provided information about the vaccine and how to get it and you know all the things that could teach you about it so folks were informed about it now with the pandemic before my wife asked the question um when you say the care packages in those bags would you guys also because Vermont has um or around the world especially now because food prices are going up right right yeah it's kind of scary you know during the pandemic yeah and it might be a mental health issue people were hoarding toilet paper people were hoarding paper tissue right people hoarding different things right does did washington county mental health and learning collaborative will also provide extra food for people who needed it um different parts of the agency did do that yep it wasn't through the learning collaborative but i'm sorry through different parts of washington county different divisions they did provide lunches and participated in putting lunches together and getting them out and if we a couple of times we had people that did end up getting COVID and we i like i would go out and buy a bunch of food and bring it to their house and you would just leave it outside the door leave it outside yeah what we did also provide was um masks and um any kind of items that were needed to clean and keep things safe we always put that kind of stuff in the bags do you think um i don't know this could be a general question um around the misconceptions of mental health do you think people were more with mental health conditions were more scared of the pandemic than normal situation that's a really good question i'm sorry if i if i said it the wrong way no you know i hear what you're saying we're there more concerns than other people i think that the folks that we work with um i think one of the major challenges for them was the the isolation that was connected to it because some of our four months during the pandemic we were like you have to stay in place and right you know for me that's kind of hard it's it was very difficult for our folks um some of our folks yeah and you have to stay home and you can either go to the to the to the grocery store or pharmacy go ahead right and especially if you have to rely on somebody else to help you to get to the grocery store or the laundry um or a lot of our folks was extremely isolated and we had some we have some tremendous staff that stayed on and were willing to help and keep people working and and keep helping folks to get to the grocery store to the or to get on telemedicine so they can get to their doctors i mean there were so many challenges what is the difference between telemedicine and telehealth because that telehealth uh like i had mentioned back in january um and a former able to run an episode telehealth doesn't necessarily because you know for example i have challenges and so does my wife but the telehealth doesn't really help someone who has to get to the epilepsy doctor or dentist or what is the difference between medicine the telemedicine and telehealth right i think they're kind of the same um basically during the pandemic what became really clear is that you couldn't get to the doctors if you had any kind of illness other than you know covid and so what we had to do is get online with your doctor and get online with your counselor and that is a hard you know you don't always get everything you need from that but i think it was really helpful in at least um diagnosing and getting the basics done and then if you needed a specialist then we needed to find ways to access that specialist to help you go ahead you want to ask a question yes um check your time check your time slow down go ahead yeah go ahead yeah how how does how does art go ahead absolutely in terms of the pandemic how did how did the arts stay alive within watch to kill the mental health is that so yeah so in the learning collaborative we have a program called shockwave and studios and we have a shockwave magazine and we feel that providing an opportunity to express yourself through art and poetry and writing stories and dancing in all kinds of other ways is really critical to your mental health but also it's also about expressing who you are in the world and being able to bring that to the world and into the community so the article that you're talking about was related to the art gallery showing and i think it's really important in our in the folks that we work with want to show who they are to the world and and so how extensive since we mentioned shockwave because you spoke about it and several occasions before how extensive is shockwave because um you can't show the person's you know name or picture or something like that but um because usually with by lines with newspapers you have the picture there how but how extensive is shockwave and um you know poems and other things so it's it it's very extensive we most of our individuals that we work with a lot of them have pieces that they've done if you come over to our office we have in the auditorium at grand view we have much of their art up on the wall and we also have a gallery we're working with the department of health that right before the pandemic we did a whole gallery showing up on the second floor where wick is and of all the artwork a wick works with um individuals like women and children to provide health services and access to resources it's a really great program um and they wanted to do something with us so we we really want to work on the health of our individuals that we work with to make sure that resources are equitable for them that they have access to resources that help them to be healthy and you know doing creative activities helps you tell your story right now we have a class through the pandemic and a number of individuals have written stories and we're looking at doing a reception with a storytelling night so that folks could tell their stories they really want to tell their stories to other people and to the community so we're going to do like poems stories drawings yep etc exactly we we participate in expressing themselves exactly exactly good which is good in a way so they was that does that include video too or just it can yeah story so it's good way to communicate right absolutely it you can share your voice through your creative expression how how um how long a shockwave been around oh gosh i think for about 15 years it seems like we have the old shockwave magazine and now erin martinow is our graphic designer and our art teacher and he works to you know create the shockwave with the individuals that want to share their their um what are the misconceptions around i usually ask this but what are the missions the the the misconceptions around people with mental illness or mental challenges that people don't seem to understand well i think one that's really um evident that i hear sometimes from folks in the community is that someone with a developmental disability isn't capable of taking care of themselves or capable of contributing to the world and that's just so wrong it is so wrong and one of the art things that we did we our whole theme was i am you and it was all about sharing that we're just like everybody else and we are capable and we can contribute to the world and we need to be given the opportunities to do that yes um now this is a big media how does media portray or has in the media has mental health been given a bad rap lately or or in the past that's how can we kind of knit that in the butt and kind of bring it to a positive light right well i think you're bringing up this whole concept of representation matters and that's really important to me and how we include people with disabilities in our films and in our radio shows and in other media youtube and that we portray individuals that are living with disabilities in positive ways and i think historically we have not done a good job of that um in the western world i think we're starting to get a little bit better with that but it's around the world for example uh sorry for the interruption but around the world for example you know different countries and also different they have um reality shows with people with special needs yeah i don't like that because it's like your pigeon how can i put this your pigeon holding a reality yeah a reality show is okay but right you know it opens up to a whole negative right right you know yeah and you're just focusing on that what what would really be important is that people with disabilities are just included as actors and actresses in everyday shows and that you remember that you show life goes on right right yeah and then they have the good doctor and right yeah the good doctor yeah yeah who you're heinous let's say and you have intellectual disability how does that affect you doesn't affect you right i know this has nothing to do with the mental the the learning collaborative but with homelessness also and mental health that's also another issue yeah it definitely is an issue and right now since the pandemic it's an even bigger issue that we're trying to address as a state which we will address on another show as well right um so how how has um um um you know arts important you know with this um is the art shell is going to continue even during the pandemic or are you guys going to expand that absolutely i mean now the one thing is that right now we're not able to do a gallery showing so but it is going to happen again um right now i'm actually we're working on a shockwave magazine that its theme is how the pandemic affected you and what kind of things came up for you and what we did was we invited everyone from washington county to participate including staff so it will be a magazine with both our clients and our consumers and our staff so we're doing a collaboration with everybody because i think that what's really important is that we use the opportunity to do art and all the expressive opportunities as a way to heal from the pandemic um so since you say that what our what is one or two ways well we have some time left but what is some ways that people can heal from the pandemic from your standpoint well one way is to talk about how you feel like to get together with people that you feel support you and to talk to you talk talk is really important connecting with other people in whatever way um you know one of the things that i did during the pandemic to so that i didn't feel so bad was i love music so i was dancing all the time so every day when i came up for work i danced a little bit you know and write your story i heard dancing versus the sign of aging that's good that's good yeah that's good right right go ahead writing your story doing art um you know participating going for walks outside you know being in nature is really important because nature is there for us too you know um now okay so um where can people reach washington county and the learning collaborative so in order to reach the learning collaborative um you can do it one of a few ways one is that you can contact me and my at my email and that's um mary k dot casper at wcmhs.org um you can call me at<PHONE_NUMBER> okay um those are definitely ways that you can um contact me and if you're and understand that washington county mental health um services has a crisis number anyone's in crisis what is that number oh that's a really good question i don't have it on with on with me right now um but we can get it on the website yes um and you also view the shockwave magazine online that's something we're working on arlene that's a really good i really want to get it online and that's something we're working on right yeah so if if you're in crisis and you need help from washington county mental health you can go to www.wcmhs.org that number that website once again is www.wcmhs.org um we would like to thank uh mary k casper of washington county mental health learning collaborative for joining us on um today's edition um if um you know art is extremely important and art programs especially for people with mental health and developmental disabilities we must keep those programs going and we thank you for coming to able to learn that we would like to thank our sponsors washington county mental health services green mountain support services we would also like to thank the following partners um vermont division for the blind and visually impaired vermont association for the blind and visually impaired and also the uh the montpell the sustainable montpellier coalition of montpellier vermont and many many many others for uh partnering with abledon on air i'm lauren syler see you next time abledon on air is sponsored by green mountain support services empowering people with disabilities to be home in the community washington county mental health where hope and support comes together media sponsors for abledon on air include park chester times muslim community report www this is the bronx dot info associated press media editors new york parrot online newspaper us press corps domestic and international anchor fm and spotify partners for abledon on air include jihad new york and new england where everyone belongs the orthodox union the vermont division for the blind and visually impaired the vermont association for the blind and visually impaired the montpellier sustainable coalition abledon air has been seen in the following publications park chester times new york parrot online newspaper muslim community report www this is the bronx dot info and www.h.com abledon on air is a member of the national academy