Welcome, welcome everyone and welcome to the panel for the press conference for the Food Action Alliance that's being held in the context of this third annual Sustainable Development Impact Summit and so my name is Sean DeClean, I'm on the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum and I'm delighted to have here today AJ Jakar, who's the Chairman of Barat Krishak Samaj, the Farmers Forum of India, so welcome AJ and as well as Zilber Juan Bol next to him, the President of the International Fund for Agriculture Development, so welcome Zilber and then Ruben Echeveria, the Director General for the Centre for International Tropical Agriculture, SEAT, based in Columbia, welcome and then also Agnes Calabata, the President's Foreign Alliance for a Green Revolution for in Africa, based in Kenya, welcome Agnes. So just to give some context to the Food Action Alliance, I mean the 2030 agenda requires food systems to deliver probably more and better on all fronts at the same time that has ever been done before and in particular the SDGs has you know really called out stretch targets around hunger, around nutrition, around incomes of small holder producers, water, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and much more but today we're seeing that the evidence calls for urgent change and probably an unprecedented degree of cooperation that will require immediate and collective action and so if there is one thing that is clear being in New York this week for the UN General Assembly there is a strong call for action and leadership if we are to deliver the necessary impact at scale but particularly to make sure that that actually resonates at a country level, that this isn't just a global agenda but actually has real impact in specific countries and although there are many fragmented efforts that are taking place you know we can bring a lot of these initiatives together and actives to support those country led agendas and ultimately to support the farmer households and the individual farmers where you know who are really you know being challenged by taking this much broader complex agenda and so to move forward we will need to build smart SDG sustainable food systems. We need alignment and transformative partnerships to drive the next generation of food systems investments that will impact on food systems on a large scale but this agenda is not easy the complexity of this agenda can often paralyze action you know we often hear it's too complex to look at everything that's involved in growing food sustainably in a way that is healthy for people and inclusive and also creates market efficient systems and so today we're introducing the Food Action Alliance a next generation of partnership building on a number of different models the new vision for agriculture and many others to deliver on the promise of food systems that work for everybody and so in response to a leadership mandate that came from the World Economic Forum annual general meeting in 2018 the Food Action Alliance has been catalyzed by the efforts of IFAD of Rubbo Bank of the World Economic Forum but developed in collaboration and leadership from the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa from SEAT from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development from Regional Development Bank partners from partners such as Mercy Corps and many others who are coming together across business and civil society and international organizations to say can we create this collective agenda that will really deliver us the food system that we need and so this is where the Food Action Alliance brings in the capacity to serve as that platform for alignment and action that can help us to nourish 10 billion people by 2050 without destroying the planet in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement but also in a way as we said that works to support the priorities of individual countries and individual farmers and so I in that capacity I'd like to now turn to the panelists to maybe put some context to this and so maybe Xiobai Huangbo if I turn to you first it's been estimated that you know as a UN organization as the president of you know one of the key UN organizations looking at food it's been estimated that achieving the SDG2 on food security will require 140 billion dollars annually for rural development and agriculture which is about 10 times the current you know sort of ODA that is spent on agriculture at the moment and so as a financing institution how does IFAD see making up this gap in funding for the future of food? Thank you so much Sean for this very comprehensive introductory remarks and to get straight to your point I have to say that this is really the challenge that we are facing where we know that the current or the although ODA in the global term has been increasing the past years we know that that increase is going rather to humanitarian security and so forth the peace and the percentage going to agriculture has stored around five six percent flats for the past 10 years if not if not more that put us in a kind of a no choice then by looking for alternatives so one we cannot count only on ODA and we have been talking since the MDG era the importance of bringing in a private sector so it seems to me that talking about action that we have been talking about action a time has come for us to really move toward action in terms of how do you concretely create the conditions that will bring the private sector to invest in agriculture so there are different obviously different products that we are considering the first one that a lot of us are working on is leveraging our existing assets leveraging through borrowing borrowing to sovereign borrowing or market borrowing to increase our own resources that we put in for the for the agriculture development secondly is to what extent we can use the little knowledge that we have on the ground in the field use it as I will say some kind of an assurance that will bring forth will bring that extra guarantee or extra assurance that the private sector is looking for to be able to invest in in agriculture that being said that moral or knowledge of the ground is not sufficient so developing the insurance product itself or guarantee schemes is something that okay we are working with different partners on on on that and what and you know I'm quite quite hopeful because tremendously what you notice there's a lot of initiative a lot of out of the box I'm thinking in developing new product that we need to experience obviously some of them will might not succeed we have to accept that yes we can have failure here and by far in large even yesterday you know I have a meeting that was planned for half hour ended up I've been 90 minutes away with one of this private sector we are elaborating plan to really get into very specific thematic area in eastern eastern Africa for for example so the capacity of the international community to develop new project for me is a strong alternative to the the the challenge we have on the ODS side that means said though I have to say that we have to remind ourselves that financing in itself is not the main and the main challenge the main issue and you touch on it Sean at the very beginning you know I'm sure sooner or later Agnes will come through the the capacity side and the knowledge on site so I'm not going to touch on that but to really look at how you put the different parts of this puzzle together and gaining in efficiency is going to be critical in in moving forward and and so yeah bringing those parts together I mean actually Reuben maybe if I turn to you I mean Latin America you know the Latin America and Caribbean region probably has about a third of the world's you know fresh water resources you know more than a quarter of the world's medium to high potential farmland but in order for the Latin American region to really deliver on this huge potential you know in a way you know that is going to be both you know financially viable but also nutritious and sustainable you know there are many of these moving parts as you'll bear is saying and so you know that are going to have to be brought into harmony so you know what role do you see then in Latin America can the food action alliance play in the context of the challenges that you that we face in the region thanks thanks for the invite I'm really happy to be here one of the reasons why we are really committed from the international public research perspective on this food alliance this great initiative is because exactly what the word that you use and your question which is harmony because we've been discussing the these elements of this new narrative on what is a sustainable food system that we all aspire but we are not there yet for a long time but we never had these type of partnerships all together in the same place before all together so as he was saying reason you know just now bringing the private sector bringing civil society to me agriculture is a business and farmers is their markets and these good consumption of good nutritious food there will be plenty of value chains making good profits so I from the Latin American perspective it's a very heterogeneous reality we have about 650 million people that's about half of what Africa has in population apparently everybody says that Latin America it has all the oxygen for the world the environmental public goods for the world and also the food for the world but we have a lot of challenges too for example we are the more the most overweight and obese of the world we have a lot of heterogeneity within countries and regions and so on so it's not as a one single Latin America and the Caribbean I think this initiative and the reason we are really committed behind it is because for us doing research on food and agriculture for a long time now we see all the partnerships convening connecting coordinating and more importantly sharing good practices I keep sometimes saying good practice and not best practices I think the good practices are enough we're still far away from the yields that we have a research or extension you know imagine digital imagine all the good technology that we have we can scale that up through this initiative I think we are going to be much better in the in the real future now it's not enough to have a sustainable food system narrative that we all agree with these four points that you mentioned in your introduction which they are great finally in a short time we do have a narrative that we agree what is a sustainable food system the important is to have sustainable partnerships and sustainable funding because we can have a lot of good alliances but what is the funding and as he was saying if the private sector comes in including the farming community in Latin America the countries themselves if we can map which are the two or three key elements from a country perspective how to bring the private the public and organizations together yes ODA is a fantastic thing to have but perhaps we don't need that much ODA anymore because the money is not in ODA only there are many other windows to leave each other exactly you leverage so so I am a pragmatic optimistic person looking into the future and I think yes we have a huge challenge but we never had all of these discussions bringing the challenges together and connecting the dots so I'm quite quite positive that having continued to do research on the subjects working at the country and local level not only global big messages which is important to agree but also the reality happens in the country see with that we are going ahead and there are many examples I mean it's not true we hide a lot of people all the time people say young people don't come to our culture it's not true it's not true I see them coming I'm not that young anymore and I see them coming to do research on digital ag to do digital extension and to do and to go to farming again in a new totally new concept thank you so it requires innovation of partnerships innovation of ideas innovation of the way we use digital technology and innovation in the way that we work together but Agnes I mean Ruben made a point there that this is not just about you know I mean we're here at the Sustainable Development Impact Summit in the context of the UN General Assembly but I mean this is not just about you know looking at global challenges I mean this is you know for for Africa I mean this really comes down to these are local challenges you know these are and they're tough challenges to to address and they can't be just addressed in isolation by one organization and and for African farmers this is real they're suffering you know in in the millions the impact of climate change and you know as we speak and so you know so how applicable you know is this and how important is you know something like the Food Action Alliance to support what needs to be done in in Africa both at the country and regional level but also right down to the to the farm yeah thank you Sean um I guess there's nowhere in the world that you get to see the opportunity for this the type of opportunity we are describing here as in Africa and and I will say why when you look at what is happening at farm level or local level there are so many institutions that are trying to get things done there's so much private sector a lot of it local private sector that is really trying to work with the farming community recognizing that 80 percent of the food that is being eaten in Africa is actually coming from smallholder farmers so an ecosystem has formed around those people that is feeding cities that is keeping the environment going now despite that these farmers are still producing suboptimary and and because of that a number of institutions whether it is research institutions whether it's development partner institutions have formed that are also trying to work towards increasing the yields of farmers ensuring that farmers have the right extension that they have the right levels of seeds and fertilizers that can increase their yields my institution deals with really ensuring that farmers have access to to technology so that they can increase yields and it's true that in the last 10 years yields have actually increased in Africa but they are still extremely low compared to what is happening to the rest of the world now that is being now completely reversed with the onset of climate change because despite that we we we depend on these farmers for for our livelihoods only less than three percent of the land they are using is regated so the idea of climate change the coming on come the the onset of climate change is completely destroying their lives now there's an opportunity here we've come together in the past we've come together and said let's do something let's support private sector let's support governments let's really drive a force that will transform we had the new alliance right we had the grow Africa I feel like we've we we were headed in the right direction with those type of initiatives right now at agro we have local initiatives at local level where we talk about local private sector but for me the question is always how do these things scale how do do things go deep enough I think the opportunity that this type of partnership we are talking about here presents is first of all learning from some of the mistakes we've made learning from some of the opportunities we need to take far enough learning from this the the fact that there's a real opportunity here to scale good initiatives and and the food action alliance does present an opportunity for us to come together and think through where did we come short when we were busy pushing for serious private sector investments in Africa where did we come short when we are pushing for when we all do meet in those landscapes trying to invest but we actually don't add up where do we fall short so there's an opportunity here for all these initiatives to come together the right way add up and they are real good examples shown where farmers working in potatoes in Kenya have created working with private sector local local governments have created an alliance that is delivering for smallholder farmers delivering for private sector and is actually anchored in what is happening local government and is funded by donors so these things can actually happen and you can take them to scale brilliant thank you so AJ I mean you know obviously I mean there are more than 570 million farms in the world and India you know I mean you know a large number of those are run by you know individual or families you know on on small you know land holdings and I mean from your perspective as an Indian farmer I mean why is something like the food action alliance possible I'm I'm just conscious of the time and I want to also just get a couple of questions as well so I think so there's so many farmers and they're mostly the small farmers that it's not possible for the government to reach out to all farmers and so an alliance is required not only between private sector and government but even between multilateral funding agencies banking sector for food processing sector it's also required between extension services research institutions so this alliance will be able to work together to scale up models which are working to accelerate development and to deliver faster results what this alliance I hope will also manage to do is not only be able to help farmers with modern knowledge but also be able to take knowledge that is available on the farms of the indigenous people and all the farmers and take it back to the research system which is not happening worldwide and and this is why it has to be a two-way flow of information going down services being available and also what we see in India and other places is that there is a great focus on increasing productivity I have a saying in my village which says that when one farmer works hard he becomes rich but when all farmers work hard they all become poor because there's so much productivity and there's nobody lifting that goods off the farm so you need these alliances to be able to not only market those produce but that they grow the right stuff in the right way and I think it can't be done by any one institution even if it's the government you need an alliance to make it work at the end of the day I'm not sure if there's any specific questions from anyone so I mean concrete next steps then I mean how how would you you know as you'll bear you know in terms of you know this alliance I mean you know what do we need to do you know in the next 12 months then to really see see this you know be be something that's successful I mean even before talking about the next 12 months I want to talk about the next four months between now and our next meeting is January in Davos we really need to come with very concrete ready to to to roll action action plan that I will expect and we know very well that together with with Agra with the Africa Development Bank and we need to with the few countries to really have concrete proposal you mentioned at the beginning because of the issues are so big we just need to tackle some of them and have a concrete action and move so not only our team already working on that but secondly also yesterday I haven't got a what's up message from one of the minister that was at the at the meeting in in Agra asking me what's next and we're waiting for you guys to tell us what's going to be next so we want to our team will be finalizing together with a few countries that we are selecting a concrete action plan for us to move and then in the next year we'll meet here I will really my hope and my ambition is for us to be able to report back on concretely what is happening not in discussion on what should happen but what is happening and that's what the challenge I'm giving to ourselves I mean I really like this I'm just going to go to Rubin because he was asking but I really like this sense that we need this action that we need to be accountable you know to to those actions Ruben yeah two concrete points one is that thanks to EFAT and the World Economic Forum of course we are putting up together a regional alliance for Latin America and the Caribbean so following up on this alliance which is a global one to have more traction on the ground in the region and the second point so that's working well and so we can report hopefully quickly months how is that happening how is that coordination and discussion and networks are going to be built the second point is that we are mapping at the country level what we call sustainable system country profiles five to ten pages very simple what are the options because there are a lot of power points out there about sustainable systems but what do we do in country X so we are starting to from the research side put all the elements that are known in a small package to say well perhaps when EFAT dialogues with a country X with the Ministry of Finance they can use that evidence from public research to to have more concrete action so we are doing those two things very concrete hopefully before the end of the year we can show some results thank you so maybe the same spirit AJ you know concrete actions I think by the end of the year I think as a farmer I would say not only concrete actions are required but also what is required is sometimes we don't need to do something that has been that has failed in another location so the learnings is not only the success stories but even the failures need to come back so we don't repeat the same this point earlier yes how do we make sure we we've had these partnerships we've had different alliances how do we if we're going to create a larger you know more comprehensive alliance you know how do we really learn from that Agnes the last word over to you no thank you we we are already working on a number of initiatives together we Agra has been having a number of meetings with EFAT at country level trying to like you said Sean at the beginning how do we put it in a country context and ensure that what we are doing is aligned to countries own priorities we are not coming up with an agenda these are not our countries these countries already have an agenda how do we align to this their work and what they are trying to achieve and just ensure that we are adding up so I think for me what would be really different is how we find a few of those a few countries not more than five agree that in these countries we are not just going to work together we are going to get together and find other partners as well and agree to really drive down together and see what that will look like at the end of the year but also see what to look like in the next few years that can be an example of what working together in these countries will look like and at the center of that there has to be private sector this is all about ensuring that we are anchoring our resources to something more sustainable being private sector so it's everyone working together isn't it it's private sector government you know smallholder farmer organizations farmers themselves civil society so thank you so action alignment and accountability so we hope for a very successful food action alliance and thank you very much thank you thank you so much


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Hi everyone, what do you do when you experience unwanted emotions? For some, people resort to talking it out, trying to cope, or simply by just eating something. But for intense emotions, this might not always work. I'm Monica and I'm a first year medic and graduate in neuroscience. During my clinical observerships, I've seen surgical and medical emergencies, things that you could say sometimes warrant some really intense emotions. And so I think it's especially important to have skills to be able to process our emotions so that we're best able to learn and to grow from these experiences. And that's today's topic of the Ask an Expert series, where we chat with experts about topics around mental health, psychiatry, and neurology. I am so honored to introduce you to Emma from Therapy in a Nutshell today, where we'll be talking about how to process your emotions. Welcome Emma. Hi, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being here. Could you just introduce yourself to everyone, to tell everyone about the amazing work that you do? Thanks. So I'm a Macadam, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I am also the creator of the YouTube channel Therapy in a Nutshell. And I just boil down mental health education and skills into little bite-sized packages so that people can learn how to work through big emotions. Wonderful. And I've seen you've had work done on your channel about processing emotions, and it's such a big topic that you even have a whole course devoted to it. So I think we could just probably just dive right in and just to start for those who are unsure or completely new to the area of emotional processing. What does it actually mean to process your emotions? Yeah. So I think a lot of times when people are trying to figure out what to do with a big feeling, like, oh, I feel really sad or I feel really anxious or I'm experiencing a lot of grief, they might wonder, what do I do about this feeling? And if you do a typical search and you look for the answer to that question, you're going to get some kind of Pat answer in some kind of article that's like, oh, you know, take a deep breath, journal about it, talk about it, or reach out to a therapist. And that's like the answers you see like over and over and over again.  And the reality is emotions are really big and they're really complex.  And what I do is I teach people how to work through these steps. So if people are familiar with my YouTube channel, they'll know I've got a course on it and it's got 31 videos as like the main, like the main steps because that's like the fewest I could break it down to is like 31 little steps. But there is an overall process and the overall big picture process is this idea of when you have really big emotions, you take them and you have to first start where you stand and notice them and name them. What am I feeling right? And then you have to create space because our immediate reaction is to avoid or escape or suppress emotions. So you create space to have those emotions and this next process is called willingness and that's from acceptance and commitment therapy.  Seems like there is definitely a lot to break down. I think what might be more useful? Do you think we should come up with like a sample situation that people might experience from like, I don't know, anxiety or like depression or do you think it's more useful to talk about general kind of, what is it called, kind of pillars and go from there? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it's easy for me to work when we do have an example. So if you can come up with an example of someone who's experiencing an intense emotion, then we could definitely break it down into practical steps. I definitely think social anxiety is a really big one. I mean, just when I was starting out to do these streams, it was one where I was like and in motion, I was always feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm so worried and everything. But while things have gotten a lot better, I think it's always good to really know how to process it to improve for the next stream and so on. So yeah, we could definitely use social anxiety as one of them. And I see in the comments here as well that people resonate with that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and social anxiety is one of the most common experiences out there. Like it's one of the highest percentages of disorders that people experience. But even when it's not disordered, the vast majority of people experience social anxiety at some point in their lives. So something that's really common with social anxiety is that people get anxious about their anxiety. They'll be presenting and they'll notice like, oh, I'm feeling shaky or I'm feeling sweaty. They'll be, you know, talking in front of people or even at a party and they'll be observing themselves and be like, oh my gosh, am I making enough? I contact like, what if I get nervous? I can't get nervous. And then if they start to get nervous, then they'll they'll feel bad. And the number one most common thing people do is try to like if they're giving a presentation, they'll try to like suppress those feelings. Like, oh, I can't feel anxious right now. I can't get all sweaty right now. My voice can't get shaky right now. And they'll make all these rules about what they can and can't feel. Or if they're at a party, they're like, oh, if I get anxious, I'm not going. Right. They'll avoid. These are our most common reactions to emotions is like, got to make this go away. And in some ways, our society has created this belief that like having anxiety is a bad thing and that it's dangerous to have anxiety. So we get anxious around our anxiety. And so when it comes to processing social anxiety in those two situations, let's say one is like just interacting with friends and the other might be a presentation. First thing to do is to check your rules around anxiety. And if you have the rules like it's not OK to feel anxious, I have to leave. If I feel anxious, I have to make my heart stop beating so fast. I have to make my breathing stop breathing so fast. That's actually going to make you feel worse. So we talked about noticing a name and say, oh, hey, hi, anxiety, glad to see you showed up today. And then we let go of judgment. And this is all kind of this first step in emotion processing. Letting go of judgment and suppression and avoid and say, it's OK to feel anxious. It's OK to feel anxious and do it anyway. I feel anxious about being on YouTube live right now and I'm going to do it anyway. That's just part of living a meaningful life is that things are going to be uncomfortable sometimes. So when it comes to emotion processing, the first thing you have to do is kind of let go of the struggle against emotions, stop labeling them as bad, stop thinking of emotions as being positive and negative and instead describe them. Is this uncomfortable? Or is this comfortable? That's more of a descriptive term than like, oh, this is terrible that I feel this way. OK. And this process with acceptance of commitment therapy is called willingness. It's creating space to feel and you tell yourself, I can allow myself to feel uncomfortable emotions without needing to make them go away. And it's actually a skill that you can practice. One of the ways I teach people to practice it is with like physical sensations so you could practice doing something that's physically uncomfortable, like holding an ice cube or doing a wall sit or even if it's safe for you medically to hold your breath for a little while and to notice what those physical sensations are and instead of being like, oh, this hurts so much, it's terrible.  What does this what does this feel like to be doing a deep squat right now? And you can increase your emotional awareness around that. So that's really the big first part of emotion processing. And I've mentioned that quite a bit is like creating space to feel your emotions. And this is so observing what you're feeling and then just being really willing to feel it instead of creating all these labels and rules around it. And is that different for someone who experiences like everyday anxiety compared to someone who experiences maybe a full on anxiety disorder? Are those steps still the same? Or are there slight modifications that one would need to make? This is a really good question. And this comes down to how I personally conceptualize anxiety and anxiety disorders. There are different therapists who take different approaches and and that's OK. I think each person needs to consider which type of conceptualization is going to be most helpful for them when it comes to their anxiety and their anxiety disorder. So for some people choosing to say I have an anxiety disorder and because of this, I'm going to choose to limit certain things I do like, oh, I'm not going to do public speaking is my job. That's OK, right? That might be really helpful for them and for other people saying I experience an anxiety disorder, but only because right now it's dialed up really high for me and I can dial it down and be more functional in this way works. So the short answer to your question is emotion processing works for both. That's that's the short answer to your question. And one of the reasons I think in this way, I use acceptance and commitment therapy and I'm just really, really cautious about labels. So, yes, anxiety disorders are genuine, real experience. They interfere with your functioning and they're very uncomfortable. But I'm very cautious about someone labeling themselves like the helpfulness of someone labeling themselves as being an anxious person or as that's who I am or I have this I have this disorder and it's a permanent trait of mine versus this is an experience I'm having. I'm going to choose adaptive and flexible ways to manage it. So I choose to lean on the like this is an experience, whether it's really severe or not. And I'm going to choose adaptive ways and flexible ways to manage it. And if we if we conceptualize it that way, someone who does have an anxiety disorder like social anxiety disorder, they they increase their options for managing it. And that's what matters to me. I just focus more on like, what are we going to do about it? Then like, is this a permanent situation or not? Yeah, can you still hear me? Yeah. OK. I don't know why, but I can't really hear you very well. I don't know why this like situation is going on. I'm going to I'm going to move my mic a little closer. Perfect. And that might help. Yes, that better. Yes, much better. Thanks for letting me know. OK, perfect. Yeah, that's what I think, too. Like, it's really good to notice the way that you're speaking to yourself. I know I had a stream earlier on in the Doctor Conte who was mentioning the importance of using accurate language. Because sometimes if we say things like, oh, I have feelings that I'm, you know, my heart's racing a bit faster. It's completely different than just saying, oh, my God, I'm having a mental breakdown right now because that is not helpful at all. So it's good that you mentioned that because it's also a really good reminder for me as well to kind of in processing my emotions using accurate language and doing so. Mm hmm. Yep. And so we use we use words to describe instead of label. We use words to be curious, a beginner's mind. This is from mindfulness, right? A beginner's mind. We just get really curious about what we're feeling instead of instead of judging it and saying, this is awful, right? And just be really cautious with your language. And then the next step with the motion processing is to clarify, right? Like clarify. And this includes like using a locus of control activity. Like, what can I control? What can't I control or clarifying what our thoughts are, right? If we think, oh, this is a catastrophe or we think, oh, this is hard. That's like two very different ways of thinking about social anxiety. And so that's the next step in emotion processing is really clarifying a lot of times with social anxiety. One of the things you'll see that people need to clarify is their assumptions. People make a lot of assumptions about what other people think. So they're assuming everyone's judging me. Everyone's looking at me. Everyone must be noticing how fast my heart is beating and thinking that I'm weak or unskilled or, you know, whatever it is. And and so with social anxiety, you check those assumptions. And that's the next step. I use an acronym with emotion processing. Oh, we can. Oh, is observed. W is willingness. E is explore. So you're just like, be curious. What's this feel like? And C is clarify, clarify and calm down. So you use.  What thoughts am I having? What cognitive distortions am I doing? What assumptions am I making that's that's contributing to my anxiety? And then also using like a lot of body grounding experience exercises and experiences to calm your body down. And I'm just going to overview this really quick. And then we can go back to any specific questions you might have. So then the that's the C clarify and calm down. And then a is act and accept. So I kind of mentioned this in the beginning, right? I feel I feel some anxiety about being live. I feel some anxiety about presenting. And I choose that my values are helping people learn mental health skills. So I'm going to choose to engage in this activity. Anyways, I'm going to accept that anxiety is part of living a full and meaningful life for me, and I'm going to take action to be here right now. And then the end I just threw in the end so that it makes a cute acronym. Oh, we can. That's that. Yeah, that's what the ends for. So O is observe W is be willing to feel let go of your rules and your struggle. E is explore, C is clarify and calm your body. A is act and accept. And then N is just because you can do it. I'm taking notes because this is wonderful. I love acronyms and this helpful memory mnemonics that you can apply. Yes, so O observe W willingness, explore, see, clarify, calm down, a act and accept, and you can do it. Yeah, and because you can. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's the acronym I use and there's like a little download on my website if people want to see an overview of the process. OK, wonderful. We'll definitely include a link in the after the stream. And in terms of kind of processing emotions for like different sort of kind of feeling so we have anxiety, but then we also have things like depression, things that sometimes don't have necessarily and an organic cause, you can say, or something you can pinpoint, say, this is the reason why I'm feeling this way. How would you process those emotions? Yeah, so depression, I would consider depression, for example, as being one. Like a like a ball of yarn that has been wound and wound and wound and wound, right, like so you might have a lot of experiences like as a child, maybe you experience some trauma or abuse. And then as an adult, you started creating these conceptualizations like, oh, I'm a bad person.  And that's another string that winds around it or you might have like some discouraging experiences or you might have learned that the best way to respond to situations is to to kind of give up to curl up in a ball. All right. To be like, this is like the most of that. I'm not going to succeed at this. So I might as well quit trying. And so like depression is such a huge bundle of consistent experiences that add up to this overwhelming experience. So processing depression looks like breaking it down into tiny, tiny little little snippets at a time. So you might be having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.  And that's kind of the observing part of oh, we can write. I'm going to observe myself laying in bed and instead of judging myself and labeling myself and beating myself up, I'm just going to be really curious. What does it feel like to not want to get out of bed? And I'm going to be willing to let myself feel that sadness just for a few minutes. It doesn't mean you have to accept that you're going to feel sad forever. That's the willingness. I'm going to explore if there's any thoughts. This is the E. I'm going to explore if there's any thoughts that are contributing to this.  Like that's a cognitive distortion that might lead to like staying in bed all morning. And I'm going to clarify that. Is that true? You have to do everything today or you might as well not get out of bed. Let's challenge that thought. Let's be really gentle with myself while I do this, like really compassionate, but like say, well, maybe what if I just did one thing this morning, maybe I just get out of bed and wash my face and then I can get back in bed? That's a clarification type activity. And then you choose an action or you accept. And that's the next step, right? Is actor accept? She said, well, maybe I'll get up, I'll wash my face, I'll get back in bed. And that's how you could like break down emotion processing for depression. When depression is such a huge, you know, bundle of yarn, we just take it like one minute, five minutes at a time, something like that. OK, I see. So we're going to kind of progress in the in terms of more complex situations, so that's OK, because I think I understand and hopefully the audience also understands like the idea of, oh, we can for social anxiety or situations that we can clearly identify. This is a stimulus that causes us to feel a certain way and depression where there might be tons of things that cause us to feel a specific way. But what happens for things like schizophrenia when our ability to then process and to understand the world might not be at its full potential? Oh, that's such a great question. I love it. And, you know, acceptance of commitment therapy has been shown to be effective. That's one of my main models. I use a lot of different models, but acceptance of commitment therapy has been shown to be effective to a degree for people with schizophrenia, because it does help them be more accepting of their experiences, including their experiences like hallucinations or delusions, things like that. So those first steps of observing and noticing, you might be like, oh, I'm feeling I'm feeling off. I'm feeling confused or I'm noticing this, this hallucination. And you can still process it in a way. But for a lot of people, when our emotions get really extreme, when we're experiencing like a crisis, we have to include scaffolds around our processing experience, because basically when we're highly emotional, the thinking part of our brain shuts down. And so I'm imagining right now someone having a panic attack. I'm imagining someone having maybe like a severe break. Like someone just broke up with them and they're like super upset. And I'm not an expert with schizophrenia. So I'm not going to address that one as much and hopefully leave that to people who are a little bit more expert in that area. But with really extreme emotions where you can't just calmly work through them. We create scaffolds to support the thinking part of our brain. So when we're experiencing an attention motion, the fight or flight response goes off in our brain and the higher thinking process is shut down and we just go into this kind of more emotionally reactive part of our brains. So we have to turn. We have to have these habits and routines that help us process emotions. And that includes things like talking to someone. So anything that makes processing anything that makes your emotions and thoughts concrete is helpful. So that's like talking to someone that makes it out loud. Instead of putting it in your head, that makes it more concrete writing it down, that helps make it more physical and concrete and makes it more clear. And you might be really surprised at how writing things down really helps when you're anxious or depressed or grieving or hurt or offended or angry.  You'll also see this is helpful with people with ADHD. Right? Like they're having a hard time with executive functioning. They're having a hard time getting the boss part of their brain to tell the emotional part of their brain like, chill out. It's going to be OK. Let's think through this rationally. So all of the scaffolding is really helpful when you're highly, highly emotional or dealing with intense struggles. Other types of activities that are helpful with the scaffolding. And this all includes like I love paper, right? Like I love writing things down physically. Nick Wignall, he's one of my favorite bloggers. He says, never worry in your head. Write it down so you can do an activity like scheduled worry where every day at 12 30, you write down your worries and you put them on paper and that helps you process them. You can do an activity that helps clarify like a locus of control activity where you write, you take a piece of paper and you put a line down the middle and you write on one side of the piece of paper like this is in my control and on the other side you write this is out of my control and you write it down. You just put everything down and that helps clarify. That's the C step in emotion processing. And so did that answer your question? Like when things are really extreme, how can you use emotion processing? Using scaffold to support the thinking part of our brain. Yes, I think so. And I think it's really nice that you wrote out, you said that you wrote things out as well, because I think that's also very helpful. I wasn't even aware of this, the term for it, but I've always been a really big fan of journaling and I think scheduling time during the day to just think and just to write things out and make things concrete has been very, very helpful. So thank you for also bringing that up. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So at this point, I just thought I would summarize kind of the points that we've mentioned and then I want to introduce a very special guest to everyone as well, Michelle, who has been helping out with this Ask an Expert livestream. She'll be interacting with you all and picking some of the questions that you've asked. So if you have questions, feel free to put them in the chat now and they'll possibly be answered. So for the summary, essentially, we explored, oh, we can observe willingness, explore, clarify and calm down, act and accept and for you can do it as a good way for processing our emotions. We've also used some concrete examples. So we talked about social anxiety. We mentioned depression and more complex situations like schizophrenia. So with that, I am going to introduce you all to Michelle. Hi, Michelle. I think she's muted. Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to be here. Welcome. So I'll give this to you for the last little bit to just interact with the audience and see if anyone has any questions about processing emotions and yeah. I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Michelle and I'm going to be hosting my own livestream in a few weeks for Ask an Advocate on topics about mental health awareness and access to health care. So I'm going to be taking some questions from the audience. I have a few right here. And so the first one is, Emma, how do you suggest getting out of a bad relationship, especially if it causes you anxiety? This was asked by a heli. So I guess my first question is, does the relationship cause you anxiety or leaving the relationship cause you anxiety? And I know we can't really clarify that. But if the relationship causes you anxiety, I might have an answer that people don't don't like. How do you get out of a bad relationship? If you know the relationship is toxic, you've got to start with an affirmation and saying like, here is like real clarity on who you are and what you want in your relationship. So you clarify your values. I want a relationship where we were able to talk about difficult problems in a healthy way. I want a relationship where I am treated with respect. I want a relationship where we share mutual goals or whatever that is. Right.  Now, if you're anxious about setting those boundaries, if you're anxious about like the boundaries, like I will leave because this isn't getting met, then it's not going to be very popular. But a lot of people want the anxiety to go away before they take the action that they need to take. Oh, when I'm not anxious, then I'll do a presentation. When I'm not anxious, then I'll set this boundary. When I feel comfortable, then I'll say no to my boss. Right. And instead I say, you got to reverse that. You've got to say, even though I feel anxious, I'm going to make the right choice for me. Even though I feel anxious, I'm going to give this presentation. And that's what acceptance and commitment therapy is all about. Right. And emotion processing is saying I'm going to allow these emotions to be here and still choose to act on my values. So I would just, I love values, clarification activities. What do I value? What do I believe in?  That rule is false, right? Being kind includes telling people no, because that's kind to yourself. And it's probably kind for them, right?  So you say, I value kindness. I'm going to do this even though this hurts and I can handle feeling uncomfortable emotions. That doesn't mean it's a bad choice. No, that's a great explanation. I agree with you, like valuing kindness. That's extremely important in anything. Another question, and this was asked by Liam and it's been asked by a few people, but he asked, Emma, can you give advice to someone on how to help a friend or a sibling that has thoughts of self-harm? Hmm. Good question. It's a big question. How to help a friend or sibling who has thoughts of self-harm? First thing to say, I would say is ask them about it straight up. So there's good evidence showing that if you ask someone directly, are you feeling suicidal? Are you having thoughts of hurting yourself? That's not going to make them like this brand new idea come into their head and they're suddenly going to be more likely to self-harm. So get be willing to ask the really hard questions. Second, I would say is like know what your resources are in your area and know what resources are available for people. So in the United States, we've got the 988. That's the new Suicide Prevention hotline. You can call them for specific advice for you. Like, oh, how can I help someone? And a therapist can give you their time to talk you through some options. And in addition to that, your friend or sibling can also call that line. I would say get really good at the skill of empathic listening so where you can listen without needing to necessarily give a lot of advice or tell people what to do or talk about yourself, like learn to listen well and ask a good, good open-ended questions like, oh, what's that like for you? You know, ask questions like that instead of just feeling like you need to give them a lot of advice. Yeah, those are the first things that come to my mind, but you can call that 988 number yourself and ask a counselor there for suggestions for your specific situation. And then of course, you know, always try to help them get the resources that can support them. So if they're in school, there might be resources in their school. In your local community, there might be mental health resources in their local community or in your church or in your network. So get more people involved. Like if you're the only person who knows that this person is suicidal, that's very heavy for you. And I would say get get more people involved, more friends, more parents, more teachers, more administrators, more community support. Thank you so much. And then Tristan asked, how do I process my emotions in an argument with my girlfriend if she doesn't want to continue the argument and it's left open-ended? Whew, that's hard, right? It can be really hard to tolerate those those relations like like a fight in a relationship because I think for a lot of us, we want our relationships to always feel good and to always be happy and never have any problems is really hard for me. Like if I have a disagreement with my husband and it's left open for me to not want to just keep going back and fixing it. So I think the first thing to recognize is that processing emotions is an internal process and your half of this disagreement is what's in your control. So I do the locus of control activity, right? What's in my control? What isn't and just clarify that right off the bat. I can't change how she feels. I can't change what she thinks. I can't change how she acts. I can't change what she does, right? And you change like, what can I do? I can work on myself. I can learn what to do with my own feelings in regard to this argument. I can learn new ways to communicate on my half of this relationship. And, you know, when I was in training, one of our trainers used to say this all the time, he said, a good relationship is not 50 50. A good relationship is 100 100. Each person just puts in 100 percent of their half. And that's it. You can only focus on on your half of the situation. So again, I would I would encourage you to write about it. I would encourage you to find someone safe who you can talk with. Because that is a hard thing in a relationship, like when you have a fight with someone or a disagreement, you don't want to necessarily break their trust and go to like their friends or your family members and talk bad about them. So find someone else who you can reach out to and and talk about it with. There's a couple ways. No, I totally agree with that. Like that's like a big one that was asked like throughout the chat. But another viewer asked, how do you manage anger? I've suppressed it for so long for the sake of self-preservation. Good question. I love I love it. First thing to think about is anger is often a secondary emotion. So for a lot of people and especially men, they've been taught like all of their emotions are a sign of weakness, but anger is acceptable. And it sounds like this person's kind of the opposite, right? Like they've been suppressing anger. Now anger, all emotions serve a function. That's one part of observing and being willing to feel emotions is to recognize emotion serve a function.  So if someone's hurting my child in a very severe way, I'm going to feel very angry.  In that situation, anger is a functional response that is helpful. Now the other 95% of time anger is covering up more sensitive emotions like sadness, guilt, grief, hurt, disappointment. And in those situations, you want to really explore what's this anger about.  Research shows that's not really that effective, usually. And I think that's because a lot of times anger is about something else. Check yourself, what's this anger about? Is there an action you need to take to create safety? And if not, like, is there a boundary you need to set?  Then you need to like that anger serves a function and you need to create that boundary to create safety. The rest of the time, though, maybe you're feeling angry because you're actually guilty and you're feeling guilty about something you did and you need to fix that.  And so as you process emotions, explore like, what's underneath this anger? Now, every once in a while, anger really is valid. And I'm not saying ignore the anger, suppress the anger or make it go away. But I'm saying like, spend a minute with and get really curious.  You say, huh, I'm so curious, get really curious about anger. What does it feel like to be angry? Where do I feel this anger in my body? What what what kind of thoughts do I have when I'm angry?  So this is asking you to kind of pendulate back to the thinking part of your brain and swing into that and explore those thoughts. So I would say that's the next thing I'd say, get really curious about anger. What is it was like? And as you lean into that, it might give you more opportunities to explore what it's about and to work through it, see what action this is asking you to take, or what problem it's asking you to solve, or if you're thinking around this situation is really distorted, that's making you angry. Like if you think everyone's out to get me or life is so unfair, that kind of thinking is going to make you feel angry when maybe you're actually quite safe or you're distorting the problem. That is a really like, how do I answer this question in two minutes? And it's like, oh, you could spend a couple hours on this question. Right. Yeah. A lot of questions on anger. And Sylvia just asked a very she has two very interesting questions. She asked, how do you process jealousy or the so-called bad emotions in a healthy way? And she asked, are there is there such thing as bad emotions or are they just socially labeled that way? Good question. OK, I personally do not believe there are negative and positive emotions. I believe every emotion serves a function when it's being really honest. But often we create distorted emotions by thinking in the best way I can say is an exaggeration or a lie, like a cognitive distortion might make us feel a so-called negative emotion more often than is valid. So like I said, with anger, right? If I'm running around thinking everyone's out to get me, life is so unfair.  Like if you're having this kind of running dialogue in your head, you're going to interpret a situation falsely and that's going to lead to intense emotions that aren't as helpful at living the life you value. So I don't ask the question, oh, is it a negative emotion? Is it bad to feel this way? I ask, is this emotion helping me act in a way that lines up with my values? And if that emotion is not helping me act in a way that's lining up with my values, then I'm going to choose to work through and process that emotion or notice that emotion and accept that emotion and choose to shift my focus to something more helpful. So instead of using words like positive and negative or good and bad or right and wrong emotions, I use words like comfortable and uncomfortable, helpful and unhelpful or accurate and distorted. Those are the kinds of words I use to describe emotions. So jealousy, let's take jealousy. Does jealousy usually help you act in a way that lines up with the kind of person you want to be? Does jealousy usually help you build a healthy relationship that's really positively oriented toward happiness and growth and love and support and commitment? I can think of a couple situations where jealousy might be helpful, right? Like a committed relationship usually involves excluding other people from that relationship. So in that way, like jealousy can motivate us to say, I will not accept an open relationship. For example, I will only accept a committed relationship. In that way, jealousy can be helpful.  I'm going to blow up and scream and yell at him. Like that's probably not going to lead to a really healthy relationship. So how would I process jealousy? I would ask, what's the core that you really want? Like, what do you want in a relationship? What does it look like? And then I would say, what kind of actions lead toward that relationship? And I would kind of disregard the emotion as a motivation. I would say, OK, I'm going to notice that. I'm going to notice that I'm feeling jealous. I'm going to notice that I'm having intense emotions. I'm going to describe it. I'm going to get curious about it. I'm going to pretend like it's Mars and I've never felt it before. And then I'm going to say, what do I want? And I'm going to clarify my values in that relationship and choose action that lines up with those values. So in some ways, jealousy can be healthy if you're like setting boundaries or like communicating those boundaries in a healthy way. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so let's say you're dating a guy and you are you want to be exclusive. Maybe you haven't clarified that and you see him like spending time with someone else in a way that you're not comfortable with. Jealousy might motivate you. Emotions are about motivation. They ask us a question and they ask us, what are you going to do about things? So it might motivate you just to clarify that relationship and say, look, I'm only going to be in a relationship with you if we're exclusive from now on. And if you change that, if you choose to not be exclusive, then I'm going to choose not to be in a relationship with you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I totally agree with that. That's like a good way of putting it. And then this is the last question. So how do you support someone who's experiencing grief? Such a good question and also a hard question. And I think I'm learning more and more that grief is a universal experience that most of us have gotten like no education on. That's what I'm learning. Like I've made a couple of videos on grief and I've just had tons of people watch them because I think a lot of people are really struggling with this. So it's it's normal. OK, so grief, educating yourself as much as possible. The first thing I want to say, and I don't want this to be like a shameless promotion, but I just worked with a grief expert to make a couple of courses on grief because there needs to be education about us. The first thing I would say is like learn about it and learn that you can experience grief in all kinds of situations. You can grieve like a divorce. You can grieve the loss of a pet. You can grieve the loss of a job or a future or even your past that maybe you lost to depression or anxiety. So grief is normal. Grief is the internal emotional experience and mourning is the external experience. And so how can you support someone who's grieving? I the first thing I would say is be willing to ask them about it. Say, would you like to talk about what you're going through? It's OK if you don't. If you just want to sit, hang out, do something fun. But if you want to talk about it, I'm here for you. And don't just say like, oh, you know, let me know if there's something you need. Ask them specifically, can I make you dinner? Can I come over and sit with you? Can I do X, Y, Z for you and like propose something specific? I think people worry a lot about doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing. But I think people who are grieving. Actually wish people wouldn't tiptoe around them as much and we just ask them. You don't have to say, hey, tell me about what's going on for you. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of things not to say like, oh, have you gotten over it yet? Hey, like if someone like lost their husband, if their husband died, hey, when are you going to start dating? Are you over it yet? You know, things like that, like that's not super helpful, but asking an open-ended question like or asking a question like, hey, would you like to talk about what's going on for you? It offering to spend time with them can be helpful. The other thing I would say is like acknowledge that grief isn't something people get over in a week or a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Like the grief process for really big losses is often a year or more or longer. There's no time frame on this, right? And so I would also say, ask them how they're doing three months from now, ask them how they're doing four months from now, ask them how they're doing five months from now and develop the skills yourself to be a good listener. So like again, like I said previously, like empathic listening, like learning how to listen without needing to give advice or talk about yourself or ask a ton of questions is a really valuable skill. And increasing your emotional tolerance, like I use this phrase all the time. A lot of times people like their goal is I just want to get feeling better. I just want to feel happy. I just want to feel good. And I would say what if instead you get really good at feeling? What if you get really good at handling like feeling anxiety or sadness or grief so that when you feel those things, it doesn't bother you anymore. It's like strengthening your muscles instead of taking off your backpack because feeling is part of living and grieving is part of loving. So if you want to help someone grieve, I would say, like develop the skills to feel feelings and make that rule that it's OK, like it's OK to feel sad. It's OK to cry with someone. It's OK to be distraught for a little while. And that's like a framework shift more than just like, oh, here's the here's the thing to say. So I hope that's helpful. Of course, absolutely. And I actually wanted to say that the misconception sometimes is that everyone experiences grief the same way, and that's not true at all. Like it's different for everyone, honestly. Totally, totally. And some people like want to talk about it and hug and cry and be around a ton of people and some people want to just like listen to sad songs and like look at pictures and that's part of their process. And that's OK. And some people just want to go for a hike or work on their car. Right. Like exactly. A lot of different ways to process emotions. Well, thank you so much, Emma. Thank you for answering all these amazing questions. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. So thanks for having me. Thank you so much, Michelle, for interacting. Thank you so much for your expertise and for the audience for engaging with us in this very special stream, because we've never done something like this before. So if you guys like this format of getting to chat about theory and then getting to actually apply this in your situations that you're experiencing now, then yeah, please leave your thoughts in the comments and what you'd like to see next. So again, thank you so much, everyone. Thank you, Emma. Would you like to share a bit about your course before we head off or about your channels just for people to watch next after they watch the stream? Yeah, I mean, you can find me on YouTube at TherapyInanuchelle or that's my website as well, therapyinanuchelle.com. Perfect. So until then, bye. See you guys. Bye.


We need to get you more options, and we need to get the health care providers more resources. That's what we need to do. But part of what giving sufferers more options starts with overcoming the stigma. This is a medical problem. This is not a moral failure. This is something you should be no more ashamed of than you should be ashamed of getting pneumonia. It's not your fault. You have it. You have to do something about it.


This paper presents an automatic solution to the problem of detecting and counting cars in unmanned aerial vehicle images. We use a deep convolutional neural network, CNN, system that is already pre-trained on huge auxiliary data as a feature extraction tool. The experimental results have proven that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods, both in terms of accuracy and computational time. This article was authored by Nassim Amour, Haikal El-Hikri, Yakub Batzi, and others.


Welcome to another edition of Hawaii Rotary, People of Action. I am so happy to introduce you to Steve Mazer today. We have the president of the Eco Rotary Club, the Rotary Eco Club of Kakaako, and he's going to tell us all about this fascinating new club. So we're just going to jump right in, Steve, if that's okay with you. Sure. Great. By the way, my name is Janet Schaeffer. Again, I am the public image chair for the District 5000 for Rotary in Hawaii, and we come to you here at 10 o'clock every other Thursday morning, bringing you all the news of Rotary in Hawaii. So again, Steve, welcome. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your background. Great. Thanks for having me. I grew up in, well, I was born in Chicago, lived in a big city until I was very young, moved down to Florida, and grew up close to the beach where I felt very connected to nature and the ocean. In 2008, which is when the economy sort of tanked in Florida and globally, it was a good time to hit the reset button. I applied to the MBA program to University of Hawaii. I found out they were giving scholarships for business school at Scheidler. And so I applied, and in 2008, I moved out to Oahu. And so the first almost two years that I was here, I was a full-time business student completing my MBA. And right after that, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do or what I would do. And I discovered Revolusa and a startup solar company. They were about six months old at the time with an office in Chinatown, and I ended up getting into commercial solar development. Oh, that's the interest in the environment. Yeah. It checked all the boxes, finance and business, but also helping us move away from a fossil fuel-based economy. Absolutely. A very, very noble business to be in, and Revolusa has done amazing things in our community. So I know that you're very interested in the environment in other ways, and it's entered your rotary life. We are here today to talk about this brand-new, amazing concept for a rotary club. It's a topical rotary club, the Eco Rotary Club of Kaka Ako. Am I saying that right? You got it. Oh, okay. Eco Rotary Club of Kaka Ako. Steve is the current president, and it's a fascinating new concept for a club. A new club started recently. Please tell us the vision. Why did you begin the club? Well, we find a group of us informally were discussing the idea, and Winton Showman, the district governor, actually had heard about this concept popping up in a few other places. Rotary International has identified climate change and environmental issues as sort of what the next generation is going to need to focus on. It's going to be one of their biggest campaigns, possibly ever. It's the biggest thing that's facing us and the children that are growing up. The environmental problems are getting worse, despite all the efforts that are being made. So, how do we prioritize the good work that people want to do in their community? We have many options, many good causes to support. This is one that is no longer a small little niche. It's coming to the forefront. So that's kind of how it started, and when approached a small group of us to see if there was interest from people that I think he knows either specialize in some of these issues or are more passionate about it and might want to put together this club. So when did you start? How many members? What's your format? How can people find out about it? We'll talk about that later too. Okay. Well, things are still evolving just like any startup. We met a few months back at Revluson's showroom. They have a community space that they provide for no cost to nonprofits. So we started meeting there informally to gauge interest, and then very quickly, so we had about 40 people come through and 15 people sign up that they're committed. They want to be part of this new club, this new movement. So that's kind of how it started, and then we started to discuss some of the local as well as global issues that we might be able to focus on. We'd love to hear more about that as well. But first tell us, when do you meet? How many people, what's the goal for 2019, what's your year? Okay, so for this year, we really want to expand on our strategic plan, launch some new projects as well as support some existing projects in our community and grow our membership. That's the most important thing to start with for a new Rotary Club. So how would you like me to expand on that? Yeah, well, when do you meet? Okay, sorry, that was the first part of the question. So we meet at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays at the Revluson showroom, which is located in Salt. It's on the second floor above Moku Kitchen. So currently, we are not meeting on the third Tuesday of the month. We were meeting on the first, second, and fourth Tuesday. So hard to remember, but we are sending emails out as well as Facebook events to promote when we are meeting in case anything changes. But at this point, that's what we've established is Tuesdays at 6 p.m. The formal agenda goes for about an hour, and then we usually hang out for up to another hour after to socialize. People in the community that may know nothing whatsoever about Rotary that want to participate in your projects that are going to support things like global warming and environmental issues impacting Hawaii, of course, we are at the epicenter of the global warming problem. If people pay attention to local news, it is a severe issue here because of our remote location in the world. So if people want to find out more, can they just walk into your Rotary Club at 6 o'clock on Tuesday at Salt? Absolutely. Of a Revluson? I mean, it's such a broad, interesting topic. There's so many people interested in that. The best thing someone can do if they're curious and interested in getting involved in some cause, just come to a meeting. All of our meetings are open to the public. We welcome everyone, and we encourage people to come and check it out. More than half of the people that have attended a meeting so far are not familiar with Rotary, which is also something of interest to us strategically. It's how do we find a way to connect with more people in the community that maybe are not familiar with Rotary, and we have a feel that's a little bit different than the traditional Rotary Club. Exactly. A traditional Rotary Club, as many of the viewers out there know, doesn't have a topical focus. It has a broad focus of community involvement, community service, and also our polio focus worldwide. And that's why I find this so fascinating, and I've been in Rotary myself for 12 years. It's the first club I've ever heard of that is going to focus on one specific area. I can imagine that your club can have a greater impact on this issue by not only bringing it to the attention of the community, but also making an actual impact on certain projects and issues when you're really focused on the one specific issue. Yeah, that was a question that came up. So there's two parts to it. First of all, why use Rotary as a platform? That was a question that we had to face. There's hundreds of very focused environmental groups out there that any volunteer could potentially be involved with, like Surfrider Foundation, Sustainable Coastlines, and many others. Sierra Club. The list goes on and on and on. Yes, exactly. So where does Rotary fit into that? And then why have a Rotary Club that's focused? So starting with the focus part, you know, we find that a lot of people don't know what Rotary does, but they might be interested in these issues. So it's a way to attract people who might want to work on these types of projects, but don't know exactly what they want to do. They want to find a group to be part of. Once they come to a meeting, then they also find out about this giant global organization working on thousands of projects all over the world, spending over 80 million dollars a year with their foundation grants. They learn about this whole big network that this platform offers, and then we figure out how can we leverage that for the specific types of projects that we're interested in. And that's fascinating because of our grant process. You could make a terrific impact here with some of the issues facing our Hawaii because of the power of the Rotary International. And just as a side note, Rotary International is having their international convention this week in Hamburg, Germany, another country that is dealing with global warming issues head on. And I think that if you go, if you've ever been to an international convention, I've been to one, the International Convention of 2020 is going to be right here in Honolulu. That's going to be an incredible opportunity for you. But when you go to these international conventions, there are hundreds of booths from hundreds of Rotary clubs talking about all of these projects that Steve just mentioned. And I can just imagine the Rotary Eco Club of Kakaako being involved on a global scale because this is so unique, it could have a great impact worldwide. So I'm definitely going to be attending one of your meetings because it's very exciting. Great. We'd love to have you. It'd be great. I know that you have specific initiatives, projects that you're exploring. Can you touch on maybe the top three or four that your board and your club, your members, are currently looking at engaging in in the coming year? Okay. So one of the parts to most Rotary clubs is to have a, you know, we have a community presence. We're the first Rotary Club in Kakaako. So initially we wanted to start off and make sure that we are involved in some projects in Kakaako. Kamehameha Schools has provided some land in Kakaako, Makai, in partnership with Surfrider Foundation to have a community garden.  There's an organization called Permablits that helps transform landscapes into edible landscapes. Food is a big issue. Climate change is disruptive to all agriculture. And we import most of our food here in Hawaii, even though we have this amazing climate and soil suitable to grow just about anything. And yet, yet we import almost all of our food. So we're supporting this community garden. It's, they're meeting regularly where you can actually get your hands dirty and dig in the dirt and plant some trees. You end up learning a lot about gardening and you also learn about these food issues at the same time. And hopefully that will inspire people to invite Permablits to come out to their homes and plant their own edible landscapes. So that's, that was our first local project that we're going to promote and support. You know, the idea is that several other organizations have their own networks and they can all encourage them to support that project. And that's across the street from our meeting space right in front of the medical school.  Perfect space for this type of project, an urban edible garden. Fantastic. And I know that community gardens have been popping up all over the mainland. People are planting them on their rooftops in New York City and places like San Francisco. We've got a couple in, like Peoloni Park that I've seen. It's incredible. We'll have something in the urban core and it's going to be seen right from the highway. So this is something I would be very interested in as an avid gardener myself. So we're going to take a short break. I want to hear a little bit more about all the wonderful projects you're going to engage in for next year. And so we'll be back with Steve Mazer from Rotary in Hawaii. Full of action in a few minutes. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 AM. Aloha. Hey, Aloha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii, airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech, Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that, you know, may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me, because security matters. Aloha. Welcome back to Hawaii Rotary, People of Action. I'm joined here today by Steve Maser of the Rotary Eco Club of Kakaako. We are learning all about the projects that the club is going to be embarking on in the coming year. It's a brand new club. You will tell you all about how you can find out more about it. If you're interested in things like global warming and all of the issues facing our environment and our world environment, and basically have the opportunity to take action on this, just like people of action in Rotary. So welcome back, Steve. Thank you. We were asking Steve before the break to talk about his projects. He talked about the community garden. I'm an avid gardener. I am fascinated by this. I would love to be able to go do some gardening on my lunch hour in downtown Honolulu. What other projects does the club look like they're going to be embarking on in the coming year or year, Steve? So one of the reasons why our members took an interest in using the Rotary platform is the opportunity to tap into a global network and do projects abroad. Especially a lot of our younger members. We have a member as young as 21 who love to do mission trips and travel to other countries. Rotary is excellent for that access to global grants to fund projects that we can do overseas. And then there's Rotary clubs in other countries. So one of the biggest issues that the world is dealing with is single use plastic as well as other types of marine debris, plastic marine debris from commercial fisheries all over the world, litter going into the rivers all over the world. And we know about it in Hawaii because tens of thousands of pounds of it wash up on all of our beautiful beaches every year and organizations are weighing it. We know that we're filling up dumpster loads of plastic and we know that most of it is coming from all over the world. So we're looking at where we're putting together a project potentially in Southeast Asia to help work in local communities out there where I believe there's about five rivers that account for the majority of the marine debris entering our ocean every day. So it's a small number of rivers in countries that lack the infrastructure. And in places like Bali and other places in China and Southeast Asia, they have an opportunity to leapfrog the developed world and go from having no waste management to a zero waste format. So right now we're putting together plans for a proposal to work on a project overseas. And when you say Southeast Asia, are we talking the Philippines? What part of Southeast Asia are we referring to that? So the Philippines is one and Indonesia is another. But depending on the partners that we establish in those places, we might shape where, if we want to start the project in one location in one small community, or if we want to do something bigger through the global rotary network. So I have an interest in this as a sailor with a boat who cleans the debris around our boat in the Alawai regularly. And we see it washing down from the mountain streams, basically litter, people littering plastic. And we even see the impact on marine life with turtles and whales and dolphins here. Can you talk a little bit about the global problem with this? A little bit more specifically, what is the actual impact of this debris in our oceans, if you would? Sure. So if you go out and troll for fish and you catch an ono or a mahi mahi or any of our favorite fish that we eat, it's almost 100% guaranteed that you will find traces of microplastic in every single fish. And that was the aha moment for me. I think that was about eight years ago that a research vessel came into Oahu. They had some fresh fish that they had caught on their way. And they just picked a fish out of the cooler, filleted it, opened the gut up, and said, I guarantee we'll find microplastic. And they did. And they knew for sure that they would before they had opened this fish up. So at that point, I realized, OK, this is scary. Because what it's in our food chain, it's in our food source. And so that's one of the issues, not only the collapse of the fisheries from overfishing, but the fact that plastic is choking so much marine life. So that's one of the major issues. Another issue is the marine debris is damaging infrastructure. It's washing up on all of our beaches. But the microplastic issue is one of the scariest things. It's threatening all seabirds globally. We're finding it in 100% of birds that are marine seabirds on the Northwestern Islands. If you find any dead bird, you will find plastic inside. And that's just what we're finding on the surface. We don't even know how much plastic has made its way to the bottom of the ocean. And in Hawaii as a sailor, we're aware of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is an area larger than the size of Texas. So we have friends that sail between the mainland and Hawaii. And one of the most important things is to not hit debris. Because if they hit debris, sailing at 20 knots or 10 knots, it can damage your rudder. It can cause all kinds of problems. But it's just everywhere. And it's just becoming a magnanimous problem, especially for those of us that live in the islands. So it's just wonderful that you folks are taking this issue head-on and actually trying to make some sort of an impact locally first and then taking it globally. So if you are interested in helping with this issue, you need to reach out to Steve, who is available on Facebook, Rotary Eco Club of Kakaako. He is also available, the website's not quite up yet. The club just started in March. You can find them easily on Facebook. So let's talk about your club specifically. I know we touched on this a little bit earlier, but the purpose of the club is to be able to do projects locally and also internationally about the ecological systems of our world. You're starting with a community garden, and then you're going to be looking at other opportunities. What is the process the club is going to use to identify future projects? What are some of the big, big ideas that maybe you don't have materialized yet that you'd like to tackle as a club? Right, yeah. So we have formed a group of members with various backgrounds and experiences, and we're putting that together as we develop our strategic plan. Where do we want to see the world in five, 10, or 20 years, and we start from there and we work our way backwards to what are the specific projects that we need to do immediately, locally, and globally. So we sort of work backwards from a very high-level vision. We're looking for new members who want to focus on either various projects, membership, fundraising. So there's multiple things that people can gain experience in, which is useful for their professional lives. And that's attracting a lot of our younger members as well. And then our general structure, we have an executive committee and then different campaign leaders. And we're still looking for new leadership to come in and help us with these different parts. I wonder if I can be a member of two Rotary clubs. I think you can't. I think you can't. But the thing about Rotaries, we all end up helping each other and collaborating. You could do visiting trips to your club, but mostly we can support each other's projects by just showing up at the community gardens or what have you. I just think it's fascinating. I find it incredible that a group of younger Rotarians are tackling this project head on, this problem head on in Hawaii from a Rotary perspective, which our four-way test of being open and honest and giving and helpful really applies to all of the areas of your club. So I wish you great luck with this club. I look forward to coming out to the garden. When does the garden project begin? So the garden is organizers are hosting events. I think they're having a community day monthly at this point. And they're also promoting those on Facebook. So you can check with Sir Frider Foundation, Oahu, or Hermablitz, two of the big organizations. Can you spell that? Hermablitz? Hermablitz. Blitz, like blitz. A blitz where an army shows up and tackles a problem together. Very good. Very good. So again, I want to invite you to check out the Eco Rotary Club of Kaka Ako. They meet every Tuesday. Dave Maser here is the president. He's inviting you to find out more about the club. You can find him on Facebook. You can find him every Tuesday except the third Tuesday of every month at the Revolution showroom at the second level of salt right above Moku's kitchen, which we all know and love. So I will be checking you out very, very soon. I want to bring you folks out there up to date on what's going on with Rotary worldwide. Of course, this week 30,000 to 40,000 Rotarians are meeting in Hamburg, Germany for their annual Rotary International Conference. We have lots of local Rotarians there. And I'm sure that you're all aware, because I've talked about it in the past, that next year we're meeting at the convention center. The Rotary International Convention will be here for the first time since the 1960s. 30,000 Rotarians approximately will be descending on the shores of Hawaii. And there are opportunities that will amaze you. I happen to be working on the sponsorship committee because I'm a marketing person. And so if you are, by any chance, a company out there or a person that wants to be involved in the Rotary Convention next year, reaching a global audience, you can contact me. And I'm going to give you my phone number for my company, which is 521-1160, Mon amines communications. You can reach out to me to find out more about sponsorship opportunities for the 2020 Rotary International Convention, which we're all so excited about. So we have a little bit of time left, Steve. If you have anything else you can add about the club that you didn't get to cover. OK, well, I hope that everyone comes out to visit and you will find a great group of your new best friends. It's very much a social organization where we enjoy working on these issues together. And I think that's what keeps people coming back. And so I just encourage everyone to come see for yourself. We're very welcoming.  And we look forward to meeting you. Exactly. If you or someone out there that has a great idea for the environment, this is a place that you could share that, run it by the committees, and find out if this club would be able to help you accomplish taking on that project or initiative. So that's a wonderful opportunity. So we're going to sign off. I want to thank you very much, Steve, for being with me today. And don't forget, the Eco Rotary Club of Kakaako Tuesday Nights at Salt. 6 PM, be there, except the third Tuesday. I am Janet Sheffer, your public image chair for Rotary District 5,000. And I am so happy you joined us here today on Think Tech Hawaii. We will see you here again in two weeks for another edition of Hawaii Rotary, People of Action. Mahalo.