All right, we're rockin' and rollin' now. Well, glad to see everyone here. Nice turnout again. So my talk is gonna be about how I transitioned from a mailman, led a carrier, to WordPress and the journey along the way. A little bit about myself, I'm just gonna reiterate what Jason said. I'm an associate software engineer at Penske Media Corporation. I'm a former led a carrier for the United States Postal Service. I'm a husband, proud father of two boys. That's my LinkedIn and GitHub, if anyone wants to connect later. Slides are available if you need, wanna check it out as well. And I'm just gonna go over the roadmap. I'm gonna talk about just the idea of how I wanted to change careers and then a process going to a boot camp and then a long comes WordPress, how I even got involved in WordPress community, going to meetups and WordCamp as well. And then finally, the changing of careers. And if anyone has some questions, I'm sure gladly to be able to take some questions afterwards. So let's get started. So the idea to change careers. So I never was really a technical person. I did have a background in music production. So that was like my first kind of foray into like software cause everything was, is with music, software based, everything kind of transitioned from hardware to software. So that was my first kind of dabble with software and development. And in the era of Myspace, I don't know, I'm dating myself. Anybody remember Myspace? Ooh, that's what I'm talking about. Different time, good times, right? So in the era of Myspace, you could kind of like really trick out your Myspace page instead of having like your generic Myspace page. So one of my friends, another like freelance music producer, he made his so nice, I was like, man, how'd you get it so nice?  And I was like, what? What's that? So I go to W3 schools and kind of was messing around with that. And I just was like, man, this is kind of boring. So I was like, I'm ditching this. So fast forward, like years later, years later, I was kind of working on a musical project, helping someone out. And I stumbled upon a Squarespace page, Squarespace. And I used that and I was like, you know, I kind of wanna trick this out. Like the Myspace pages I used to see. And I said, you know what? Let me, let me get back into this. Let me get back into, you know, pursuing this HTML, CSS thing, whatever that is. And so I stumbled upon free code camp. And I kind of, it wasn't as boring anymore. It was like, okay, this is pretty cool. This is, I could, you know, I could vibe with this, but I just felt I needed more structure. And right around that time, I wanna say this is probably like 2016, 17, a term kept coming up. I kept hearing boot camp. I was like, what's a boot camp? So apparently the boot camp was an accelerated, kind of, I don't wanna say a CS degree, because I mean, God forbid, someone who has a CS degree there probably would be like, what, no, a boot camp, what, no, no. It's not the same, it's not the same. So I'm not gonna say that. I wanna get beat up after this. So they just kind of, the key components that are needed in software development, they give you that as opposed to everything else. So to just kind of get you fast tracked. And at the time, a lot of them were like 12 weeks, some were even shorter than that. But it was, it had to be in person. So I just was like, I can't afford to go full time and do that. So I just kept and kind of just kept going with the free code camp and self-teaching. And then the pandemic happened. And everyone was kind of, lives changed. So, and everything became online. So then I've been fine, like I said, okay, here's an opportunity, I think it's time, I think I could re-engage that idea of going to a boot camp. So, I'm going to a boot camp. So, and let me tell you that facial expression, that's how it feels. But so I stumbled upon this aggregator called Career Karma where they help people who do wanna get into tech find a proper boot camp. Because now around this time, this is like 2019, 2020, the boot camp thing is kind of taken, it's taken off. And there's some not so nice people who are offering boot camps in there, it's kind of getting to a place where it's getting a little predatory. So here comes this place, Career Karma, who kind of wants to really help people guide them through the whole process. So I go through them, I find a boot camp that kind of can coincide with me working full time, where I could kind of like, well, I could put in about four to three hours in the morning, three at night. So I was doing all this and my second son was born in the middle of it. So it was intense, it was intense. And plus, you know, the early stages of COVID-19, which was scary for everyone. So, but I just persevered, persevered, spoke to a lot of software engineers and heard about different technology and just I was just kind of soaking it in. I was just like, okay, let me, I want to learn as much as I can. And then I hear like whispers of WordPress, WordPress. Now, now back in that MySpace age, I heard about WordPress then too, but I didn't understand it. I know there was WordPress.com and I kind of fiddled with that. I was like, I don't get it. So, but I just heard whispers of WordPress. And I was intrigued, I was like, okay, let me find out about this WordPress.  So I was like, you know, WordPress, like what you're about? But then I started asking people, those same like engineers I was meeting. I said, what's up with WordPress? Like, what do you think about it? I said, pump the brakes. What did you say? WordPress? No, no, no, no, no WordPress, no way. No way. You know what WordPress is built with, right? PHP, no way. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. And I heard, oh, I heard it all. And I'm sure everyone has heard them too. But we're gonna, for fun, we're gonna go over them and laugh as we go over them. First one, it's a dying language. It's a dying language. It's been dying for 20 years apparently. So, so that's one, another one. Real devs don't use WordPress. Oh boy. That is, that's offensive. That's offensive, that's offensive. And so untrue. So untrue. There's no money in it as well. That's even more laughable, right? And my favorite, you won't find work. That's, but still I heard all of these comments and I just was, you know, I'm still, WordPress has its hand out. I'm gonna go see what it's about. I wanna find out what's up with WordPress. So I heard about meetups and I heard that was a good way to network and meet other people who are in the same interest of you, same interest that you have. So it's the, you know, it's in a pandemic. Everything's online anyway. So I was like, let me see if there's like some kind of networking for, you know, engineering or anything like that. And then, ooh, I see WordPress Montclair Meetup. I was like, Montclair is not too far from me. It's online anyway, let me just go. Let me, let me check it out. Let me see what's it about, you know? And I wanna talk about the power of meetups, right? My son, by the way, he encouraged me to put this one in his picture. So the power of meetups. So I go and I see Mike, I see Cameron, see Jason, I don't know anybody. I have my camera off and I'm getting my son ready for bed and it was my turn to kind of introduce myself. I let him know like, hey, you know, I'm in a boot camp now. I'm just, you know, really getting into software development and you know, I heard about WordPress. I just kinda wanna find more things out. And Mike, Michael Terry, we have a very similar story. So it was kind of like a kindred spirit. He was like, hey, you know, I used to, used to work for the post office back in the day when I was in college.  And I too transitioned. I don't have that whole CS degree thing. And we kind of bonded over that. And Montclair was so cool to WordPress that because of the pandemic, there was a Slack plugin called Donut that did a random one-on-one meeting. And, you know, as fate will have it, Mike and I, that was my first Donut. So I'm in my mail truck. And I turn my phone on and we talk and he dispels all the rumors of WordPress. He was like, what? No, you know, you could do X, Y, and Z with WordPress. You know, I just, it was like, I heard it was just like a page builder. No, well, you could do that too. You could extend it, it's really flexible. And he was like, you know, what you could do is, why don't you take like this course, look into this and check out WordPress. Like, see how it is. So, you know, I was diving into WordPress. And of course I still had heard those whispers. What WordPress? You, and I just, I just ignored it. I just kind of kept on the side along with the bootcamp. So after that meeting, I just was going through the bootcamp and, you know, kept in touch with Mike and everyone else in the WordPress community, Mike Clear, Meetup. And, you know, we're just going through the motions of the bootcamp. And then finally I was able to finish it.  So I was on LinkedIn and I kind of was used to strategy learning out loud. So things that I didn't know well, I said, you know, this is a challenge. Let me start doing this online more, more so. And that caught Mike's attention. And so Mike and I continued to be in further communication. And one night he invited me over.  Cause I was interested in a position at his company. I said, hey, are they hiring? And he was like, well, we want a guy who's kind of like more experienced and has a little bit more knowledge.  And I, you know, I thought that was awesome. And then around that time, we're getting ready for my clear word camp. So I'm oblivious to everything. So I don't, I don't know what a word camp is.  I don't know. But you know, I'm going to volunteer for it. I don't know what it is. I'm going to volunteer for it.  So it was going to be pretty, pretty huge. So, but that's when, you know, an opportunity came about. So I'm at word camp and we're kind of, you know, just getting things ready. And Laura, who is awesome, Laura always is kind of like, hey, Kayla, why don't you, why don't you try that? Why don't you do this? Try that.   And it so happens that Penske was one of the sponsors last year. So Mike's boss and my boss as well, Gabriel comes and he tends to word camp and word camp was awesome last year. It was the first one after post pandemic. It was great. It was my first time, wonderful people. And then Mike comes to me, he was like, hey, listen, I've got an idea, kind of spoke to Gabriel. He goes, you know, why don't we do this?   So when I heard that my, my ears perk, I said, wow, all right, this is, this is a shot. I'm going to take advantage of it. And I know, I think I could do it. Cause if I could go through that boot camp, getting up at two, three in the morning, cause my newborn, you know, he's a sleep pattern is not there. I was like, you know, I think I could, I think I could do this, I think I could handle this. So here we go. So that's my setup. It's my setup in the mail truck.   And then in my mind, I was like, you know what, I'm going to really make the most out of this opportunity.  I'm going to do three to four in the morning, two, three at night. And I'm going to, I wanted, I want the team to feel like I'm the, like I'm part of the team. Like that I'm not part-time. Like I'm just like doing these tickets, like an asylum that I'm like really engaged. So I said, you know what? I'll do my lunch breaks. I'll use that for stand up. So stand up, I would use my own or my lunch breaks, or if it was really hectic, if it was like a ticket that needed to really go out, I would just kind of take a quick 10 minute, look it over, but I'll push it out. And then the only challenge was grooming. Grooming is where we kind of vet the tickets and see, you know, the scope them out, see, you know, how long it's going to take, how we should point them. So my trick for that was I would have the laptop to vote. So we got, we have to vote. And then I would do my loop and have, so kind of have like the laptop was had had the Jira and then my phone had the zoom. So I would have the letters in between the phone with the camera turned off, of course, because I was like, I think they can't see this. So, and I would do a loop. So by the time I would get back to the loop, it was time to vote. So I would hustle back in a truck and then do my vote, go back. So to just really be a part of the team. And I learned so much. And I had such gracious teammates. One of them is here. Nayeon is in the audience. She's awesome and really helped me. Mike really mentored me and showed me ropes and showed me how to really work and communicate. So that went on for about six months. And it was great. I enjoyed it. I loved it. And in that time, I grew to love WordPress and was just blown away by what you can do with it. And like, why isn't everybody using it? Well, yeah, well, 40% of the internet uses it, but I was just blown away by PHP and WordPress and everything you could do with it. And just was, just like really taking it back why people didn't embrace it. But you know, who knows, but anywhere. So then I get some news from Mike. So Mike, usually I have my camera off all the time because I was like, I don't want them to see the grittiness of mail delivery. This is gritty. This is pretty gritty stuff.  And Mike was like, hey, you know. Hey, let me talk to you for a second. And prior to that, Mike invited me to come to our office a few times and meet with Gabriel, meet with Jenny and really getting to see how PMC does things. And it was such a, so PMC was like an extension of WordPress, the community, how the WordPress community is so open and welcoming and wanting to teach, wanting to embrace you wherever you are. You could not know anything. You could know a lot. And WordPress has a place for you. It's the same way when I would go in the PMC. I was like, wow, this WordPress just, community just extends to everything.  He was like, so I talked to Jenny, he talked to Gabriel and we wanna make you an offer. So, you know, I was ecstatic. So I had to turn my camera on for that. I was like, I had to turn it on for this. This is gritty, you know, I turned it on, you saw the mail all over the place, the 100 year old truck, it was all good. It was all good. So fine, so it was able to transition careers. Transition careers and this is all from this beautiful community and beautiful piece of software that has helped everyone kind of live out their dreams in the sense of whatever ideas they have, they could just bring it out. And I was just blown away by the community and just the people and just how WordPress extends itself out into the world and continues to do so. And I was glad that I didn't listen to those voices because that's, you know, sometimes you could hear people say things and it could affect you and you could say, oh, well, you know what? I'm gonna take this person's advice. Or sometimes things could be motivated purely by the money and instead of the joy of doing something. And that's another key to thing that I really enjoy and started to really enjoy using WordPress and really having these ideas and really seeing them out in the world. So it was just all that whole culmination was just mind blowing in me. But I do have some tips for anyone who wants to change careers and kind of has either trepidations or just wants to know how would you do, how would you start? So one of my tips first is if you go in a self-taught route, which I think a lot of people in the room have done. And I think that's an amazing route as well. And I would, two things that I found, and this is particularly, one of them is particularly if you wanna get into WordPress or even if you are a seasoned dev too, I think LaraCast is really great, especially Laravel is like taken off. I think Laravel is kind of has people warmed up to PHP again. 100 Devs is an online free style of work so it is sort of a bootcamp, but it is self-taught. It's done by this guy named Leon Noel, who's like an amazing guy during the pandemic.  I think it's in the Boston area, Massachusetts area. He said, whatever I'm teaching there, I'm gonna just give it for free. He created a great community and some of the strategies he even said I incorporated, which was like learning out loud and things of that nature. So I definitely would check that out. Another advice I would say is learn in public. Show what you're learning. That could be on social media. I use LinkedIn. You could spin up a WordPress blog pretty easy and you could document your journey. And so just people could see what you're doing and then what you're doing is you're reinforcing what you're learning and then you're also teaching someone who doesn't know. And then I would also set up a GitHub account as early as possible and push code every day. So that was one of the things that helped me out. I was in a rhythm of doing like a kata a day and pushing that. So by the time the opportunity with PMC came, I kind of was had that pattern of pushing code every day. Even, I don't know how small it is or how insignificant you may think it is. I think it's just good to push code every day if you're going along this process of transition and just to build up that discipline. If you wanna join a boot camp, although I did join one, now that I look back on it, they're good, they're good, they're good. But I think what's online and especially with chat GBT, although it's a little clunky sometimes, you could really still do self-taught path, which I think I probably would recommend that more so. But if you're gonna do the boot camp, I would say I would check our career karma and they do a really good job at aggregating what boot camps are right for you. So I would definitely, if that's the route you wanna go, I would also read the contract thoroughly. There's a lot of gotchas. That's why career karma kind of came into existence because it started to get predatory and then certain boot camps started changing their names and just to avoid all these kind of lawsuits that we're getting into. So be very careful with that. But it was a great experience for me because I was able to get into habits that software engineers in the field do, which is reading a lot of code. So that was a good experience. And also another thing I would recommend is be open to opportunities. Like for instance, I heard about WordPress. I could have listened to what people said and just was like, I'm not doing that. I'm gonna just do JavaScript, React. React developer, that's the thing now. So, but I didn't, I kind of was like, hey, I'm intrigued. So I would definitely be language agnostic and I would start freelancing as soon as possible just to build your portfolio up. You know, if your mom needs a site, your dad needs a site, cousin needs a site, uncle needs a site, whoever needs a site, I would just do it just to get that experience and I would do it with WordPress. If I knew better, if I knew WordPress was around, I would have done it with WordPress. What, I digress. I wanna say thank you to, I wanna say thank you to the whole WordPress community. I think this last year was my first word camp and I just, everyone was so welcoming and still welcoming and everyone has such different backgrounds and it's amazing. So I just wanna thank the WordPress community. I wanna thank Mike or Terry. You know, Mike is, I don't know, Mike is probably in a lot of people's stories. I wanna thank Lauren, Lauren Byrne as well. She's awesome. She's always encouraging me to do things more to get more involved in WordPress. I wanna thank Jason. I wanna thank the greater Montclair meetup as well. I got to Howard, of course. Sorry, Howard. I should have put your name in there too. Wanna shout out also BlackPress, which was really helpful to me as well. I saw them, actually, it was Michelle who I saw she was a member and I was like, let me check this out. And I checked it out and it was like, it was so, it was awesome. And they were really helpful. Everyone, everybody was there. It's just, it's not just for a few of African-American origin, everyone is in there. So I thought it would, I really benefited from them early on too. I wanna thank Penske Media Corporation as well for giving me the opportunity and really giving me a chance to be a part of their company. So that is, that's my talk. But if anyone has any questions, I'll take them. If not, oh. Hi, that was about, let me see. So that was like 20, about three years. About three years, yeah. Thank you, thank you. Any other questions, if not? Oh, I would say starters early is possible. I would say, so what I did was I started doing custom themes cause I was, once I got my, my head wrapped around like HTML and CSS and JavaScript then I started playing with custom, like doing a custom theme from scratch and like converting an HTML like site I did, vanilla and then doing it as a theme. That really helped cause I was able to like touch PHP and really see how the functions and methods work. So yeah, I would start, I'd start early as possible. I would just, I just, just break stuff. Like I was, I was, just break stuff. I was always scared to break stuff. I was like, oh, I'm not gonna do it. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, just break it. Just break it, break it. Cause then you'll ask questions. So when you break stuff, you'll, you'll go to your meetup and you say, hey, listen, I was working on this and this is broken. Can you, you know how to fix this? And oh, this is what you do. You know, I do the, I break stuff all the time. I'm all like, Mike, Mike, I broke this.  Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. So yeah, I would, as soon as, I would just, as soon as possible, just break stuff, play with it and just have, and have fun. That's the most important thing. It's like, for me, what I really enjoyed about WordPress was a creative, just coming from a music background. I liked, I liked theme, theme development. So I just was, you know, HTML and CSS and design, I really enjoyed it. So I would just say just as early as possible, break stuff, ask questions, you know, and everyone here is so, WordPress community is so knowledgeable. That's another thing too, like the whole not real depth. I think I'm at the most amazing software engineers in WordPress, like, like hands down, they could do, they could do anything. They're like, MacGyver, I don't know. I'm dating myself with, I'm dating myself. I'm like dating myself the whole time, man, but yeah. So yeah, I, yeah, I would just build stuff and ask, cause there's so, so many like really knowledgeable people in the community. So. Question. Hey there, I got the mic. Nice. So I am Courtney Robertson. I am at GoDaddy Pro. I'm sponsored to contribute to the learn.wordpress.org website. So if you're on WordPress at the top, it says learn, go there, the team that I work with most contributes to that question for you. It sounds like in your journey to finding a bootcamp, you found WordPress after that? Is that right in your timeframe? Okay. Did any of the bootcamps that you were checking out mention WordPress beyond content marketing as part of their programming or their track? I say this because I taught at one and I'm seeing a need. There is a need. No, none of them mentioned it. Everyone was, so their thinking is, okay, like once they have that mind frame, PHP is a dead language, Java is old, C++, all of that, all of the enterprise technologies, they're like, oh, it's old, you know, React, the Merman stack, MongoDB, all that stuff. So that's what they learned. And then what winds up happening is people get out of the bootcamp and no one is really hiring for that from a junior. Right, so as part of that, when I was instructing at a bootcamp and I was teaching the languages, using WordPress, developing with WordPress, and we were using CARES Act Relief Money during COVID to do all of that. So my bootcamp leaders were not providing adequate PHP because PHP is dead, right. But also we were struggling because there were no official guidelines or resources that said, here is what an entry WordPress dev needs to have or to use or to be able to do. Because if you're going in through a bootcamp and you come out as front end or back end, there are some pretty obvious pathways, but with WordPress, you need to be an inch deep full stack and you need to have that PHP, even if you're front end, because if you're going to support a plugin or a theme, you need to know a little PHP just enough to, right, so I don't know if you've got thoughts on this and I would love to connect more a little bit later, but I want to receive some of the feedback from the bootcamp side, as well as the hiring side of what you're seeing or observing to help share that so that WordPress.org can help facilitate here's what we need job pipeline wise and how to help get those jobs. Absolutely, that's a great idea because I definitely see that, like you said, a lot of times you would do a bootcamp and it's full stack, but you're actually not. Whereas if you worked with WordPress, you are actually doing the full stack and you get leveled up really quickly because you're in it, with WordPress you're in it, you have no choice but to be all in.  So I would love to talk to you and definitely love that. Any other questions? Did you just do it on your own, oh, thank you. Hi there. You just do it locally on your own laptop or did you go and get, you know, would you buy to? So I use the, that's a great question. So to get started, there was so many great free resources. So for my development, my local environment, I used VS Code and there's like a lot of extensions if you want to kind of see your work live, it's been a preserver for you. But when I got into PHP, I mean WordPress, you know, there's all, you know, there's MAMP and local, I would recommend local because it's so easier, it's much easier if you, especially when you're starting out. And, but initially before I started working with WordPress, there's a couple of tools where you could get some, you could, I forget the name, where you could kind of host your website. It's not even really hosting this. You could, I forget the name of it, gosh. No, it was, it wasn't involved with WordPress. It was, it was something where it was just basic HTML CSS.  I forget the name off hand. Also GitHub has, you could use GitHub to kind of host your website if you wanted to just do something basic HTML CSS. But I would recommend if you, for your developer environment, I'd do VS Code because it's free and it's like a ton of tutorials. And especially if you want to develop a WordPress, which I mean, that's why we're here. I'd go with the local by Flywheel. It was really, I was like blown away by all the tools that, everyone, like WordPress is just so, you can make it as robust as you want or you could make it as simple as you want. So that's what I recommend. I hope I answered that question for you, probably. Anyone else has a question? If not, thank you for your time and enjoy the rest of WordCamp.


Meanwhile, the governor of Delta State and the vice-presidential candidate of the People's Democratic Party, Ifayokua, says the ticket given to the former vice-president and presidential candidate of the PDP, Atikua Bubeka, and himself is a ticket of hope. Governor noted that when PDP is elected to run the affairs of the nation, from the central seat, education will be a priority. Ifayokua is a ticket of grace, is a ticket of hope, is a ticket for victory, and this ticket will rescue and rebuild Nanju. As I know, I am proud of this man, I will make a mission. What we have done, what we have achieved in Delta State, we want to abstain the government. People imagine the nation, the American people will talk, or the transmission, the economy will say, it's not true. People want to give you the power, so turn in the past. You can't see the disease, that it will continue hope. And now, that the carotene has arrived, the fact has shocked the same things that Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


After weeks of violent protests, Kenya's government and opposition have agreed to hold negotiations. But will these discussions address the crisis faced by the people? Former US President Donald Trump has been indicted again. But will this affect his chances of running for president or even his popularity? And August 1st to August 7th is marked as World Press Feeding Week. Why is this important and what are the challenges in this sector? These are the stories we'll be looking at in this episode of Daily Tea Brief. But before that, if you haven't hit that subscribe button, please do. Violent protests rocked Kenya throughout July after people were furious over new taxes that hit their incomes. Now the most significant of these was the doubling of taxes on fuel. These measures were part of the Finance Act of President William Ruto and the protests were called for by opposition leader Rehla Odinga, although a wide section of society participated. Close to 30 people were killed during these protests. Now the government and opposition have reached an agreement to set up a committee to discuss various issues. But will this really address the concerns of the people? We have with us Brian Matenge of the Young Communist League of Kenya. Brian, thank you so much for joining us. So I think the news of the hour, so to speak, a couple of days ago, the government of William Ruto and opposition leader Rehla Odinga setting up a committee to discuss all kinds of outstanding issues. So from your perspective, do you think that this is really going to address the kind of massive protests that took place in Kenya? I don't think so because what happened, what transpired, I think is the ruling class, the current ruling class has formed, they have an alliance that they discuss from. So I think it's still a bourgeois alliance. It's a ruling class alliance that is there, that is meant to protect their interests more and more. And I think they took advantage of the fact that the Kenyan masses were struggling and they could identify that most of the people are addressing key issues of survival. Bread, the high cost of living and such. So they used it to propel their differences. But now we can see that they can differ in positions but they never compromise on their interests. And I think the move is purpose to keep protecting their interests. So I don't think it will garner any solutions to the struggles of the struggling workers of Kenya. Right, also I think earlier we had a couple of instances of Odinga calling for protests, then reaching an agreement, then again protests take place, etc. But in the midst of all this, what has really happened is that I think the living conditions, like you said, the people are deteriorating considerably, the reports are quite shocking. So maybe could you take us through what has been the impact of the so-called reforms of this finance act? How is it affecting people's lives? One I think the finance act is an exposition of the structural adjustment programs that have been imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. And we can see a lot of influence from the external forces, the imperialist countries, supporting and congratulating President Ruto for assenting the finance bill. But look at it from the onset, the people that are most affected are the working people, the working masses. And I think that was one of the objective factors that led the people to protest. In a sense, I think the people are rallied by their own conditions that are affecting them, their intermediate needs. But I think now, even from the conversations and from the terms of the discussions that are set to unite both forces of the mainstream political divide, there are no discussions about the cost of living, there are no discussions about how the Kenyans are going to access the basic conditions of living. So, I mean, there is an imperialist hand, there is an imperialist attempt to, they are very connected with the national struggle that is ongoing about the finance act. Right, and also maybe could you take us through what life is like every day right now in Kenya because of the kind of reforms that have been imposed in terms of the immediate needs you talked about. How is that kind of really on a day-to-day basis affecting the people? I think reforms are necessary, they should be there because we are still under capitalism. But still there are some reforms that are meant to keep the bourgeois operation afloat. Like for instance, we are talking about the finance act, which makes life unbearable for the people of Kenya. Because what it does is that if you look at it closely, it gets to tax the basic commodities, these things that a person must need to live and survive. So it's really harsh and I think the masses, the people and the common people, they get into the struggle with consciously or subconsciously because of an influence that comes from this systemic oppression. And one of them I think that is also hovering around the world and especially in the African continent is this one of the cost of living, which in the recent past we have witnessed riot, protests and insurrections from the various parts of the world. And what you can tell for sure is the people know this process, they know they want a life of dignity. And I think that this operation that is continually imposed on them is something that has led them to take up to the streets and demonstrate even if most of the insurrections and protests seem not coordinated. It's something that we can reinforce that we can recommend and talk about it. Brian, thank you so much for speaking to us and giving us an insight into what's happening in Kenya right now. We'll hopefully get back to you for future episodes and analysis as well. Thank you so much. Former US President Donald Trump has been indicted for the third time. Now it's for plotting to overturn his loss in the 2020 elections. The indictment is on four charges, including conspiring to defraud the US government and obstructing an official proceeding. Earlier, Trump had been indicted on charges of mishandling secret documents and falsifying business records. All this does not seem to have affected his popularity though. He continues to be a huge hit among Republican voters. To understand this, we go to Anish. Anish, yet another indictment, yet another segment on Daily Debrief. So, but before we go into some of the details, could you tell us a bit more about this specific indictment conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 elections? I suspect this was the one among the many charges which is probably the most serious. Yes. The charges, earlier charges actually included an allegations. I could not allegations per se but accusations included among other things as you pointed out. Also included the attempt to overthrow the US government or inciting a rebellion. Now, the thing is what is interesting about this case is that bad charge hasn't come into the play in the current indictment because something of that sort, if there is a proper conviction, especially if you're convicted of, that is the only thing, if you're convicted of overthrowing the US government or rebellion, you will be disqualified from running the president. That is the only thing that pretty much disqualifies any person of your citizenship to run for the presidency. Now, the thing is that the current indictment does not obviously include that. And so what you have right now is basically obstructing government procedures, obstructing the congresses working and stuff like that and even defrauding the US government. So these are serious charges, definitely it might even land him in jail if they can manage a conviction somehow, which is also quite a far reach at this point when we are looking at a Republican dominated house and a half and half divided senate. It is still a far off thing but still these are serious charges and even if he gets convicted, it still doesn't prevent him from running for presidency. So we are stuck in this situation where obviously he needs to be tried and brought to justice on the current charges, which were serious obviously, which tried to undermine a significant procedure of transfer of power. But at the same time, it is actually giving him significant level of leverage in among at least among his constituents in the United States. Right Anish, I guess your answer I think brings us to really the second question which is that recent polls showed that Trump is very much ahead when it comes to the Republican race at this point of time. So the question that I think we have always, many people across the world often wonder is that with the gravity of these charges, with the fact that his role in the January 6, 2021 incident was pretty obvious. Why is it that none of this has failed to really affect him in any way? Well, obviously, he's created, I mean, he's also a product of it, but he has definitely tabbed out a constituency for himself, which is quite a strong one, which has like millions of people at this point, which believes in the conspiracy theories that he peddled at the time of the, not only at the time of the election, but before the election, he actually gave himself a bailout in the sense that he claimed that there will be voter fraud in during through the postal ballots and also during the election process in especially in the Democratic States. And a lot of people believe that and that's the very sad reality that the US is currently facing that they're obviously that many of these people are disaffected by and they have started losing all sorts of trust in the US government considering successive governments having actually made people's lives worse. But at the same time, tapping into that and using it for a reactionary mode has actually benefited him and that is where the big problem comes in. You have to remember that even though he lost the previous general election, he actually increased his vote share significantly and also increased the number of votes he received by over a million. And so that creates a situation where we need to ask like obviously there is a significant constancy and even if tomorrow Trump doesn't win in the next general election, it is still going to be a battle ahead for anybody who tries to replace him because you have a divided political situation where obviously stuff like this while needs to be debated, it is going to take away attention from say daily bread and butter issues. At the same time, you're having a situation where these people are not going to go away very easily because they continue to believe several significant lengths of conspiracy. And we saw that even during the COVID pandemic and the kind of disaster that it created when it came to counter pandemic efforts. So all of these factors definitely come to play and this is going to become a bigger challenge and obviously a clear growing deficit of trust in the US system, not just the democratic system as we keep calling it, but the US system itself. I guess the question also is that as far as you know the democrats are concerned, they really don't have an answer to this as well because a lot of the cases also seem to be sort of like you said earlier the attempt, earlier it seemed like the attempt was to really trap him in these cases which would disqualify him for president but according to you the latest charges do not permit for that. So he still has a chance of running. Yeah, I mean as I said like even if he gets convicted before the elections will start he still can and he gets jailed for any of these charges he still can run for president. So that is how the system allows it, the constitution allows it and so in this current scenario the democrats have pretty much created a trap for themselves. They have given this person a political weapon where he can claim that he's being politically hounded even though the current set of all three indictments are based on serious evidence and serious issues that really need to be taken into consideration, especially for somebody who is set to regain a significant level of power in the US government. But at the same time a lot of people believe that this is not going to happen because they see and obviously he is spinning it in a manner where he pretends to be a martyr in many ways and that is working in his favor. We need to wait and see if there is some kind of counter from the democrats or if I mean at some level social movements have to come together and create a situation where such notions and such conspiracy theories and everything this environment can be undermined and in favor of considerations for say rising cost of living, raising minimum wages, stuff like that that actually affect millions and millions of average Americans and something like that which is not getting enough attention even to this day despite the level of labor movement that we see right now. So these are things that really need to be, we need to wait and see how things turn out but obviously at the current point things for him is quite favorable. Right, so much Anish for the analysis. I suspect we'll keep coming back to this issue like some of the other issues we come back again. Sometimes it's more of the same. Thank you so much for talking to us. This year's World Breastfeeding Week is taking place from August 1st to August 7th with a focus on workplace policies that promote and support breastfeeding. Now breastfeeding comes with multiple health benefits for both children and women yet for a number of reasons global rates are actually falling behind set targets. We go to Anna from the People's Health Movement for more. Anna, thank you so much for joining us a very important week but it's an interesting point I think to note that the rates are falling behind the targets and it seems in some senses maybe a bit counter intuitive. So could you tell us what are some of the factors including maybe an industry hand that is at play? Yes, so it's quite an important week that we mark every year and of course it's something that breastfeeding is something that we have been hearing about for a very long time about the benefits that brings. Now what you said you know that the levels, the global rates of exclusive breastfeeding are falling behind the 2030 targets is of course true. So we are now at around 47 or 48% compared to the 70% that we should achieve that the world should achieve by 2030. Here what needs to be said is that you know the situation has somewhat improved compared to previous decades, but we are still seeing that you know there are some problems that seem not to go away, although experts and public health policy makers continue to point them out. And one of them is of course you know the role of the commercial milk formula industry that continues to be very strong and continues to essentially lower away both women but also health workers from a focus on breastfeeding. And I think that you know in the People's Health Dispatch we have covered the recent analysis that has come out on commercial milk formula industry work and also marketing over a couple of issues. So you know for those who would like to learn a bit more about that I would probably point them out to the dispatch to read. But essentially what we are seeing in this regard is that the industry is still going very strong. It's not facing any kind of crisis, although we do know that parents on the other hand are facing very much of a crisis. If we look at the US we know that there has been a formula shortage, which has caused terrible impacts because the US has such low rates of breastfeeding. So it essentially meant that babies went hungry and families had to travel for miles and miles to find the formula brand that they can afford. On the other hand you know we are also seeing that the industry is now kind of moving away from this focus on high income countries because in high income countries we are also seeing that mothers and families are again turning to breastfeeding because of the health benefits that it brings. And instead they are focusing on middle income countries where the market is still open to their influences. So the industry is still there. It's still very impactful and very present at global levels and in shaping how breastfeeding policies are being developed. So it's definitely something that you know needs very much attention and very much focus on in as also World Breastfeeding Week continues. And also sort of expanding the discussion just to kind of also think through you know what about maternal health care especially the context of the workplace which seems to be the focus this year. So how does it sort of tie into the week? Yes. And again you know this week this year the focus is essentially on protection in the workplace. So on all that all those policies that governments should have in place so mothers once they go back to work or when they give birth. They have access to support and they can actually and practically initiate breastfeeding. And also the World Health Organization and UNICEF have come out with a statement outlining you know the main points that should be covered by these policies. And what they say of course is you know mandatory maternity leave at least 18 weeks and possibly six weeks sorry six months. So this is something that not all countries have. Some countries have it much shorter so up to 12 weeks for example. And it's important to you know to outline how these kind of policies impact the possibility of women actually breastfeeding their children. And what it usually turns out to be is that if you're forced to go back to the workplace too soon you're not able to continue breastfeeding even if you have started it. And this again brings you back to the formula and brings you back to the health risk that the consumption of formula can have in respect to breastfeeding. So this is one of the things that they have been advocating for. They have also been advocating for the WHO and UNICEF for workplaces which allow for breastfeeding and break breaks. So it's something to expand a bit on when the mothers return to the workplace that they actually do have the resources to continue the practice. Thank you so much Anna for I think that very important input something that in some senses is I think should be common sense but actually is not as simple as it seems. A lot of complications including the role of the industry. Thank you so much for explaining that to us. And that's all we have in today's episode we'll be back with more episodes in the coming days dealing with many such issues from across the world. But in the meantime do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and don't forget to hit that subscribe button so that you can watch more episodes of Daily Daily. Thank you very much. Thank you.