as much as we talk about the Russian Revolution all of the time we have to ask this question, why do we do that ? why is it so important nd obviously this starts with the fact that it's the first time in history that workers took power and began to transform society and to to change things beyond just taking control of the economy, but beginning to change everyday life and changed the social relationships that existed between people, and one area where we saw huge changes yn y U.S.S.R. yw ydy fyddwch yn gwybod ac yn y bryd y gwybod. Dyma, gyd yn gweithio angen a bryd, ac ddiddorol y byd yn gwneud o'r cyfnod y bydd yn gwneud am y cwmwylliant Cymru, sy'n gweithio'n cyffredinol a'r cyfnod i'w cyfnod yw'r cyflwylliant. Yn y gweithio, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gwybod yn gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio yw'r cyffredinol i'r U.S.R. yn y 1920. Rwy'n gweithio gwybod, ond o'r ffordd i gael yr un ffordd i'r ydydd, ond, ychydig i'r ysgol yw'r ysgol felly rwy'n gwybod. Felly, mae'n rhaid i gael y bydd angen ar y cyffredin, byddwch gweithio, byddwch gweithio'r ysgol yma, ac nifer o'r ysgol yna'r ddydd y byddwn i'r ysgol, ond rydw i'n gweithio'r ffordd i'r ysgol yma i'r ffamili ac i'r cyffredin o'r ffamili. pan mae'n iawn i chi'n amlwg at y fath o'r blaenwyr yn eistedd ar gyfer y syniad yw'r fath. A bod, rwy'n meddwl i'r gwaith cymryd wedi'i gweithio dda i ddarparu dda i Zarisd, oherwydd i'n gwneud y gwasanaeth ar y cyfnod o'r ddweud o'r ddweud, ac mae'n meddwl i'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud ymlaenwyr i'r SESR. As many people will be aware already, the Tsarist regime was an absolutist regime and it used force as well as backward prejudices in society to keep the masses down. For example, it utilised the Black Hundreds which was a reactionary monarchist, ultra nationalist group to incite pogroms and violence against basically anyone who had a disagreement with the Tsar or a different point of view. It was a deeply reactionary and oppressive regime and it was very closely linked with the Orthodox Church which held a material and ideological control over the population and it was essentially a tool of the state to keep people down. It owned 7.5 million acres of land, it had an annual income of over 150 million rubles and it preached, which it still does today, that a woman's place is in the home and has no other role than as a mother and a wife. Here we see this concept of the man as the head of the family, this very deeply patriarchal attitude and that really reflected as well the view of the Tsar at the time, the little father of the entire Washington empire. This view permeated right throughout Washington society and so as a consequence the position of women was secondary, they were seen as property. That's even codified in Tsarist law and we kind of see very many examples of what is quite a very almost medieval perspective of women that exists still even into the 1800s, where women are subject to men's ideas, their control, their desires and men literally had by law the right to beat their wives. A fact that demonstrates the regression of Russian society under capitalism is the fact that domestic violence was decriminalised in 2017 in Russia. To give an idea of how brutal it was at the time though, this is from a law and advice written about wife beating, so apologies if this is a bit brutal but I think it's important to hear. If a wife refuses to obey and pays no attention to what her husband tells her, it is advisable to beat her with a whip according to the measure of her guilt. But if her fault is very serious, the matter is not so simple and her disobedience beyond all bounds, then strip off her shift, seize her hands and give her a sound beating. And I think through this you can see how casualised and how normalised that kind of violence was that this was a piece of advice written and the control that was held over women went beyond physical violence as well. So from a domestic ordinance or like a law of the time it said, a woman must consult her husband on all occasions about everything. If she receives an invitation or someone's ready to visit her, it must only be if her husband permits it. But she must talk with her guests of nothing but embroidery and household matters. And so again you can see the control over women that was exerted by the male members of the household that was even exerted to what you were allowed to discuss and even what you could talk and think about even in like a private setting. Now this oppression of women, it wasn't isolated, it was incredibly widespread, especially in the kind of quite culturally backward countryside where the church and tradition had a really firm hold. And of course the majority of the population were peasantry. According to an 1897 report, sorry, only 13.1% of women in the Xarist Russia were literate, girls received on average about a year with what we would class as secondary education. And that was because they then went to work in the fields at the age of 12 to 14 and were unable to attend school at any other time because they were then also beholden to the domestic chores and the cooking and the cleaning for the male members of the household. So they were doing this from an incredible young age. Of course the effect of this would be to isolate women and young girls from each other but also from the ability to organise, to discuss and just be active with the women essentially. And whether we're female proletarians, those women were paid less for the same type of work, so a lower rate of pay. And also at this time, and this was true of most trade unions in Europe actually, they weren't allowed to join trade unions because there was a perspective that women were less intelligent and that would mean they couldn't understand the workplace issues to the same extent they were less likely to strike and they would hold the male movement back. So conditions in women, although that one about the trade unions was more widespread around Europe, quite clearly the rest of these conditions that I've outlined. Paying this picture of how women in Tsaristwysia had far worse conditions than women in the rest of Europe. Just to contrast that, I talked about the literacy rates for women in Tsaristwysia by 1800, so way before the 1900 when I was quoting from almost, 40% of women in Britain were literate. And by 1855, 77% were literate. And then as well I think a good contrast is the life expectancy to give an idea of the quality of life for women as well. For women in the UK in 1900 life expectancy was 50 compared to 30 for women in Tsaristwysia. So conditions for women, okay they weren't utopian in the UK at this time, but compared to Russia they were far more advanced in many different ways. Now this oppression of women within Tsaristwysia was consciously maintained by the states and by the regime through the institution of the state itself, but also its interaction with the church and the concept of tradition, these conscious ways that views were maintained and perpetuated. But as well as that there was a material basis for the economic, the material basis for this oppression which is based in the economic backwardness of Tsaristwysia itself. Now the development of Russian capitalism didn't really begin until the 1880s and into the 1890s following the emancipation of the Serfs in 1861 and that's incredibly late of course compared to the rest of Europe. And so what that meant was that their old feudal social relations had existed in Tsaristwysia for far longer than elsewhere in other countries where capitalism had developed at a faster and earlier rate. And in those countries the presence of women in the workplace had begun to transform the situation for them and for the whole of society in general. So when we do begin to see the development of capitalism in Russia it really shakes the whole of society out of this sort of feudal barbarism that had been existing there still and it brought presence from the villages into the towns or into the cities to work and we see the beginnings of capitalist industrialisation. But the level of economic output remained relatively low and this slow development of capitalism meant a slow development of the working class overall as well. And so out of 150 million population at the turn of a century only about four to five million Russian workers and the rest were peasants. Now due to its position in relation to the means of production the peasantry cannot play an independent class role and it can't fight independently against capitalism. And so it wasn't until the working class begins to develop that a struggle for emancipation for both workers and women can really begin to be seen and the results of that can be measured. And so it's on account of this late development and the semi-fuelled economy prior to the turn of the century that had kept these conditions of women in such a low position in this almost medieval type picture that I painted of it. And so I think really we do see a very harsh kind of picture for women, a really harsh question of the women's question. Now coming from such a backwards position I think it makes the gains made by the Russian Revolution even more remarkable when we see what they are.  So as soon as the Bolsheviks came into power they immediately passed a series of laws and they ensured legal equality for men and for women. Women were no longer considered objects of property to the men and women were given the right to vote immediately as well. Now to contrast that in 1917 the only other countries in Europe that had the right to vote were Denmark and Norway. And in England of course we know that women over the age of 30 got the right to vote in 1918 but not until 1926 if you were under 30. In the US women didn't get the right to vote until 1920, Sweden 1921 and then it was even later like 30 years later for France and Italy as well. The Bolsheviks granted free access to abortion in 1920 and again they were the first country on earth to do this. And this is just remember just years after this picture of Zaraith Russia that I've just painted. And in addition to that they developed not just access to abortion but the obviously gains that the revolution made that go beyond this that we'll talk about later. Sort of help develop an understanding of why women choose abortions and helping to eradicate all the factors that might bring that on as not necessarily a choice. They established special maternity wards and they brought in paid maternity leave which is really significant. They brought in maternity leave before and after birth which is something that Britain didn't introduce until 1975. They had night work for pregnant women and women who had just given birth completely abolished so that they could stay at home and like recover. And by 1926 marriage didn't have to be registered, divorce was made as easy as possible and the concept of illegitimate children was abolished as well so that all children could be treated equally. The other conditions as well that were changed really disproportionately positively affected women. So for example a decree adopting the 8 hour working day which they brought in just four days after the Soviet government came to power and showed that women would have time to politically engage where they hadn't in the past. And then of course things that are maybe more famous like the public laundries and the public canteens were brought in as well which freed women up from domestic chores. So how is it that the Bolsheviks were able to make such a big change? How is it they were able to get to this point from such a further back position? Well with the economic upheaval that the beginnings of the Development of Capitalism book came this social upheaval as well that I was talking about. Workers were increasingly brought together in the workplace and in the years 1865 to 98 so in the space of 33 years the number of factories that employed over 100 workers doubled so this quick development begins. And women were brought into the workforce as a consequence of this and taken out of the isolation of the home that I described to begin with. And so this is what when we really begin to see the beginnings if not the total development of change for women at this time. Now obviously we know that capitalism brings misery and hardship particularly for women who are still under this double burden of domestic work at home as well. But the fact is that by bringing women into the workforce created this progressive step because it meant that women could begin to be organised. Lenin writes about the impact of the development of capitalism and Russia on women and he said By destroying the patriarchal isolation of these categories of the population who formerly never emerged from the narrow circle of domestic family relationships by drawing them into direct participation in social production large scale machine industry stimulates their development and increases their independence in other words creates conditions of life that are incomparably superior to the patriarchal immobility of pre-capitalist relations. And so it's this involvement in social production that is really key here and so consequently from the 1890s we begin to see some steps forward taken for women they are beginning to partake in strike action they gain education to an extent because there are government initiatives set up to educate workers so they can read and write and be better workers essentially. And actually to illustrate this increased involvement 16.5% of the delegates elected to the first Soviet in the 1905 revolution were women so you can see that wouldn't have happened if there weren't increased involvement from women. Now historical events have an impact as well and World War I greatly accelerates this process that's going on. Obviously we know that the mobilisation of men into the army means that women are drafted into the workforce into industry and so by the end of the war women accounted for 40% of the workforce in large industry and in some places even higher so in the Moscow region 60% of all textile workers were women and to raise the consciousness of these women who were beginning to move into the workforce in huge numbers Bolsheviks began to organise in 1914 they created a journal aimed at working women Robert Knitzer and it had people on the editorial board like Krupskaya who you might be familiar with in Colin Tyne but more importantly they had on their representatives female representatives from every factory who were discussing the articles that were coming in politically engaging with the editorial board and I think it really shows the huge amount of courage that women had because at this time during the war it was illegal to organise in this way the Bolshevik party were illegal and it just shows the amount of courage that they continued to organise and publish regardless of this. Now what's really key about this publication Robert Knitzer is that it didn't simply write about women's issues and try to connect with women on issues that are only related to them and it didn't try to separate out the struggle between male and female workers it educated women about the political necessity of transforming society along socialist lines with the need to go further than just democratic demands that would bring about legal equality and the Marxist perspective of this of course is that we can only bring about equality by transforming society into a socialist society by fighting for socialism but that didn't mean that these demands for greater equality what we might call bourgeois democratic demands to have no place in that and Lenin explains the connection of these two things very clearly so I will quote him he said, only those who are totally incapable of thinking or those who are entirely unfamiliar with Marxism will conclude that a republic is of no use that freedom of divorce is of no use, that democracy is of no use, that self-determination of nations is of no use Marxists know that democracy does not abolish class oppression but only makes the class struggle clearer, broader, more open and sharper and this is what we want, the more complete freedom of divorce is the clearer will it be to the women that the source of her domestic slavery is not the lack of rights but capitalism the more democratic the system of government is the clearer it will be to the workers that the root of the evil is not the lack of rights but capitalism and so this fight for reforms prior to the revolution was absolutely crucial and formed part of the way in which Bolshevik fought to unite female and male workers against the single enemy of capitalism itself so agitation amongst women was really key for winning them to the revolution itself but of course despite the fact that there was increased struggle at this time and despite the fact that we see the emergence of capitalism in it beginning to transform relations conditions for women didn't improve in the same way that it didn't for workers in general of course and that's because capitalism cannot emancipate women because it cannot change the material conditions that engender that oppression to begin with in fact capitalism perpetuates oppression against women so why was it then that the USSR was able to make these changes well it was because it seized hold of the means of production and it transformed the economic base of society so that conditions for women as well as social relationships and the oppression that they had faced could begin to be able to be changed that formed this base actually if we look at those demands that I listed out or those things that the Bolsheviks actually changed very quickly to begin with the majority of the things that they changed initially were bringing in things that we considered these bourgeois democratic demands ideas around legal equality like you know divorce, right to divorce, these kinds of things but even for them to be able to do that it required them to change the material base those things could not be delivered on any other basis and the workers transferred the means of production from private to social hands and this is the kind of key aspect they took steps towards transferring property from private hands to social hands now the origins of women's oppression comes hand in hand with private property and so it's only through the abolition of private property itself that we can begin to see the eradication of that oppression as well and I don't have time to unfortunately go into the details of this you know Ravi mentioned Engels's text origins and we can perhaps talk about it a bit more in the discussion as well about where this comes from but this was an absolutely essential first step so the nationalisation of the economy utilised a wealth that had previously been in private hands and it used that to facilitate turning private what had been private labour in the home like domestic labour into something that was carried out socially it made it public, it made things like social childcare, feeding and cleaning in the home a collective task and by doing this it freed up the time of women to engage more politically and removed them away from the home as well so instead of returning from work and making the tea, making the lunches, sorting out kids clothes for the next day cleaning the house and all of those other tasks that actually the majority of women are still doing today women would be more freed up to engage and to do things for themselves reading, talking, educating, organising now the 1919 political programme of the communist party of the Soviet Union had this as its stated aim which I think is really important it said, not satisfied with the formal equality of women the party strives to free women from the material burden of obsolete domestic economy by replacing this with the house communes, public dining halls, central laundries, crushes etc was a central demand and it wasn't something secondary to the aims of the communist party at this time but none of that was possible, it was only possible if the means of production are nationalised and placed under the democratic control of the workers and of course this is the key difference between a capitalist and a socialist economy and this can only be done on the basis of socialised production and distribution which is done on the basis of the abolition of the profit motive so the planned economy began to bring women out of the home and it began to bring them out of isolation where as I said people could discuss but what it was doing is allowing people to become independent, conscious workers themselves in a society that they could be active within freeing them up to an extent that I think we can definitely argue had never really been experienced before and often we see women, thank you, not participating in politics to the same extent of men because of this additional burden and the additional responsibilities so the revolution sought to change this by reducing that and it was only able to do that because it taken those resources that had been private and made them public but it wasn't, I think what's important when we look at this is to also talk about the role that women played actively in a bit more detail so not just thinking like oh well they were having discussions but they concretely shaped the future of the USSR as well now everybody knows the role that women played in the insurrection and the February insurrection that they were involved in taking strike action and protesting on the day of the February revolution in 1917 that they led workers into the streets and they were joined by male workers and that they petitioned for bread because the conditions were so horrendous and that they won round the army who had been sent to send their rifles onto the women and instead of them shooting the women they shot, they pointed them towards the regime they didn't shoot the regime, they pointed them at them and this is really well known but there's so much more to women's involvement in the revolution itself and in the shaping of society afterwards as well that's really important some of the ways in which they shaped this was that they ran and were elected to positions in the Soviet they played leading political roles in these organisations and bodies and actually Alexander Colin Tye was elected to the People's Commissar of Social Welfare in the First Bolshevik Government which made her the first female minister in the entire world Beyond that position though women were organised, we were involved in organising an armed defence of the revolution they fought arm in arm and side by side with the Red Guard they took in part in revolutionary work at a local and national level as well just carrying out daily tasks that they wouldn't have been able to do prior to this or wouldn't necessarily have been involved in things like distributing leaflets, transporting weapons, sorting out communications caring for the wounded, organising all this kind of stuff as a part of the events of the revolution and they played a crucial role in organising women workers through additional special committees as well and this was really important for outreach and engagement of other workers too the way that they did this was agitation amongst women but again it wasn't along the lines of using feminist propaganda or specifically just women's issues to engage women it was about engaging a section of the working class who were workers who needed to be involved in this revolution just as much as anybody else to be able to make it fully democratic as possible and the fact that they were women really was tangential to this there were Marxists who were going out talking about the need to socially transform society what that looked like, what democratic workers control was and involving other women workers as much as possible and this was crucial not just run up to the revolution and not just in the insurrection itself but actually beyond the revolution itself as well and so in 1919 the Communist Party transformed these kind of committees as they had been into a concrete body, they created the Zenerdell and this was kind of the women's department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and it was led by Colin Tye and the Nessar Armand but it wasn't just about a party structure it was about engaging people and women outside of this and so it was also consisted of as well as party members of the Bolsheviks women outside of that too and their task was to draw unorganised women in the factories and the villages into the party, into an understanding of Marxism and by 1928 this organisation had reading groups of 2.8 million women right across the country engaging in socialist ideas and political discussion reading together and educating themselves so on a kind of involvement level this was a really key part of broadening out the revolution ensuring the maximum participation of every part of society particularly of a section that had been downtrodden up until this point but they did more than that, they also were instrumental in arguing for and bringing about reforms and changes it was actually the Zenit doll that were responsible for the act that legalised abortion and made it available in state hospitals and they were doing this because again you know just having a revolution doesn't automatically change the situation these were concrete questions that affected women that needed to be addressed that were being addressed through this organisation of women so this I think is really kind of key to see the extent and the level of the involvement of women but what was the impact of this generally on them well I mean it's quite hard to measure so I'm going to use a measure here that we're going to take with a pinch of salt but to show the extent of increased participation by women we can sort of look at voting records so between 1926 to 1934 the women's vote rose in urban areas from 42% to 89% and in the villages in the more rural areas it rose from 28% to 80% and obviously that's not a concrete measure we can never use statistics to kind of just show us the increased participation but I think that really does give an idea in numerical form of the amount and the extent to which women were engaging in political decisions or thinking about it more than they had been in the past so these are again you know just to kind of illustrate a little bit further the changes that were brought about that showed the extent to which women were involved but also the types and tasks that they were able to carry out that hadn't been done before and this real shaping of the future of the policy of the USSR and the shape of society and their engagement in it but it doesn't mean that everything was perfect there were also limits to the advancement of the emancipation of women sorry women within the USSR the planned economy gave rise to the basis from which to material emancipate women but freedom for women isn't just a question of freeing women up from domestic labour this is just the beginning whilst the USSR did make huge steps towards transforming the material conditions necessary women were still limited in the amount that they were genuinely freed from the home and many of the steps that were put in place so the beginnings of things happened but were not fully realised so steps towards socialised childcare and laundry for example weren't fully achieved and also importantly the attitudes towards women weren't fully transformed these things can't be changed completely overnight and so this question of transforming consciousness remained one of the barriers that existed within the society of the USSR and Trotsky and Lenin recognised this they recognised that formal equality and legal equality and even material changes being brought in wasn't enough and Trotsky uses a nice metaphor to describe this he says a deep going plough is needed to turn up heavy clouds of soil and what he's getting at here is obviously that kind of millennial old deep-rooted oppressive views of women in the role that they have in the home it's been perpetuated and still is in our society today by the czarist regime and all these other things that came before it can't just be uprooted overnight it won't automatically change for this the conscious engagement of the working class and its leadership as well is necessary now a worker state demands the greatest participation of the working class that's a marvel and also for people to be educated for that to happen and so the Russian Revolution made it essential that women increased and also meant their literacy levels to be able to engage that they were involved in reading groups and political discussion but it also meant that education was required to break this traditional view that had existed and again this was central to the Communist Party in the USSR they made this concrete in the 1921 third Congress of the Common Turn when they said the aim was to fight the prejudices against women held by the mass of the male proletariats and increase the awareness of working men and women that they have common interests it was also to conduct a well-planned struggle against the power of tradition so actively engaging ideologically against this against bourgeois customs and religious ideas clearing the way for healthier and more harmonious relations between the sexes guaranteeing the physical and moral vitality of working people now whilst this was begun and women materially did engage in social production and their political engagement increased again there were limits to this and it's quite a lengthy quote from Lenin but I think it is really helpful to understand kind of just what they were fighting against really and again you may recognise some of this in today's society but he says very few husbands, not even the proletarians think of how much they could lighten the burdens and worries of their wives or relieve them entirely if they lend a hand in this women's work that would go against the privilege and dignity of the husband he demands that he have rest and comfort the domestic life of the woman is a daily sacrifice of self to a thousand insignificant trifles the ancient rights of a husband, her lord and master's survival notice objectively his slave takes her revenge also in concealed form her backwardness and her lack of understanding for her husband's revolutionary ideals act as a drag on his fighting spirit on his determination to fight they are like tiny worms gnawing and undermining perceptively slowly but surely our communist work among the masses of women and our political work in general involves considerable educational work amongst the men we must root out the old slave owner's point of view both in the party and among the masses and this is important because I think these these worms that he talked about will come back in a minute but yeah like the progress of this changing in perspectives and mindsets was halted in its steps but it wasn't halted by lack of will it was halted by thank you by the material conditions, by the problems with the economy that were faced and so the second kind of limitation I guess that was placed on the complete emancipation of women was the transformation of daily life and the extent to which that could really be achieved by the development of the productive forces being held back by that previous backwardness that I described at the start now as we know with the USSR the old ruling class with the support of the international bourgeoisie launched a counter-revolution in civil war against the workers and this really occupied lots of the resources but also the thought of the people of the USSR and it limited the advancements elsewhere so which energy and organisation was going into the defence of the revolution that you couldn't spend the amount of time and energy that would be wished to on all the questions as well so the economy was heavily damaged by the need to defend against this but also limited by compromises that had been made earlier like the Bresletovs Treaty as well as it having started this far further back position and so that meant that the means of production in Russia were far from developed enough to actually be able to provide enough for everybody at this time let alone go beyond that and provide these things that were talking about the greatest nursery spaces and communal kitchens and things so economic development limited what could be put in place and what could be changed the Bolsheviks had absolutely the correct idea in addressing this question of education against prejudice against women and I think you can see from their stated aims and from their actions that they actively fought to change mindsets but the conditions that gave rise to those views to begin with could not be changed without the material changes necessary and so they were limited by that material factor and the third barrier that came as a consequence of that was also the degeneration that came to the USSR which we're familiar with and the importance of the ideas of Stalinism that developed so the limitations obviously of the economy crystallised led to the crystallisation of this bureaucracy under the leadership of Stalin that rose above society and essentially in many ways liquidated the power of the working class and this political counter-revolution that ensued was clearly expressed through the status of women and the change and again a degeneration in the conditions that existed for women now at this time as I said there were the beginnings of change happening and there were tremendous changes as I've talked about like really remarkable things had been changed but women were still confined to their home by many domestic tasks and worse under the counter-revolution of Stalin they reintroduced some of the old bourgeois attitudes towards women for example re-establishing this maternal role but also things like making abortions real legal in 1936 they made divorce much more expensive and much more difficult to access prizes were introduced for families with many children child care hours were cut as well to coincide with the working day so it meant that immediately after work women were tied back to the domestic labour of the home again and girls and boys were educated separately so girls could learn girls subjects that would get them ready for the home and being good housewives these kind of things that all add up to this overall view of women again as the homemakers and not involved fully in the same way as men and definitely not as equal and under these conditions people reverted to their old ways and their old ideas that had been pushed by the Stalinist regime's adaptation to Sovenism the USSR's success and therefore the successful emancipation of women had been at this point as was like the success of the USSR generally related to and dependent on the success of the global revolution and of course we knew that that didn't happen and didn't come about so it's important to kind of despite these limitations it's still important to state that even after the USSR became degenerated and we can see some of the gains that were clawed back it was still able to make huge advancements for women and I think that really can't be understated because it gets at the heart of what is key to transforming society here and that is the economy and the way in which it's controlled so for example even under the degenerated system women still received full maternity pay and they received this for like 56 days on the side and I said I wanted to contrast this to the US today the US is arguably and probably accountably like the most developed capitalist state in the entire world and yet the US has the worst record on maternity rights there is absolutely no obligation for an employer to give paid maternity leave in the US at all whereas in the USSR in the 1930s they had 56 days mandatory paid leave a second example of the great advancements of the USSR compared to other states as well as the first five year plan meant that between 1927 and 1932 the number of nurseries rose from 2000 to just under 20,000 and they had 12 million kids in nursery and this is very topical this is something that's been in the news a lot in the UK recently because the cost of sending a child to one of these nurseries was about one tenth of the wage of a worker whereas today in Britain a report was released earlier this year that showed that nearly one in five parents with children under five was spending between a third and a fifth of their salary on childcare and 15% of parents in England are spending over a half of their salary on childcare so you can see the contrast in life for parents and what that means today in a modern capitalist state compared to the USSR such a long time ago so even though there were limitations there was also huge achievements so we have to ask this question then why is it that it took a socialist revolution to deliver things like that but also basic legal equality that we don't even have in many states today when developed countries with huge economies that are capitalist are still unable to deliver that because of this question that only the seizure of power by the working class can truly deliver legal democratic reforms only the working class can actually deliver equality for women and then go beyond that and that's what happened in Russia and that's still what's required today actually the reason it took a socialist revolution to deliver bourgeois democratic reforms in Russia was because capitalism was completely incapable of doing so the truth is that the bourgeois democratic program can only be delivered by a socialist revolution because capitalism doesn't have the will and nor does it have the means now it doesn't have the will because it isn't in the interest of capitalism to create true equality so capitalism literally requires domestic tasks to be carried out in the home and families are these private entities that carry out all of these different tasks independently in the home feeding and cleaning and all of those other things now historically that task has fallen to women and it does continue to do so today I think something like 75% of domestic labour globally is still carried out by women it's higher in different states around the world of course as well but public spending on these domestic tasks so putting them into a public domain it's not in the interest of capitalists just don't want and they're not able to spend money on these kind of social projects or spending that doesn't return any profit and I think you only need to look at the NHS and how the government are trying to strip any spending on something that is like a state institution as much as possible and you're just completely unable to maintain that spending as well to sort of give an idea of that and so consequently you get what in capitalism amounts to a huge amount of pressure on women to be in the home still this is where this pressure partly is coming from capitalists propagate prejudices against women to further prop that up again you can look at the way in which abortion has been brought well in the process in America being brought back in again this greater control now at a time when we should be seeing greater progress to increase this control over women in their bodies and there's this overhang that you can clearly see in the position of women from thousands of years ago that's actively maintained in a capitalist society but socialism conversely ends this by wiping out the place that it just stems from but these ideas, they can't begin to be changed they cannot be changed on a capitalist basis unless the material conditions are changed and this is what socialism can deliver that capitalism can't now in addition to not having the will and the desire to change things capitalism also doesn't have the means to grant legal equality or anything that goes beyond that and I said this was very clear today because in Britain there is legal equality between men and women and yet we know very clearly there is a 20% gender pay gap women do 30 hours of domestic labour compared to the 6.5 that men do on average a week here 77% of domestic abuse victims are female while 1 in 4 women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their adult lifetime so capitalism can pass all of these laws that claim legal equality but it can't deliver it it can't even deliver something basic like safety or basic like equality in wages even with this law against rape only 1% of them are actually ending conflict 1% of accusation ending conviction so you can see complete inability to deliver whereas the Soviet Union was able to deliver legal equality because it was able to utilise the resources of the planned economy to start to deliver these changes even capitalism today is even unable to continue with any reforms that have made in the past even small things that have been made to make the lives of women better are being clawed back and huge sums of money that are required to deliver legal equality or actual equality and of course this is the case with all reforms about the working class at the minute that under crisis they are clawed back and you know we've seen they have time to go into the detail a bit but we've seen loads of examples of this over the past year with cuts to women's services around the clock so additionally austerity is like as a consequence of pushing women back into the home as well as making lives safer subsidies to childcare are withdrawn women are the people who go back into the home to look after kids all of this is pointed towards this degradation of the position of women again and unfortunately conditions are going to continue to get worse for women and this is despite the fact that we've seen so many campaigns to change or educate society about the ills of sexist attitudes but they're not having a material gain because the material conditions have not changed and the truth is that no number of campaigns no amount of campaigns on any different topic will be able to bring about equality with uncapitalism as long as there is a material basis to the oppression it will be perpetuated because in the last analysis it is material conditions that determine the way in which we think our society our social interactions with each other and so Mark said that when one is generalised all the old crap revives and I think that's precisely what we're seeing today capitalism has advanced society's productive capacity to a huge degree and it should be able to deliver equality and yet what we're seeing is the opposite of that is the reduction in equality and so for workers in the delivery of bourgeois demands and a proletarian revolution actually the reason they can do this is because they're going beyond the delivery of those to deliver them the working class can't simply lay hold of the ready-made structures and begin to make them work better in a better way, that's completely impossible in the delivery of bourgeois demands workers actually abolish class oppression by seizing the means of production and bringing them under democratic workers control taking this collective product that I talked about earlier of labour, of the working class into their own hands for our own utilisation so we have our own tasks in a proletarian revolution that means that we go further and we deliver that Trotsky talks about this in the third of the permanent revolution we can read about it more there but an example of this this is the reason why bourgeois demands cannot be literally delivered by a capitalist society the USSR in the USSR, the Bolsheviks didn't just make women legally equal but by actually setting about transforming the economy to establish something like a shorter working day to end exploitation through that process they freed up women and through that process they were able to deliver this equality in developing the means of production under the democratic collective workers control of the working class through that they were able to provide nurseries, laundries and canteens that in turn freed up women materially Capitalism whilst it has the means of production in private hands it can't do either of those steps to truly deliver any equality and this is why so long as the fruit of socialised production is in private hands it will not be able to make any changes so it leads us to this question and sorry I've run over a little bit of what is really needed to emancipate women today well Lenin called all of the other methods that we might see in society foul lies that the bourgeoisie puts forward things that we really can't be swayed an inch by things that they say are making changes so these campaigns or women's shortlist increased women in management in different committees or in STEM subjects for example none of these actually do anything to make any change and I hope the statistics that I've used have begun to illustrate a little bit of that actually the truth is that in order for women to be able to participate truly and fully in political life they have to be free from domestic chores to the same extent as men all domestic habits and responsibilities have to be completely revolutionised and they must become social rather than private and just as it was true of the USSR that requires the success of the revolution in fact of the global revolution and so we must fight for workers and women's rights and conditions internationally right now and forge the strongest greatest link between workers of all kinds particularly of course in this case between men and women now the revolution itself is a really powerful lever in the emancipation of women but the complete emancipation of women is completely impossible without the construction of a communist society and that requires the active and educated participation of the working class already we have an incredible division of labour we produce everything socially but individuals privately appropriate that wealth we have the means and society to provide socialised domestic work in fact we could automate a huge amount of it which would free all people from this kind of work and it wouldn't take much to do that we have the capacity to do that now and yet we don't because it is impossible on a capitalist basis to do so as long as we operate on a system based by profit that is not going to be a reality and so freeing everyone from domestic labour is the thing that we need to do and that would allow for this breakdown of relationships that we see today that are described as kind of necessary relationships where people stay together because of the financial and economic need if we could change society it will sweep away that and allow for relationships to develop on a mutual bond fundamentally transforming the shape of the family alongside that as well and Engels describes this as the jump from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom for the family and this is what is required this is absolutely what's needed to emancipate women but also by doing the whole of humanity right now I just want to end on a quote from Trotsky he said he said he said and so it's a huge thing that we're seeking to change just these small reforms but changing the shape of the whole of human consciousness and the family and the position that everybody has within it and this is why for Marxist we understand that we have to fight for reforms now that do make life easier for women but also that highlight all the more how capitalism can grant all of the rights to women that it likes but will remain incapable of providing material changes necessary to remove this double burden that is faced by women or to actually remove any of the oppression faced by women and so ultimately to solve the problems faced by women today we must fight to fundamentally change society and that means fighting for revolution


We found this at an auction, it's your junior year year book in high school with some wonderful references to you and you're going to want to thumb through it yourself but let me just point out one of them which is so indicative of you, Dutch the lightest but fastest guard on the team, one is letter through sheer grit, became a movie I guess, with Dutch returning to the squad things look good for Dixon in 1927. There's a lot of other references which we've marked for you, very positive you wrote a real nice letter in here with RR at the bottom of it by the way and everybody assumes that there's a joke in here which I won't comment on, it's not as good as your recent jokes, let me just put it that way as some of your humor here. I wonder if when we get to heaven we'll have football games. He was the quarterback, who will we play? I said why the university of Hades. Well there's a number of references to you, you were president of your class by the way and I'm sure you remember that it's a little bit worse for wear of this book but back cover is missing but there it is. Oh my god. I got that at an auction. Just to have to see it in an auction thought you might enjoy it if you didn't have it. Well the thing about being the lightest I have to tell you they had a conference also then in our high schools there and ours in which they had lightweight and you played double headers and the lightweight limit was 135 pounds, anything over that you couldn't be on the lightweight team. So I was tackle on the lightweight team at 135 and was put on the first string regular team at 135 pounds. Now that says something doubly good about you. There's a picture of you with the team and I try to recognize you in that picture with a magnifying glass and didn't have any luck but I'm sure that they'll find one here for you. Whoops, wait, I just passed it here. Now come on, where are you? I mark these for you, let me see if I can, there you go. No I think that's where you're listed, that's the class. Here's your name, you are on the north side and you're listed there. Let me find the football team for you if you would. You're back there someplace. Oh that's a kind of a distant shot, but I'll bet you I can find it. I think I'd probably. You're obviously the best looking fellow there. It's too far away from me without a microphone or a micro scope. What am I talking about? I tried, you have to get a higher power one than I had because I couldn't make it out. I mean I can't find it. You're there, we know that. I wanted to briefly mention to you also Bill that your son Michael has been so helpful. We worked it out with Robert Dole now, he's the prime co-sponsor of it. We worked out some of the details. Michael's been just tremendous and has sent us a very moving letter by the way. How much your support for his efforts to find some of his family were to him. It's a very moving letter. He's written a book, there was a great revelation of things that we never knew were in his mind. He's the adopted member of the family. But I highly recommend it for people who are adopting or people who have been or are adopted. But yes, he gave me that and we were right. Well hello there. I'm the guy who's got a lot of comments about the same rates you are. I know and same day and birthday and same year. He was telling me out there he gave more to the Republican Party to use the level. That's right. February 1911 was a good vintage year. It was a good year. I was in Canada at the time. Time to put it up. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Best of to everything for you. Doing fine. She's well into her human therapy now. Thank you for calling. It meant so much to her. You really excited the hospital. Thank you very much. She had her night's chemo therapy treatment yesterday. Only just a little bit of queasing this once in a while. For 15-20 minutes afterwards. She's doing well. Thank you again and thank you Howard. See you later. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Adrian Rogers sent you a letter. See you. President Ralph. Good evening. How are you? I'm good. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. You don't have a check. Very glad to meet you. Carol. Lynn Cheney. Lynn Cheney. There's a risk. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening. This is Pat. Welcome. I'm glad to see you. Have you know that I am a fan of you? I have a long story. Well thanks to you. And I am teaching. You remember you gave me the green light to take and told me. It was fine. It was about 14 years ago. Thanks to you. That's when the governor approved all individual teachings. That's the way it should be. He gifted me the book of the subject and the movie I saw in the teaching of young people or a man playing him. And I have to tell you, I flunked on the first page. That's why I teamed back to if you need any help, I'll be glad. It's going to take Saturday morning. Were any of those children in the picture, the students, were they actually regular students? No, they were actors. None of us had regular actors. I couldn't recognize any of them before. They were almost distinct types. Just wonderful. Good to see you. Good to see you. Nice to meet you. Coach Mahaffey, the coach of this championship team. I appreciate your introduction. He's got a tenor. Mike Smith, one of our captains. William Wilson from Winford. Casey Lee from Springfield. Chris Truskowski from Dublin. Why don't you guys go on the other side of Congress? We want to thank you for inviting us here today. As you know, I think we're one of the 300 small liberal arts colleges in the country. Give no scholarships. These guys play for the love of the game. As you did at LaRica College, where you carried the swim team on your back, and anchored the football team. At the same time, though, there, I had to work my way through school. There were no scholarships of that kind, but they did see them on the campus jobs. They could see that you got one of those jobs. To show you how enjoyable it can be, one of my jobs was washing dishes in the girl's dormitory. It was a hardship assignment. The town they come from, Mr. President, Delaware, Ohio, they're talking about you running maybe one more time. They've been talking about this for a long time. They love you out there in Delaware. Well, when I get out, which I have to several months, I can tell you, I'm going to campaign as a citizen for a change in that constitutional amendment that restores the democratic rights of the people to vote for whoever they want to for as long as they want to. I think it's an inversion of those rights to have passed the amendment. Here's the only office that is elected by all the people, and then the Constitution says, I'm going to be there this way. You'll probably get support in our district. It's been Republican since 1864. Mr. President, he had this. I think maybe, though, you're going to get in a little longer. This is our White House photo. That's great. Can we equip you, Mr. President, with a victory t-shirt here? You want to turn that around so it can be clearly seen as a one and only. Thank you very much. Thank you. Couldn't be seen on the major networks, but you'll enjoy this game, Mr. President. Jim Dyer went to Scranton, Mr. President. He was nice enough to put Leg Bygones be Bygones and work that.  Thank you very much. He might not want to fill it with coffee. Black and red jelly beans. Thank you. As you can see over there, it is true. We thank you for your time. It's a pleasure. So much for you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. so that in football, as a matter of fact, clear back in my day, there was a question as to whether the Big 10 teams could defeat. And every once in a while, they would open a season taking on some of the smaller college teams and so forth, or action and practice. And the Little Nine team teams always won. They still call it the Little Nine team conference. 23 schools in it, but it's going from 19. Your predecessor, President Ford was on campus a year ago and we presented him with a t-shirt that said Ohio, Westland, 17, Michigan, 7. We beat them in football, 1928, and they haven't dared play this season. So you're right, there was a time we were able to take those Big 10 teams on. In fact, our team back in December, we played Ohio University of Division 1 team. Defeated them 122 to 115, so they gave these guys a lot of confidence. And Branch Ricky's a graduate of Ohio, Westland. Oh. And then they're auditorium after him. We just created an award in his name and we'll be giving it in the fall. Branch was the first one in baseball. I was a sports announcer after I got out of school. Branch was some of few of us were lobbying to open a baseball team on the racial line.  He learned that at Westland. He had a black player who was a classmate of his. And they refused to let this fellow play ball. And so Branch took the entire team and said we won't play unless he can. So it started back in the 1904, 1905. Well, in football at Eureka College, I played right guard. And beside me was a black fellow named Burkhard, Franklin Burkhard. And he was just about as great a center as I had ever seen in football, just great. We became closest friends over the years. And he was one year behind me. And I found out to my horror the following year there was a new president at Eureka College. Southern team on our schedule said word that, no, our team had elected him a year after. I got out of school and elected him captain. And got word that he should not be brought.  And we're supposed to be in religious school, too. Times are changing. The president's got to work on the trade bills. Thank you so much for all of these. We'll look for a photo on the ranch with that t-shirt on it. That might end up in the presidential library. Well, that would, as soon as people get to see it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, very much, very much, very much, very much. Well, thank you very much. Many times, Mr. President. Thank you. Thanks, thank you very much. Good luck on the trade bills. Thank you.


You'll see most mechanical keyboards listed as having switches which are Cherry MX-compatible. This means they work with keycaps that have a cross-shaped socket, like this one. This standardized socket makes it easy to swap out your caps for another color, or shape, also known as keycap profile. There are several common keycap profiles with varied characteristics, ranging from DSA or XDA with a low uniform height, up to SA profile with tall caps of varying heights, or something in between, like the more common Cherry profile. The differing heights per row make the caps easier to reach from a central hand position. It's more ergonomic, but it means you can't really rearrange your caps if you want to say try a Dvorak layout.


Welcome to the NTN Nightly. I'm Nisha Charles. This edition stops stories. Public servants encourage to find their role in building excellence and promoting good governance. Canada's premier luxury golf resort brand invests in Cabot St. Lucia, breaking barriers in a specially designed Cupgate War. All that has the latest in youth development and sports. Transforming our public service, building excellence and promoting good governance. That's the theme for this year's celebration of Public Service Week. Wednesday, public servants attended an ecumenical service at the mine of the silica of the Machleic Conception, where they were encouraged to continue playing their part in nation building. Here's Chanel Norville. Virgin Lucia Public Service will join the United Nations in celebrating Public Service Day held annually on the 24th of June. A week of activities has been planned in an effort to commemorate the day. Part of the week's activities included an ecumenical service for public servants, where a permanent secretary in the Department of Public Service Peggy and Sudat addressed the congregation. The permanent secretary reminded public servants that what they do is not just a job but a vocation and not about the money but the service. Sudat also addressed what she described as a misconception about the public service. We must be called to service. We must want to serve. The name public officer is usually used synonymously with the words or phrases lazy, incompetent, bad attitude, unwillingness to work to name a few. Most of us know that this is a misconception, a myth. It is not the brush that should be used to paint all public officers. But we must be cognizant of the fact that this may be a reflection of the actions or inactions of a few, which obviously have resulted in an undesirable experience for the citizens. We must be committed to change the public perception. After all, can you imagine life without public officers? This year's commemoration is being observed another theme, transforming our public service, building excellence and promoting good governance, our journey, our future. The day is dedicated to celebrating the value and virtue of public service to the community, highlighting the contribution of public service in the development process, recognising the work of public servants and encouraging young people to pursue careers in the public sector. So that referencing the theme explains that transformation is necessary. As we continue on our journey of transforming the public service, we must go beyond the buzzwords and make the change happen, and more importantly, ensure that it is sustainable. To do so, public service leaders must communicate vision, design and delivery must incorporate people. What we need is more leadership, not more leaders. Public service transformation is necessary for the future, and therefore we must make it happen efficiently and effectively. Ladies and gentlemen, as we celebrate Public Service Day 2019, I urge you to reflect on your role and your contribution to national development. Be the difference, make the difference. Other activities include a panel discussion scheduled for Thursday 20th June, and a health fair in the parking lot of the Greyham-Louisey Building Waterfront Castries is scheduled for the 21st of June from 9am to 2pm. The public service invites all public servants to come out in large numbers. For the Government Information Service, I am Janelle Norville. Meanwhile, the Department of the Public Service has embarked on its revamped comprehensive orientation program for new officers in the public service. The new orientation program brought together its first cohort of 22 staff members from various government departments and focused on topics such as professionalism and ethics in the workplace, customer satisfaction, time management, productivity in the workplace, stress management, understanding NIC benefits, conflict prevention, safety and health in the workplace, and personal financial planning. A new training policy for the public service has also been approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in February of 2019. The unit has proudly touted Cabinet's decision to reintroduce study leave with pay and tuition refund for public officers who meet the set criteria. The Organization of American States, the OAS, is assisting St. Lucia in developing a sustainable heritage tourism sub-sector through an endorsement program. This will allow for sites, attractions and other heritage tourism activities to officially endorse and certify. St. Lucia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Organization of American States, the OAS, geared at developing a sustainable heritage tourism enhancement program. The program seeks to enhance the socio-economic potential of cultural heritage in the Caribbean. According to the program's country coordinator, Ramona Henry-Winn, the program will highlight the cultural values that lies within communities which will enter and enhance the tourism product. What you want to do is to ensure that the values, the cultural values that lies within communities can rebound to tangible benefits for St. Lucia and ultimately for our visitors to our shores to benefit from that endorsement. At the moment we are in the process of doing the community elicitation component of the program where we have a team of trainees along with volunteers who will go into the community and we are using three methods of research. We are using a photo voice method, we are also using a focus group method and we are using an oral mobile history method through the research in the community. Laurent Jean-Pierre is from the Archaeological and Historical Society and is responsible for the biocultural heritage aspect of the project. In essence what we are trying to do is document our biocultural heritage. The Petroplace, where you make the foreign centers, where you have La Rose, where you have Margaret, where you have special things and who best to give us this knowledge but the people who have lived it, say, we are trying to do it and for them to benefit from it from their own biocultural heritage so that the wealth remains in the community. People can come to the community, both locals and visitors alike to enjoy what we have and to create livelihoods in these communities. Project Development Office at the Ministry of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries, Donalyn Vite, says the program also seeks to develop a heritage tourism endorsement which is responsible for coining sites, attractions and other touristic activities as that of a heritage tourism nature. What it would mean for us for St. Lucian and our tourism landscape is that we are able to develop the criteria by which we could bring sites or new touristic attractions into the realm of heritage tours. We could endorse them as such and promote them as such. We still continue under the Ministry with our heritage sites that have been developed previously but this dispensation allows us to really define in concrete terms what makes them a heritage tour, why their heritage tour and to look at the cultural features and the cultural assets and values of those sites that we can now transmit and transfer to visitors and other persons who want to enjoy those amenities and sites as they come to St. Lucia. Canada's premier luxury golf resort and residential community, Cabot Links has announced its plans to develop, manage and operate a new master plan resort community in St. Lucia, the brand's first international property. Located on Point Hardy, Capestead, the crown jewel of the luxury resort will be the 18-hole Bill Core and Ben Crenshaw designed golf course. Prime Minister Alan Chastney says the investment will boost St. Lucia's tourism portfolio. This is coming at a very opportune time for St. Lucia. St. Lucia has really chosen a path to continue to develop tourism but to make sure that we're going more to the high net worth segment of the market. So this project which will include a championship 18-hole golf course will also include if I'm not mistaken a 90 room suite boutique hotel as well as I think about 250 lots is coming and I just want you to know that the government of St. Lucia is not just saying in words our support but putting those to action. Canadian entrepreneur Ben Coendura created the original Cabot Links on an abandoned cold mine. Opened in 2011, it is one of Canada's top ranked courses and sits in the world's top 50 of golf digest world 100 ranking. Coendura says he sees the same potential in Point Hardy. We've been so blessed to get to look all over the world for sites for golf and we have an amazing site in Nova Scotia, Canada that we built over the last 15 years and I sort of had these pangs of thought that we would never find a site that was as beautiful as the one we worked on at Cabot Cliffs. I remember Ali and I stood up here and we looked around and Ali said this feels like it and like all of these things that we think should take three months, three and a half years later here we are and that's due to an awful lot of hard work. Prime Minister Chastonay who really I met shortly after that and we connected on all things Canada and really became a great champion of the project. Phase one of the Cabot St. Lucia will begin this summer with golf play slated for 2021. Another layer of oversight has been added to the operations of the Citizenship Buy Investment Program, the CIP, more from Nicole MacDonald. On Tuesday, June 11, Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Hon. Alan Michael Chastonay introduced a bill before Parliament to establish the St. Lucia National Economic Fund. The bill strengthens oversight over the management of Citizenship Buy Investment Funds and corrected gross inadequacies in the legislation governing the use of CIP funds which was passed by the former administration. As he presented the bill, the Prime Minister explained that presently the Citizenship Buy Investment Act, passed in 2015, establishes the St. Lucia National Economic Fund. However, the present administration felt it necessary to strengthen the legislation as the fund operates outside of the consolidated fund. On this basis, the provisions under the Act were considered to be absolutely inadequate. In relation to the governance, the bill identifies the fund as a special fund that will be used to advance loans and provide investment for government-approved capital projects, reduction of debt, purchase of government bonds, or for monies required for a purpose approved by Cabinet. The Minister of Finance is authorized under the bill to make an order that will identify the government-approved capital projects once approval is obtained from Cabinet. The monies of the fund will be the qualifying investments of cash that is currently stated under the Act, and these monies will be deposited to the credit of the Minister in the Financial Institution approved by the Minister. The bill will also establish the St. Lucia National Economic Fund Board, which will include the Director of Finance as Chairperson, the Budget Director, the Chief Economist, a Representative from Invest St. Lucia, a Representative from the Ministry of Commerce, from the Attorney General's Chambers, and from the Private Sector. And this is the NTN Nightly. Ryan O'Brien is up next. Welcome back. We join Ryan O'Brien for the latest happenings in youth development and sports. Thanks, Misha. And welcome everyone to your update from Youth Development and Sports on the NTN Nightly News. I'm Ryan O'Brien. Minister responsible for youth development and sports, the Honourable Edmund Estefan, has cautioned sporting administrators here that they have some work to do as far as making their operations efficient. The Minister made the remarks while addressing those in attendance as the St. Lucia Olympic Committee Incorporated dedicated their conference room to the memory of late Honourary Member Jonathan Everett. Minister Estefan stressed that part of the mandate of national sporting associations is to uplift athletes using the necessary ingredients for them to flourish in their chosen disciplines. Meanwhile, President of the St. Lucia Olympic Committee Incorporated Senator the Honourable Fortuna Bellrose told the administrators present that how they delivered to those they served was very important. Senator Bellrose suggested that national associations should seek skill sets that are needed within their executive body to boost their administrative capacities which will assist in better structure and functioning of associations. Schools that were successful over the last year in various sporting competitions put on by the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports in collaboration with the Ministry of Education will come together on June 28 for the staging of the annual Schools Sports Awards ceremony. Winning schools and student athletes will be receiving trophies and awards acquired over the Schools Sports Program. Meanwhile, preparations are ongoing for St. Lucia's contingent due to participate in the Winner Island School Games set for Dominica at the end of July. That's your update from Youth Development and Sports for today. I'm Ryan O'Brien. Thanks Ryan. Sufra Comprehensive has emerged champions of the WinFresh-sponsored Chefs in Schools culinary competition which was held on Thursday and Friday of last week. 10 secondary schools participated in the annual event. The students were trained for the event by senior chefs who are currently employed with the major hotels on the island some of whom are former participants in the competition. The two students competing for Sufra Comprehensive were Sherqueen Franke and Kayla Joseph, both from four students. Chef Ruben Kumar of Anne Shastner Resort served as their coach. They were representing Lucia at the Caribbean Junior Chefs competition scheduled to take place in Bombay this later this year. Last year, the national champions from the Sufra Comprehensive secondary school went on to win the regional competition and do stay with the NTN Knightley. When the authority of the heads of government of the OECS and its other ministerial councils meet and adopt policies for the organisation they rely on the OECS commission to transform these into action. The OECS commission is the secretariat of the organisation a grouping of officials headed by a director general mandated to implement the decisions of the governments but also empowered to make recommendations on the strategic directions of the organisation. The OECS commission organises meetings, prepares budgets, conducts research, undertakes projects, negotiates for and represents the OECS member states. It is organised along several components. There are the commissioners from each member state who along with the director general form the commission that oversees the work programmes. There are also technical divisions with specialised units between them as well as diplomatic missions in Brussels and Geneva. All these complement each other to make the OECS commission the engine of regional integration in the eastern Caribbean. The OECS has a proud past and together we are working towards a brighter future for all our citizens. For more information visit www.oecs.org Welcome back. It was all about inclusiveness for the St. Lucia Blind Welfare Association as a stage the first ever cupcake war involving blind and low vision participants. This one-of-a-kind competition was judged by Rosie Joinville, the owner of Big Chef and Tappers on the Bay alongside two executive chefs, Odine Martin of Big Chef Restaurant and E.K. Lough of the Royal St. Lucia Hotel. More from Glenn Simon. Are you ready for cupcake war? A first-of-a-kind cupcake war competition was organised on Saturday June 8th for blind and low vision clients of the St. Lucia Blind Welfare Association, SLBWA. This was one of the activities for Blindness Awareness Month 2019. Three teams of two battled it out for bragging rights of being called SLBWA Cupcake War Champion 2019. The blue team comprised twin boys Mark and Marquis Brandis. Mark is totally blind and Marquis is low-visioned. Hi, I'm Malika. The green team brought together the mixed pair of Malika and Tevin who are both completely blind. They were up against stiff competition from Team Orange, Juliana and Julia who are themselves totally blind. Well, this is the first time I'm trying this. Event organiser Denise Goudin informed participants that the criteria for judging was based on appearance, taste, creativity, teamwork and presentation. She also mentioned the modest monetary prize. There's the first prize of $100 that you will share, second prize $50 and the third prize is $20. Executive Director of the SLBWA Anthony Avril said the lesson in the Cupcake War competition is a part of inclusion. The teams are having fun here today and for some of them that this is maybe the first time they're stepping into a kitchen environment. However, the important thing for us is not only the fun that they are having and the lessons that they are also learning but is the message being communicated to the general public. Nothing is beyond them. They are given the opportunities if we are given the opportunities because I am part of that community myself. If we are given the opportunities the sky is the limit. Challenge is employment. A secret ingredient was also thrown into the competition with each team having to dip for this ingredient which they had to add to their cupcakes. The blue team got carrots, the green team bananas with the orange team settling for lemons. Each team had one sighted guide to assist them. Mina Espielta was the assistant for the blue team. They are quite confident in what they are doing so that is a big thing. They are not afraid to try things that they have never tried before. This unique competition left the judges in awe of the competitors and this was the first time any of the three judges had presided over a culinary competition involving blind participants. Head Judge Rosie Johnville owner of Big Chef and Tappers on the Bay and Odine Martin, Executive Chef at Big Chef Restaurant shared their views on the competition. This is something very new for us and I think it's something that's a really, really great experience. It's really humbling for me to come here to really experience something like this for the first time and hopefully in the future we are looking forward with Mrs. Johnville of course coming back and really and truly assist in this venture. Though completely blind Malika from the green team is currently self-employed running her own cake making business for a living. I bake cheesecakes, vanilla cakes, chocolate cakes, carrot cakes, fruit cakes, pineapple upside down cakes and sometimes if anyone requests anything specific I can do that too. Malika shared with us her views on the competition and the limitations sometimes imposed on persons with blinding eye conditions. No, you can't do anything you set your mind to. I mean with practice you get better at it. It's just a matter of attempting to do it and doing what you love. So it doesn't matter whether it's baking, art, dancing, whatever it is. You just put your mind to it and you'll be able to do it. When the tasting was all done the judges handed in their final results. The third place was awarded to Team Blue with their carrot cupcake. Second place went to the Orange team whose secret ingredient was lemon and the title of SLBWA Cupcake War Champion 2019 going to the Green team with their banana cupcake covered with chocolate and vodka glaze. The winners also received the $150 gift certificate for Big Chef or Tapas on the Bay. Cupcake Wars was sponsored by Rosie Johnville and individuals from Parasol charity. Glenn Simon reporting. And here's a look at what's happening to us weather-wise. A tropical wave will produce cloudiness, showers and isolated thunderstorms mainly over the southern portion of the region during the next 24 hours. Another tropical wave located over the eastern tropical Atlantic is moving westward near 20 miles per hour or 31 kilometers per hour. Tropical Cyclone formation is not expected over the tropical Atlantic during the next five days. Saharan dust haze will continue to cause a reduction in visibility around the Lesser Antilles. The sea is locally rough with waves and swells 6 to 9 feet or 1.8 to 2.7 meters. Small craft operators and sea bathers are advised to exercise caution due to brisk winds, rough seas and reduced visibility. The sun will rise Thursday at 5.36 a.m. And that brings us to the end of the NTN Nightly. Join us next time at 7 p.m. with a repeat at 7 a.m. You can also catch up with us anytime on the Lesser Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I'm Nisha Charles.


Hello, I'm Moira Stillwell, the Minister of Social Development. The UN has declared December 3rd as International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It's a day to celebrate the incredible diversity of skills, talents and gifts that individuals with disabilities have to offer. I love the theme for this year, Removing Barriers to Create an Inclusive and Accessible Society for All. Regardless of whether we have a disability or not, we know that every one of us wants to contribute to our community. BC is committed to creating a system of supports to ensure that those with disabilities are given every opportunity to participate in our growing economy. Although they have tremendous skills and abilities, people with disabilities have an employment rate almost 20% lower than the rest of the population. That has a significant impact on the approximately 400,000 people with disabilities who are working age in this province. We're making progress on many levels, but there's still so much more to do. In British Columbia, we have set an example for inclusiveness and progress and made the world a better place for people who live with disabilities. We have changed people's views on what is possible. Through the determination of great British Columbians like Rick Hansen, Paralympian Lauren Wollstonecroft, Terry Fox and so many others, we see what can be accomplished when people step up and make a difference. We are conquering ignorance and changing the way that we as a society view the potential of people with disabilities. I commend the work being done province-wide to create inclusive accessible communities and I encourage employers to recognize the talents and abilities of British Columbians with disabilities. We know that when barriers are removed and people with disabilities are able to participate fully in their community, everybody benefits. Let's continue to work together to ensure that every British Columbian has the chance to take full advantage of the amazing opportunities our province has to offer. Thank you.


Hello, I welcome you all once again to my channel Explore Education, I am Dr. Dashmissing, Assistant Professor Department of Education, this is Kanna Girls 2D College, University of Allahabad. And in the series of discussing issues on distance education, firstly I have discussed distance education, its meaning, nature, meaning, need and scope, then I have discussed distance education in India, its history and its assumptions and principles and in this row, now I am discussing the concept of open school and open university. So the lecture will be in bilingual mode as usual and it must be useful for all of us. First of all, open school, this is Muktu Vidyalay, in Hindi we will say Muktu Vidyalay, so we will see in the Indian language, so what is Muktu Vidyalay? Openness for whom? The National Institute of Open Schooling, which is now known as NIOS, you will hear a lot of names, you will see banners, posters, advertisements, the National Institute of Open Schooling, formerly as National Open School was established in November 1989 as an autonomous organization in pursuance of NPE 1986 by the Ministry of Education, G.O.I. which is now known as NIOS, NIOS provides several vocational life enrichment and community oriented courses besides general and academic courses at secondary and senior secondary levels. In the name of school, it manages the schooling at secondary and senior secondary levels and provides vocational courses, life enrichment, community oriented courses, and general and academic courses. It also offers elementary level courses through its open education program and elementary level courses also run in open school. Our educational planners looked for new alternative approaches for providing access to education for those who wanted to continue their education. At the school level, correspondence education was first introduced in 1961. It was felt that the OLS, Open Learning System at the school level could meet the challenges of bringing unschooled children and adults within the fold of education. As a result, the order to start an OLS at the school level surfaced in 1974 at the Royal Conference of the International Council for Correspondence Education held in New Delhi. In 1979, the Open School was set up as a project of the CBC Delhi and the Central Board of Secondary Education in Delhi started the Open School in 1979. The Open School was not an examining body at that time. It was conducted by the CBC and its examinations were conducted by the CBC and its examinations were conducted by the CBC only. But in 1989, when the OLS was being made, it was upgraded and made an autonomous institution and it was empowered. It was made possible by the CBC and the Central Board of Secondary Education. So, the mission of OLS is to provide relevant continuing and developmental education to prioritized client groups in response to the assessed needs of the people through an open learning system at a school stage. This is an alternative to the formal system and thus made its contributions to it. This is the alternative to the formal system. And in which the OLS is called Universalization of Education. We have talked a lot about the UEE, Universalization of Elementary Education. So, Universalization of Secondary Education and now the Universalization of Higher Education is being discussed. So, this gave us the OLS that we were able to provide education. Gender Equity and Justice in Society, greater equity in society. And the evolution of the learning society. And we contribute to the development and evolution of the society. So, how equity and justice will come to society when all of them will be taught. So, the disadvantages of the remote areas, the tribal areas, these are the advantages of teaching. And when everyone will learn about this, we will be able to talk about the learning society, the knowledge society. And the OLS was designed, developed and delivered high quality academic programs as well as courses in professional areas like computer applications, word processing and secretarial practices. Means, not just general or academic courses, there are many types of courses that OLS launches, designs, develops and delivers. So, what are the two courses? General Educational courses and Vocational or Life Enrichment courses. Vocational education is offered at secondary and senior secondary levels. Life, enrichment and continuing education courses are addressed to the general public in those in various areas of it. Okay. Means, these general education courses will run or vocational or life enrichment courses will run. And what does this do? The NOS is playing the lead role in developing a network of open schooling channels in the country. And as a result, several state, open schools and state centers for open schooling have come up in various states. The features of open learning in NOS guarantee the following. They say that NOS has given the lead role. There are a lot of courses that are running. So, many states have initiated it. And it is running at its state level as well as open schooling. And if NOS is there, what kind of a guarantee does it take? National Open School. Easy access to education. It will reach education easily. Expanded base of education. The foundation of education will be established. Ensures better coverage. It will cover more students. Education supports to dropouts. The ones who are left behind in their studies will be supported in their education. Okay. And one more thing. Common wealth of learning. C.O.L. Common wealth of learning was established by common wealth heads of government in 1987 to support and expand the use of open and distance learning to increase opportunities for education and training in developing countries. That is, in the developed countries, in order to increase the use of open and distance learning opportunities, in 1987, common wealth heads of government established common wealth of learning. C.O.L. embarked on this work in open schooling in 1994. And in 1984, he started working at open schooling. Over the last 30 to 35 years, the development community has focused much of its work on increasing access to basic education. And in the next 35 years, First, there was Jomti and World Conference that launched UNESCO's Education for All. Whenever we talked about inclusive education, then we talked about EFA. In 1990, EFA came into being, Education for All. It has appraided that we have to take everyone with us. We have to leave no one behind. We have to teach everyone. So, everyone can't learn from the beginning. That's why the concept of Open Learning and Distance Learning is more advanced. And set the goal of universal primary education to be attained by the year 2020. The year 2020 has passed. But then it was believed that we will be able to give primary education or elementary education to everyone in 2020. So, this is the concept of Open Schooling. We have NOS in 1989. It is now called NIOS. What are its needs and needs? I have discussed this with you. Now, let's talk about Open University. So, it is not only Open University. It is also Open University. The first educational commission set up in independent India, the University Education Commission, which is also called Radha-Krishnan Commission, which was established in 1940. In 1999, it submitted its report. It says in its report that the democracy depends for its very life on a high standard of general vocational and professional education. It is said that people can only be independent. It is said that when a very good, high quality, high standard of a high standard of general vocational and professional education is provided there, the dissemination of learning, the incessant search for new knowledge and increasing efforts to plumb the meaning of life, the provision for professional education to satisfy the occupational needs of our society and the vital tasks of higher education. That is, there is a lot of pressure and dissemination. There is a lot of new knowledge. There is a lot of media. We want to explore the meaning of life. We want to satisfy the occupational needs of professional education. These are the vital tasks of higher education. The solution to the problem of the continuing inadequacy of educational facilities and inequity in educational opportunities lay not within the framework of the conventional, classroom-centered educational system, but outside it. It is said that the continuing inadequacy of educational facilities and inequity in educational opportunities lay not within the framework of the traditional, conventional, classroom-centered educational system, but outside it. It was in the third five-year plan, 1961-66. Please note that this is the first time that the third year of the year has been discussed in the corresponding education. Whether it is after the Open University or after the Open Schooling, it is said that the first time is after the Open Schooling or after the Open Schooling. The Planning Commission took a serious note of the need for correspondence education and at that time, Yujna Ayub thought that she needed four-page education. Then, after that, there are two reports. In 1975, a five-year committee report came and after that, there is the establishment of the Open University in India. I have given an E here. In the previous video, I did not give a text, but I gave it in the description box. So, the committee report in 1975 came surveying the scene of higher education in India. The committee observed that the resources available for higher education to cope with such a tremendous expansion are comparatively limited, leading to the lowering of standards and other undesirable results. In such a situation, it was natural that the committee strongly recommended the starting of a national Open University. That is, the committee reports that when it surveyed the higher education in India, the resources are less and the expansion is increasing and our standards are decreasing and there are many unwanted results that should not happen. So, it strongly recommends. It strongly recommends that a national Open University should start. In this way, the State Government of Andhra Pradesh established the first Open University. So, the government of Andhra Pradesh established the first Open University in 1982. The name of which was later was made by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University. In the same way, you are being ignored later. On November 14, 1964, Srimati Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister stated, we must bring education to all parts of our country and all sections of our people, especially the weaker sections and those who have so far been underprivileged. In 1964, Srimati Indira Gandhi said that our endeavour is that in India. The poorest, the most backward children receive the best possible education. We are here to take a step forward in this direction today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The National Open University opens in 1982 in Andhra Pradesh, which is later called the B.R. Umbedkar Open University. After that, it opens in 1985. After which, in 1964, Shri Mati Dira Ghani did it. And then in September 20, 1950, the foundation stone of the organization is kept. In 1986, the National Policy on Education also said that life-long education is the cherished goal of the educational process. The opportunities will be provided to the youth, housewives, agricultural and industrial workers and professionals to continue the education of their choice at the pace suited to them. At the same time, it is said that the housewives who are young, who work in the industry, who want to continue their education according to their pace, for all of them, life-long education is a very good goal for all of them. The future must be in the direction of open and distance learning. Since its inception, IGNU is the harbinger of a new system of education in India. It has to serve the purpose of developing a more responsive and relevant system of education through its emphasis on innovation, cost-effectiveness, absence of rigidity and social involvement. If you have ever done a course with IGNU, or if you have ever studied any self-learning material of IGNU, then it is a very good material. You should definitely do a course with IGNU. They have very good services. They always have a very good name for the National Open University of Indira Gandhi. We all should read something from there. These good courses and good materials will be enjoyed. If you really want to read something, you will really enjoy it. So, the objective of the academic program is that IGNU was conceived as an instrument of democratizing education, i.e. to promote education for the people of education. That is, it will be taught to everyone. To advance and disseminate learning and knowledge by a diversity of means, including communication technology. For the advancement of knowledge, for the transmission of knowledge, this communication technology will be used to provide opportunities for higher education to a large segment of the population. We can teach a large part of the population through it, and we can increase the educational well-being of the community, and to encourage the Open University and distance education system through the educational pattern. In the country and in India, it is the objective of the IGNU to provide more support to the students from far away. This is the purpose of the IGNU, and it is successful in this regard. This is all about open schooling and open university in India. We must be aware about it, and we must enroll in any of the courses provided by IGNU, because they are really such good courses. So, thank you, and don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel Explore Education. I have done from my side.