The need for a critical and engaged study of this force has become more apparent in the country. You will notice the proliferation of claims known as by the highest officials of the land that they have been misinterpreted or misquoted, thereby effectively constructing an excuse from taking responsibility over their pronouncements. The action arguments to themselves the absolute authority over meanings of words, which sadly cannot be claimed by just anyone. Interpreted authority is a privilege of the few. This force, being studied critically, is nothing new. But because this force is an inscapable aspect of human-made experience, there is a tendency to dismiss it as nothing more than a natural consequence of our interaction. Studying this force from a critical lens gives us an opportunity to see that in many instances our interaction with others and the manner by which we accomplish such is contingent on the structures that reinforce inequality of power and society. In other words, not all engage in particular discourse situations will have the same chance to speak and the same opportunity of getting heard. This fact is very easy to realize. The more important task of critically engaging discourse however is the recognition that multiple voices should be allowed to speak and be heard and that is what a critical study to discourse should work hard for. Ideally, a profusion of multiplicity of voices in form, sensitive and intelligent is the essence of a true democracy. In actual practice, there is a concept need to fight for. Alan Bell, the renowned social linguist, proposes that our main thrust as scholars of language, communication in discourse should be the critical social linguistics of voice. Voice metaphorically has been a powerful representation of active engagement and participation in society. Methodologically, the study of voice as a discursive practice points to the importance of interrogating what Pierre Bourdieu calls structure in structures or those sides of power that limit our legitimate position as participants in the making of society. Critically studying discourse also means knowing beyond what traditionally has become the main focus of the field. The discursive turn in the social sciences and cultural studies have given near-dedicated focus to semiotics, science, language and meaning. I agree with Margaret Weatherall's assertion that it is imperative to include the entirety of the human experience as social practice in deeply understanding discourse. She turned the direction of effective discursive practice in which meaning and language are not separate from the body and emotion in our pursuit to fully comprehend the human social experience. What is exciting about this course analysis and its extension, effective, discursive analysis is the possibility of the research projects that we could come up with. For example, in studying emotions and its role in our daily discursive lives we can include in the analysis the politics, the encumbrances that we are having when we deal with our emotions generally. Emotions, the emotions are a very important topic in this course analysis because usually between emotions of a natural occurrence and natural effect of our daily interactions with people. When you experience sadness, when you experience happiness for example, when you get angry, when you get frustrated over certain things we see it as a natural consequence of the human experience of our limitation as a human person. But what we don't realize usually or in many instances emotions are also social. There is a term called emotional habitus and it is a combination or a fusion of what pair would you term habitus or the dispositions that we have been taught to live in our daily lives from birth to our death. Emotional habitus is basically teaching people how to respond emotionally in a proper manner. For example, there are certain emotions that we automatically relate to certain people. Disgust, happiness, anger. These emotions are sometimes automatically categorized as being the proper emotions for certain circumstances of certain people or certain people are included. Recently I remember a news about a study that was conducted and the study is about which country is the most emotional in the world. I remember that the Philippines figured as the most emotional country or if not one of the most emotional countries in the world. That is a very interesting assertion and a very interesting premise. When we say that Filipinos are one of the most emotional people in the world, what does that mean? How do we analyze critically emotions and how do we analyze emotions with our daily dispersive practices or communicative practices? We must remember that emotions are, although they are experienced by the body, although they are experienced by the individual person, it is connected, it is completed in dispersive situations. There is no use at being angry without being angry at anyone. There is no use with being sad without showing it to people that you are sad or you are happy. Usually in the simplest sense we try to elicit emotions from the emotions that we try to perform. Performativity of emotions is one of the tasks of effective dispersive analysis. When we say performing emotions, that has so many other repercussions. For example, when we perform a certain emotion, what is the reason for performing it? Or can we perform just any emotion in any circumstances that we have? There are certainly certain circumstances that will allow for certain emotions and in that case we will realize how social emotions can be. It is not just individual but it is a social practice, it is a social experience. One good example about the sociality and relationality and the intricacy of the relationships of emotions so our daily existence is guilt. This emotion of guilt could effectively be seen in the experience of overseas workers. Filipino overseas workers are one of those groups that has so many emotional baggage. They will be sad at leaving their families and their countries. They will experience fear in going to a new place in those countries. But what is one of the most important and significant emotions that are attached to being overseas workers or filling overseas work emails, and that is guilt. Guilt is the basic emotion in diasporic cultures. The classic definition of diaspora from the experience of the Jews is configured by this whole idea that they are experiencing guilt because they are part or they are away from their homeland. And in the future, the myth is they will have to return home. Although that is a classic definition of the diasporic experience, it could be applied to other diasporic cultures and specifically it could be understood by looking at the experience of Filipinos who decided to work abroad, temporary migrants, or Filipinos who decided to permanently reside outside the country, the permanent migrants.  And that is one of the principles of guilt. It is interesting because this sentiment is not just reinforced by your fellow Filipinos. It is not just reinforced by people around you, by your family when your children, for example, ask you why you had to leave them or when your family members ask you for money. They try to extract the proper response by making you feel guilty. So these are the personal reasons for feeling guilty. But what we don't realize is that the Philippines state in particular is also cognizant, is also aware of the heaviness of the emotion, the particular emotion of guilt in Filipinos moving overseas so that they use it as a way to make those Filipinos who decided to leave the country to feel attached to the Philippines and why is that so? Why is it important for the state to ensure that Filipinos leaving the country, whether for good or temporary, will still have that feeling of attachment to their homeland? One of the reasons is that statistically, because the Philippines state relies heavily on overseas workers' remittances and one way of assuring that Filipinos were abroad would regularly remit to their families, which in the end will benefit the country, is to make them feel that they have a certain attachment and that could be enacted by the feeling of guilt. In many of the state-produced texts, for example, Handbook for Filipinos Overseas in Philippine Overseas Employment Agency reports, we could notice how these things, how guilt, combined with the whole emotion complex, attached to guilt, sadness, longing, fear, anxiety, all of these things that point to the general emotion of guilt is being harassed by the state so that it will assure that even though there is a transnational movement of Filipinos, meaning Filipinos were able to transcend the national borders, they will still have a supranational control over, not just over the minds of the Filipinos, but their emotions. And when you control emotions, it is harder to break. It is more difficult to break free from because you feel it is natural. So when you make Filipinos feel guilty about leaving the country, so when you make Filipinos feel guilty about leaving their families behind, it is not just the natural feeling that you try to enact, it is a natural effect of leaving your family behind that you try to make them recall. It is a social and national concern that you are trying to uphold, that you have to make sure, the state has to make sure, that these Filipinos never forget where they came from and what is the reason for that? Perhaps you could say that it is because to instill a nationalistic sentiment even if you try to decide to leave the country, but in a more practical economic manner and discourse studies is very big on deeply studying discourse to include numbers and not just qualitative analysis of the social experience. What this points to is the assurance that economically these people will still benefit the country by supporting the families that they have left behind in the Philippines. So that is one example, one case of how emotion could be understood in a more critical manner. So when you say guilt, at the guilt specifically experienced by Filipinos who decided to leave the world, what we can say is that there is a personal, individual, emotional response of leaving, but we should also look at the larger social practice and that is configured by an informed social analysis and social analysis would tell us that guilt may be individual, but it is also social, it is also political, and it is a national concern. One other exciting aspect of a critical study is the attention given to extra linguistic elements of our meaning-making practices in our culture or in society. Traditionally, this course has depended on the discipline of linguistics in dealing with the studies of daily discourse and situations and trying to understand how people use language and communication. This course studies has conventionally regarded linguistic components and basic concepts and basic theories as the major framework for analysis. But recently, there have been movements, there have been efforts to include not just language as the main configuring element of our meaning-making but to include semioptic resources that are also important in trying to make sense of our daily lives. This means that when we try to understand this course, we don't just try to understand words used by people. We try to understand signs and symbols, we try to understand color and sound, for example. We try to understand, for example, in print, the layout, and the typography. So all these things are part of the semioptic resources that we have in trying to understand specific, recursive situations. The importance of a multi-modal analysis, and that's what we call the specific area of studying this course from a multi-semioptic perspective. Multi-modal semioptic analysis is concerned with the interaction of not just language but all the things that we use in moving out of our lives. For example, the choice of color, of the clothes that we wear when we go to specific places, when we attend specific functions, the type of voice that we use in certain recursive situations. These are all part of a more thorough and more fine-grained study of this course. In studying this course in a multi-modal perspective, we are concerned about the entirety of the discursive experience, not just words, not just language, but everything that are potentially meaning makers in our society, in our daily practice of engagement with other people. One interesting case is the recent elections. When we try to remember what happens during electoral campaigns, the best way to analyze electoral campaigns as a discursive situation is to look at it from a multi-modal semioptic lens. That means it's not just the words of a candidate that we try to pay attention to, because we all know that they speak in a particular genre. So they speak Filipino during times of elections, during times of campaigns, because Filipino is a choice, it's a language, it's presumably the language of the common people, the language of the masses. But in reality, after the elections, they would tend to hear them speak English, because that is one of the official languages of the Philippines. It is a marker of intelligence, a marker of status. Aside from what they say during elections, we can also look at the way they trace, for example. What are the specific choices of physical appearance that we notice in these candidates? We try, for instance, to see the specific campaign materials that they have, the campaign videos that they use to entice voters to vote for them, which what are the extra linguistic elements present that would paint them in a particular manner. So these things are part of the multi-modal analytic framework. We will notice that this theory, this particular lens, actually is derived from our daily experience, because when we engage with other people, we do not just understand them, or we do not just try to comprehend them, to understand them by listening to their words. We judge people, or in a more diplomatic way of saying it, we try to understand or analyze people by looking at their entirety. The words they use, their mannerisms, the way they trace, the things that they have, the kind of voice that they use in particular situations, probably the hairstyle that they have, the color of mobile phone covers that they opted to use. So these are all indicators of particular characteristics of the person. In linguistics, they call it indexicality in language. When you say indexicality, these are the features of language that will give you an idea of the physical, the biological, the psychological, and the social characteristics of the particular person using that particular language. So, for example, when someone opts to speak in English, it's not just because that person prefers to speak in English. In a society like the Philippines, where there is a very specific and very complex linguistic politics, the choice of English is not just explained by your preference. There is a reason for trying to speak in English, and there is a reason for trying to speak in English in a particular situation. So that is an index of, for example, probably status or class or intelligence. So these indexes could also be applied to other means of making meanings, aside from language, the clothes that you wear, the shoes that you wear, the way you talk, the way you speak. And if you think about it, this is merely an operationalization of what would you call habitus. I was talking about earlier. So habitus is the seemingly natural disposition of people in acting and thinking and making decisions. The theory of habitus is very interesting and very, very important because what it says is that people are not naturally inclined to be what we think conventionally they should be. People, for example, the working class is not actually naturally inclined to say things in a certain way or to do things in a certain way or to make decisions in a certain way in a similar manner. A person with an upper class upbringing is not naturally predisposed to these kinds of certain behaviors. But what habitus tells us is that because from the beginning of your life on Earth in society you are trained to do certain things in a certain manner to think in certain ways, to make decisions in certain ways. It's as if these things have become a natural part of your being, of your being upper class or of your being working class. So what habitus says is that these are not natural. These are not universal. These are all relative and these are all social, sociological, cultural.  So what multimodal discourse analysis does is to operationalize how we think ourselves to act naturally. It's very interesting when we discuss, for example, the cause of the habitus because he said is that even in the way we walk, even in the way we stand and I automatically just corrected my posture because this is a particular situation where I should have a clear particular proper posture. So these things are not natural but we are trained to be certain ways. So multimodal discourse analysis actually creates the very fine brain and almost a technical way of understanding how habitus is implemented and experienced in our actual daily life. So in terms of the decision making that we do it is manifested in our physicality, in the entire program of our performing ourselves daily. The performance of the self is, when you think about it, it's a basic, discursive project. We perform ourselves daily and sometimes you think that this is the natural way that we ought to be because this is who we are.  When you say be who you are or express yourself what does it actually mean? It means simply that you be or you act the way you want to be but that is not possible because we are always in case, we are always under particular social systems and these systems that we are in construct our social relations and our social relations actually determine how we conduct ourselves in our daily dealings with people. So the performance of the self is a very critical project. We might not realize it because that's the way we've come to see ourselves but if we think about it more critically if we look outside ourselves we will realize that we are always within particular systems and these systems, these structures exert power in our decision making. It doesn't only mean that it exerts power in how we plan ourselves in our future in how we plan our daily lives and how we think but more importantly it actually influences how we behave and the most natural behavior that we have in society as social beings could be understood as an effect of our belonging to particular social structures. So what does it mean? Does it mean that we are forever doomed to being robots or automaton of these structures? No, we must remember for example we must remember for instance what Giddens constructed as the continuing and dialectic relationship of structure and agency and this is very relevant in this course analysis. There are structures that govern our lives but we have the agency, we have our own power to make decisions for ourselves. This doesn't mean that we will escape certain structures but at the very least it will mean that we will be very aware we will be made aware that we are under certain structures and that there are times that we should interrogate there are times when we should question these structures. So the dialectic relationship of structure and agency is always in existence, it is always happening. As individuals we may belong to certain institutions like the family where we have our certain religions we belong to a government, we belong to a state we attend a particular school with particular pedagogical philosophies but at the end of it all we are individuals and we can make certain actions that could deliberately question that could deliberately protest. So that is the power of this course and I think that is the main idea of the critical analysis of this course. In our daily existence we engage with other people we engage with society and that is the entire makeup of ourselves. In our daily existence we are under structures but that doesn't mean that we don't have the power to change certain systems in the way we see fit and in the way that we make life more liberating for ourselves and for others as well.


Sustaining the habit of reading in the times of coronavirus. The most challenging of the tasks during this COVID era has been to make my children read states of frustrated Amina, a mother of two children, one in the primary years and the other in middle school. It was much easier for me to monitor them and ask them to read and follow the schedule when they knew they had to report to their teacher. The school environment is just so integral for sustaining discipline in young people she continues. Like Amina, there have been many parents worldwide trying to strike a balance for their children to maintain their healthy habits, which not only helps them develop academically, but also grow in every aspect. Reading is one of such instrumental habits that young children should develop and more importantly sustain. But unfortunately, the general scales of reading show a descending trend in the upcoming generation and especially during the COVID times, as for some to maintain a healthy lifestyle for their children has become so challenging. Many schools are now reopening worldwide, however, there are many countries still grappling with the threat of the pandemic. School or no school, the following are a few ideas for parents to ensure their kids are reading and happily doing so. 1. Give your students something that interests them. Most of the time, we suggest children read books that we use to read, or think that they should read rather than looking at their interests, and what they would like to explore and know about. If we provide them with books of their own liking, and offer them something that excites them, we would get much better results. For example, a kid that is very much into Lego would probably enjoy reading a manual for designing a helicopter using Lego bricks. Hence the idea, give them something of their own interest. 2. Schedule a set reading time. I remember every afternoon after lunch during school days, my sister and I used to carry our lemon sherbet and sit with our much anticipated novels, hooked to each word, excited for the last day's adventures to then continue. We usually would wait for that particular time of the day when we would hold our books and jump into a world of our own. Kids these days need this kind of motivation and routine in order to read. Once something is done voluntarily every day, especially a rewarding habit like reading, it bears endless fruits and becomes an excellent source of entertainment as well. 3.  The love of shopping is innate in human beings and once you tell your children, they can buy a book of their own, it not only encourages them to read more but also gives them the autonomy to make their choices. This also makes them responsible to read their own selection and explore their interests. 4. Don't let them read alone, read with them. Children tend to learn more through actions than through telling. Hence the best method to ensure that children develop the habit of reading is to make sure you do it in front of them. You cannot simply expect your child to read when you spend all your time on social media or in front of the television screen. That's why when you make your child read, read along with them. 5. Share stories with the kids. Children love to be heard. They love it when something fascinates their parents. Why not let them share the content of the book with you? Genuinely ask them what the story was about, and how they thought about a particular chapter or the end of the book. Your natural interest in the book, motivates the children to remain curious about the rest of the happenings to keep you amazed at their discoveries. Make sure you contribute to the discussion and listen well. One of the best readers share what they read and somehow review their books with their friends, parents, or teachers. Are you ready to become a better reader?


OK. Right. OK, John. Yes, right. Thank you, Jasper. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Good evening, everybody in Baghdad. Good evening, those of you who are in the UK. And if there is anyone else anywhere else in the world, good evening, good morning, good afternoon to you, wherever you might be. My name is John Bennett. I'm Jim Brown. I think, John, you're hot, because Amal's going over. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Do you want to stick to your script, John? Yeah. Yeah. So good evening. So my name is John Bennett. I am an ambassador for the Marsh Charitable Trust. Which means that I have come to know the Marsh Charitable Trust as a director of a charitable environmental organisation. The Marsh Awards were founded in 1981 by Brian Marsh, OBE. His aim was to create a sustainable way to give something back to society by supporting organisations and people who are making a difference. The Trust creates a long-standing relationship with the organisation it partners through the awards scheme. It gives around 80 different awards to individuals and groups from across the charity sector who make a difference to a cause they believe in. The environment features strongly among the awards, but other activities include modern slavery and human trafficking, addiction, the built heritage, the arts, diplomatic relations, and other activities such as trade and trade. The environment features strongly among the awards, but other activities include modern slavery and the arts, diplomacy, and social support. The recipients of the awards are not only receiving the recognition of their peers, but they're joining a diaspora, a family of other recipients across the sectors and across the world. All environmentalists recognise the importance of the world's wetlands and we watched with horror the draining of the arachnid marshes. So this year, the Marsh Marjan Award recognises the great contribution made by Ahmad Saleh Nima over the last decade in protecting all biodiversity connected to Iraq's central marshes. So, Ahmad, thank you for your efforts and thank you, Amal, for your work in translating my words and I now hand you back to Jasper, who will take over from here. Right, it's me. Thank you very much indeed, John. I will only speak briefly because we are here to listen to Ahmad translating to do. My name is Jasper Humphries and I'm Director of Programs at the Marjan Centre in the Department of War Studies in King's College University London. The Marjan Centre researches the connections between conflict and the environment. Examples of our work are related to water walls, legal wildlife trade and of course the climate change crisis. The Marsh Marjan Award is given each year to a person or group who have done outstanding conservation work in countries which have a history of conflict. Over the years, the award has been given to people in D.R. Congo, Colombia, Armenia, South Sudan, Serbia and other countries. Sorry, that's a lot. So I'm very happy to add Iraq and Ahmed to that list. Before I finish, I would like to thank the Marsh Foundation for their support over the years which has been fantastic. And also to thank Raghad and Amal in Iraq for translating and facilitation tonight. And also a special thanks to Dany in the Department of War Studies for her technical help. Thank you. And now I invite Ahmed to talk. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now I invite Ahmed to talk. Thank you. I would like also to seize this opportunity to thank all those who are helping me tonight with the translation, Raghad, Amal and also Zaynab. But unfortunately, she got caught up in other business. The importance of the award from my point of view is an acknowledgement for the effort. It's nice to feel that someone on this planet that is really geographically remote from you, there is appreciation and evaluation for your efforts and acknowledgement encouraging us to go on saying it's the right direction. And also the sense that we are all one entity on this Earth, sharing our concerns and encouraging each other. I look forward now to see the gleam in my children's eyes as they feel the joy to honor their father, especially that the award is granted by a trustworthy, respectful and a specialized size. I've been trying very hard and for years now to build the name that can be an aid and support to others working in the same field. Conservation of the environment and this award will help me a lot in doing so. I would like to say something, a little thing about Ahmed. I was born in the southeastern part of Iraq in Misan. I was the home where I lived, witnessed or was overseeing many rivers and palm forests and especially the houses were on the grounds that covered thousands of donuts of cane sugar plants. It had a very unique biodiversity and also environmental system or ecosystem. I was struck by the topographical diversity of my city. The city itself embraced one end of the Himalayan mountains and a large desert at the same time with eight rivers flowing, five from internal sources, five internal rivers and three others coming from outside the borders. It also had tens of thousands of palm groves and also it covers a water surface of the marshes that sums up to about 2,000 square kilometers and this is a very huge surface if you compare it with other surfaces. It also has a very large surface and it covers a water surface of the marshes that sums up to about 2,000 square kilometers and it covers a water surface if you compare it with other surfaces of wetlands. It covers the largest cane forests used by the early Tomarians to build their homes and you can see that until today they build their homes in the same conventional way. It comprises also the first oil reservoir in Iraq. It also contains the largest gravel fields in construction that is used in constructions and building. And the largest fish wealth in the country also is in Misan. Since my childhood, I have been looking at the map of Iraq and summing up the water areas on that map and I think in the early 2020, I think I still have 1,000 people who live in the area of Misan and I think I still have 2,000 people and no one in the region summing up the water areas on that map and comparing them to the areas of other countries, sometimes the wetland in Iraq is even larger than some countries. At that time when I was a child, I saw it like a big challenge that part of my country as a wetland is even larger than whole countries. But now I see where it fits, that it is a great biodiversity and part of the bigger ecosystem. Of course throughout my life, I started to notice and also observe how human hands started to manipulate and destroy this lovely biodiversity that we were enjoying once. Especially with the artificial waste from factories and also the illegal hunting and poaching. Especially that they use the electric pollution for fishing and also I find it is similar with the Karat Hadartak. Electric pollution. Yes. They were continuously doing it. So this has repeatedly thought of a way to prevent fishermen from using this kind of fishing like using electricity or the poison hunting. And I needed to find an economic alternative that preserve the environment and provide them with a living at the same time. My father used to have a fun study, this dated and so on. He had a big plantation for cane, sugar cane, and he had people working on it on that plantation. I have been working on it for 10 years and I have been working on it for 10 years and I have been working on it for 300 films and videos. Since 10 years I have been documenting the marshes and what is happening exactly and the changes that are taking place in the marshes. I have recorded about 300 videos which were published on my YouTube channel. And then I started a campaign to promote the marshes by sending indications to the satellite channel foreign journalists, photographers, and documentary directors to contribute to raising the profile of Iraq's environment. I have always thought of a way to prevent those fishermen from using electrocution, poison hunting, and to find an economic alternative that preserves the environment and provide them with a living at the same time. So I trained 22 Marsh people on tourism in order to quit the fishing industry. And then before that I started looking for tourist companies in the country even though they didn't deal with tourism in the marshes. So I just suggested they make trips to the marshes. I invited them to my home and I took them on a free tour. So I took them on a trip in the canoe for about 34 kilometers on the island of Bukhari. And I took them on a trip in the canoe for about 34 kilometers on the island of Bukhari. It was very hard for me to give them food because I had to wait for them to wake up from the Animation Day. Just to get an opportunity to get the food and to begin looking for tourists. trip in the canoe for about 34 kilometers. And of course, I tried to make them enjoy their lunch on a reed setting or a reed mat floating in the marshes, a reed platform. I always used to document their trip through my mobile phone, or the camera, or even the drone camera, and then make a CD so that they can have it for themselves. And this is what I did with the drone camera. I used to use the drone camera. They can have it for themselves. And this CD was always given away to those tourists. Have we lost them? Hello, Ahmed? We've lost Ahmed. No. Ragad, can you contact Ahmed? Hello? Maybe. Hello? Ragad? Yes, Jasper. I'm contacting him now. Oh, thank you. Well, I think while we wait for Ahmed, is he back? Is he? I can't see him. I can see that he has a signal issue. There is no signal on his phone. Oh, right. OK. Well, we'll give it another minute. And then maybe we have to say goodbye to Ahmed. I don't know. And then we have to arrange another time to finish the presentation. But for those people who are listening, I think it's been a fantastic insight to. Sorry. Yes. Sorry, we've got to translate. Ahmed, could you just translate to say it's been a fantastic for people in Britain to hear about the situation in the marshes? I would like to point out that it's been a great insight that people in Britain know about the various types of beauty for the Iraqi culture. And I think that the people in Britain could learn a lot about the effort and the commitment of Ahmed. And I think that people in Britain could learn a lot about the sincerity and commitment of Ahmed. And it is fantastic to hear somebody so passionate about the environment in a difficult situation. And it's also great that we finally hear a person who has the honor of protecting his skin and his skin in a difficult and exceptional environment in his country. And the world is talking about climate change a lot. But also we mustn't forget the biodiversity that is also suffering. Many people around the world talk about climate change and the effects of climate change. But many of the people in the world are also afraid of the importance of the type of life that is always affected by this. Ahmed, he is back. He's not, I can't, he's gone on mute. He's on mute. I'm ready. Ah, he does. Salam. How are you? So, can I continue? Yeah. Thank you. Please, Amal, can I wait for Amal to leave? No, I don't think so. Thank you. I think they have been cut off. No, no, they're still there. They're still there? Yes. From the most important moments in the last period, you were interested in the water dog, Max and Erdogan. I didn't remember the research, we went to the water dog. Excuse me? One of the important points of my environmental career now is my interest in the soft fur water. The otah. Yeah, otah. Otah, yeah. Very good. Otah, otah isme, isme Maxwell bin monoblamatilbe, Maxwell. The Maxwell species. Nisbeten ilal alem el-Britani liskotlendi, given Maxwell. It is named after the science, it's the... It's named after the scientist, the British scientist, Maxwell. He's called Gavin Maxwell. Yeah, Gavin Maxwell. It went extinct since the 90s. And it returned very slowly and in very low numbers, but at the same time, it was suffering from over-hunting and also they were always hunting this animal for its fur. So its fur was a good trade to Europe for making codes and also handbags and the like. So I started to buy about seven otahs from those poachers and then I released them to their environment. I organized a protest in front of the provincial building, calling for the enactment of a law to prevent the hunting of these endangered animals. And I also documented that the main challenge in the wetlands of Iraq is the water challenge. We wrote a lot of reports. We reported to the ministries that are working, like the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Health, Agriculture. So when the marshes were listed on the UNESCO list, the World Heritage List in 2016, it was a big joy for Ahmed and his companions. And I think it was a big joy for Ahmed and his companions who were working with him. It was in 2016, yes. The drought catastrophe happened in 2017. Next year. So we were in a constant relation and communication with the water directorates in the province so that we can keep the waters to the level that the biodiversity stays alive. The marshes do not stand only for this lovely biodiversity, or what we were talking about, the ecosystem, that is so balanced there. It is also a symbol for the Iraqi heritage, for mythology, for beauty throughout the years. So I also documented the lives of the people who were residing there, especially the elders who had a lot to say about the life of the people who were residing there, especially the elders who had a lot to say about the life of the people who were residing there. And I think it was a big joy for Ahmed and his companions who were working with him. Especially the elders who had a lot to say, they had a lot of stories, they recite poetry. Also their clothes, the way they dress, and how they speak, and all those habits and traditions that they enjoy have been documented. During those 10 years, I have been facing a lot of opposing situations. It was not easy for me during those 10 years. Due to those challenges that were some of them, because of funds, some of them were like moral, on the moral side, then I decided that I wanted to do something that was not easy for me during those 10 years. Due to those challenges that were some of them, because of funds, some of them were like moral, on the moral side, then I decided to take the four-year vacation that was granted by the government for the employees. And of course, the employee who takes this vacation receives only 25% of his salary. And I am really strongly criticized for this attitude by my friends, by my family. But I truly believe that if we have a certain aim or goal in front of our eyes, we have to do all the sacrifices that it takes. I apologize for not thanking Dani for her support tonight. I'm sorry, I forgot. So at the end of my speech, I would like to thank you all for this opportunity and I really consider it a big event in my personal life, a turning point. So has Ahmed finished, Amal? And do you want to thank Ahmed? Yes. Thank you. He's done his thing. He is finished? Yes. Right. But John is going to finish. I would just say thank you very much. It's a fantastic talk and very, very emotional, powerful. Thank you. He is very happy with this event tonight. And also we would like to, he feels proud, especially that his friends are all attending. And this is a great opportunity for him. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. He is very happy with this event tonight. And also we would like to, he feels proud, especially that his friends are all attending. And this is a great opportunity for him. Thank you. And, well, that's fantastic. So John Bennett is going to say the final words. John. Now with the teacher, John Bennett, for the last words. No, we have no John. We can't hear you, John. There you are. He's on mute. Thank you for this fascinating description of the crucial work you have been doing on the marshes. Thank you for you. It is an inspiring story. And I feel very privileged that I've been able to be part of this in presenting this event. And I feel very privileged that I've been able to be part of this in presenting to you the Marsh. Marjan award. Well, it has to be an enemy. I want one more. Lee, I know the force of it would be hot. Lee teslimic. Hi. Marjan. So I'd like to thank the Marjan Center for. Organizing this partnership between the trust and the center. I would and I should like to thank for your splendid translation. Is this really the first time you've done it? No, I am a translator. Sorry, I thought it was the first time you've done it on the. Well, you did that spendedly and like professional and Danny has done extremely well too. So my next thanks goes to Danny to for organizing the technical side. So well. And Jasper, of course, for.  And very finally, for the audience out there who have not been part of this, but we hope that you have found this is inspiring. As I have. Will have. Also in the military. The. Thank you. All right. Good. Well, I think. That's it. Finish. Thank you. All right. Well, I think that's it. Thank you. Okay, right. Good. Well, I think that's it. Finish. So, goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye, everyone. All of you have taken part in planting that beautiful smile in Mr. Ahmed's home this tonight. It is a very good smile. Okay. Bye-bye. Goodbye. We will be in touch. We will be in touch anyway. We will keep in communication. Sure. Sure. Sure. And I say I want to come and visit Iraq soon. You're welcome. You're welcome anytime. You're welcome anytime.


I want to say that I am not a coder, and this is important for a couple of reasons, one of those reasons is that I will probably make technical mistakes in this talk that will be completely because there are so much that's over my head, you will have to forgive me for those. The second reason I say it is a more important reason, this talk is called how I set up a coder dojo. This is not an I story, this is a we story, a bunch of people, several of whom are in this tent now. Very much were behind this thing, this would not have happened without those people. The story I'll talk about how it began and just tell you the anecdotes, tell you some of the things that went well, some of the things that went badly, some of the challenges we faced, but as I say I am not a coder myself. I'm a lawyer, and I can riff for ages if you want me to on the similarities between law and coding. I'm a contracts lawyer and contract drafting and drafting coder, not a million miles apart. We've got a lot of similarities. We have a load of impenetrable jargon for a start. We have a lot of if then statements and else cases. We have variables, we call them definitions but they're pretty much the same thing. I was thinking about this in the night and thought maybe even the laws of England and Wales are an operating system but then I thought I'd probably overextended my metaphor and I should stop now. But more relevantly than being a lawyer for these purposes, the purposes of this story, come on, what's the matter, I'm going to do that, drafting that. I'm also a mother and at the time this story starts in 2015 I was a mother of three children who were 12, 10 and 8. The 12-year-old had just gone into gaming and was very much looking at that end of computing but was not in any way interested in what was going on beneath the hood. The technologist in our blended family is my partner Randall who's also in this room. At the time in 2015 we'd been together about a year and if I tell you that it had been quite a ride, a few weeks into our relationship he just took me away, whisked me away for a romantic weekend and brought me to EMF. So you can tell that it was the kind of journey that I'm on at the beginning of this story. And Randall thought that this 12-year-old who was gaming perhaps could do with understanding a little bit more about what was going on with computing and just wondering how to encourage him to do that. At the time I'm living in a town called Olney. If you draw a triangle on the map with Milton Keynes, Bedford and Northampton at the corners, Olney is pretty much right in the middle of that triangle. It's a tiny little market town, about 6,000 people on the electoral roll. It regards itself as very famous for an annual pancake race, which features on Blue Peter regularly, and for being the place where the him Amazing Grace was written. So not a lot going on in Olney, I think it is fair to say. Not a lively place. In 2015, Salesforce began a partnership with Codedojo, and at the Salesforce conference that year, which was attended by Randall, Mary Maloney, who was the CEO of the Codedojo Foundation at the time, came and gave a talk about Codedojo, what they were trying to achieve.  And Randall came back and went, this might be the thing. This might be how we get this boy interested in computers. Why don't we think about setting up a Codedojo in the town? Now I know nothing about coding, but I am pretty good at getting things organised and getting stuff to happen. So, away we went. Codedojo's website is very helpful. It sets up this easy process for how to form a Codedojo. As you will find in the next few slides, it's not as simple as this. Register as a champion is the easy bit.  Then find a public venue, okay? Obviously find a free public venue because you can't charge. Codedojo isn't allowed to charge the participants any money at all to take part. The idea is that money should not be a barrier to being able to participate in this. So finding a public venue is a challenge when you've not got any obvious money to fund it. Then start, which I just think is a splendid idea. Well, I'm not a coder. One person who knows anything about technology can't run one of these things on their own. So the first thing we had to do was find some interested people who might be interested in guiding the kids of the town into a coding hobby. Advertised on the local Facebook group, advertised in the local sort of free sheet magazine that goes around everybody's doors. Believe it or not, and I really didn't believe it, I couldn't believe it, quite a few people responded. Quite a few people in the town with coding experience, coding careers contacted me and said, yeah, quite interested in getting involved in this. None of these people really knew each other, even though it's a very small town they hadn't met. They didn't know each other. If you want to do, I don't know, McCrame, there's probably a club for you in Olney. But if you certainly, as we will discover, if you want to do flower-ranging or gardening, there's a club for you in Olney, but nothing if you're interested in tech, if you're interested in coding. And so these people, group, Belgium people, several of them in the room now, were excited by this. And one Tuesday evening in July, we got together in the pub, as every good group always begins in the pub. And had a chat, worked out what kind of things we thought we might be able to do, and then sort of move forward with some of those plans. We found a venue. This is a community centre in the town. It used to be a primary school, so it's got really good rooms in it. It's got sort of classroom-sized spaces, which are handy for this kind of thing. It's not free, unfortunately, but we managed to get a slightly subsidised rate. We had just installed Superfast Broadband. They were excited about the fact that it was now going to get proper use. So that was where we planned to get going. Start, as I said, was not really enough of a description of what is required. This was a council building. In order to run a children's organisation in a council building, the council requires you to jump through an awful lot of hoops. You have to register with the local authority. You needed insurance. You needed a safeguarding policy. Every adult who is involved should have a DBS check. We needed rules. We needed parental consents and waivers. There's quite a lot of admin, actually, and some of that is costly admin. You pay for DBS checks. The council was able to subsidise that for us. You have to pay for the insurance, and, as I said, you have to pay for the room house. So that was a little bit of a hurdle to begin with. The other thing we thought was, well, do we need any kit to do this? So we bought a few bits of kit. We bought a little router so that we could extend the Wi-Fi into the classroom that we were using. We bought power packs because you can just imagine how many kids are going to turn up with nothing left on the battery. The number of them who turned up not having ever switched on a computer for a week and had to spend the first half doing all the Windows updates was a fairly major issue as well. We bought some crocodile clips because why not? We bought various bits of kit. But money. I will come onto this. Coda Dojo pushed the idea that you should seek sponsorship for your club, local businesses, local organisations, councils, if they will subsidise it. We did manage eventually to get some sponsorship from the Mercedes Formula One team because where we are, the number of people in one of our mentors was a coda for the Mercedes Formula One team. So they sponsored us to some extent. One of the local estate agents chipped in and paid the insurance. To be honest, we personally bankrolled a fair bit of it as well. We paid the rent on the room every week ourselves. So not ideal. That is a completely get why Coda Dojo won't let you charge and why it's important that anyone should have access. But it is a problem I think for the organisation more generally. And in fact there are commercial kind of competitors around something called Code Ninjas, which is a very, very similar organisation. But they charge. It's more of a franchise operation. Anyway, so we've got everything. We've got our infrastructure set up. We've got all our admin done. We've got our venue. We've got our power packs. Now we just need some kids.  Within a couple of weeks, we had filled all 25 of our spaces. We had a waiting list of perhaps another 10. And we were getting emails daily from people who were interested who wanted to come along. The demand for this and the interest in this among the kids in the town and among their parents was absolutely huge. And it really surprising just how much demand there was when we got going. And then in September 2015, as it happened in National Coding Week, I didn't even know this until afterwards, but it was National Coding Week. It was the week we opened our doors and we started. 25 kids turned up. We began and this had been how we decided back in that meeting in the pub. We would started off with a number of different sort of zones or offers. We started off with a robotics sort of department as you were talking about, or rotation. A website building one, an Android app one. And a scratch, which is, you'll all know scratch, a very, very handy entry level coding package for especially younger children, really, really good. We began thinking that what we would do is put people into each of these kind of rotations for four or six weeks at a time and then move them on to the next thing. We were meeting weekly for an hour and a half in the evenings. It very quickly became apparent that the kids were just starting to get to grips with the thing that they were doing and we were making the move on to the next thing. So we scrapped that in the end and gave people more of an opportunity to just kind of choose something and stick with it until they'd really achieved something. That was one of our major learning experiences. I'm showing you this picture. This is one of the little robots that the robotics team was developing and I like to think of this robot as a sort of embryo of Jeff because if anyone has seen Jeff around the place, you may have been to the talk a couple of days ago about Jeff, the fabulous robot and almost South African nurse. Well, this was one of the robots at the same sort of time as Jeff was being built. This was being used in the Code of Dojo by Jeff's creator. We found that although there are loads of really good coding resources online, when kids don't have two screens and we did not have room or indeed the resources to provide two screens, if they're copying code or using code that they found online, they can't also be working on their own code at the same time. And this proved a problem and we found that books were a really good way of kind of getting around that. And this book, believe it or not, Carol Vorderman was our saviour. This was a cracking book. I think it's probably been superseded by now. But this was a really, really great book to start off. I had lots of really simple scratch and Python programs in it and kids were really able to access it. It was a great place to start. And in fact, I think a lot of primary schools were using this at the same sort of time. One of the things that we found worked quite well was to kind of set a group challenge, but the different levels of the different ability levels could access that challenge in different ways. So we decided over a number of weeks to set people the challenge of coding a game. And the games that we chose were player cards, right? So that's a sort of a higher or lower game. I'm guessing is the next card going to be higher or lower than the one that you've got now? Snakes and ladders. And some people were trying to code the ladders and the snakes themselves. Some people were just coding the dice, which was just a random number generator effectively. Top trumps where kids could choose their own subjects, so it might have been sport or farm animals or princesses or whatever it was. So different challenges that they were able to access in different ways. And it's just a picture of everybody at work. As you can see, kids all sitting in a sort of a horseshoe and mentors putting their backs out, leaning over them, trying to help them with the code that they're working on. When we began, because I'm not great with names, 25 kids in a room, all of them sort of in the same school uniform half the time, I didn't know how we were going to identify them. So I gave them all stickers with their names on and they were all wearing these stickers. And I realised that I couldn't see the stickers. So from about week two onwards, I just put the stickers on their backs. And that way, we knew exactly who we were talking to because we were leaning over them the whole time. Sometimes the flu or a school trip slightly depleted and we ended up with a ratio of more than one mentor per kid, which was good for them, I guess. Where on is, as I said, not very far from Milton Keynes and therefore Bletchley, a few months in, we decided it would be a really nice thing to organise a weekend trip to the National Computing Museum at Brechtly. So we went along, loads of the kids and their parents came. We did a bit of a tour. In fact, we got them to open the museum before opening hours and give us a private tour because there was such a lot of us, which is absolutely brilliant. And then, of course, they all got into the arcade and played on the old spectrums and what have you, BBC micros, that they've got there playing various games, which is great. So I said I'd talk about some of the challenges that we faced.  Unfortunately, those clubs meet in the same venue on the same evening as Coda Dojo. And the room that we had at that time didn't have doors. It had a kind of a curtain that pulled across. So quite quickly, we had gardeners and flower arrangers on different evenings coming and complaining that the children were making too much noise and that they couldn't hear their speaker. And could we keep the children from talking? Please. One of them was a former teacher and she said there's absolutely no reason for children to talk while they're learning. Children should just learn silently. Right, okay. I was summoned to... They had some letters of complaint at the venue and I was summoned to meet the chair of the premises committee of the local council which was in charge of this building. And I turned up and they'd had these two letters. They'd had a letter of complaint from the chair of the flower arranging club and a letter of complaint from the chair of the gardening club. And so I was quite, you know, this is two letters. It's quite serious. So I go along to this meeting. The first thing is that the chair of the premises committee turns out to be a leading person in the local Labour party and I had been on the campaign trail with her not a few months before so that was quite amusing and that she immediately recognised me and was on our side. Also they were keen, they really were keen on this club. But then it transpired that the president of the flower arranging club and the president of the gardening club were married to each other.  Anyway, we were allowed to continue to run the club. They were asked to... We obviously tried to keep the noise down and within a year or so they had put proper doors onto the room so that noise was relatively contained. I did have a marvellous... They always came in and complained that we were disturbing their speakers I'll tell you about the show and tells we used to do but we were having our end of term show and tell just before Christmas and they were having their Christmas party and I had to go out and say could they possibly keep the noise down because they were disturbing our presentation. The other challenge we had because the club is free is that there were kids coming along who, to be honest, weren't that keen and it was seven to eight thirty on a Tuesday night great opportunity for parents to go to the gym or the supermarket or basically just put their feet up for an hour and a half because they're not paying, the fact that their kids aren't that keen was not a deterrent. It became a real issue, there were kids who were just wasting time messing about, not really getting it and we had this massive waiting list, we had all these other kids who we knew wanted to come and we just had kids who weren't concentrating so one evening after the session in the pub the other mentors all unanimously agreed that we should definitely sack some of these children, ask some of these children to depart and they also unanimously agreed that the person who should do that was me. So I get to phone up or email the various parents and explain that we think that we've probably taken their child as far as they can go and perhaps they might like to think of a different hobby. That was a bit interesting. In 2016 the microbit arrived. That was something that was supposed to have been handed to I think year 7 children, first year of secondary, at the beginning of the year but for various reasons had not been able to be released until about June or July of the academic year so obviously everybody's into sports days and school trips and nobody is thinking of launching a new competing curriculum in July. So kids were given these things and they went home with them and put them in a drawer and they never got used to it, it was a real sadness and certainly in our local schools but we got hold of a few of these things and they are terrific, I know if anyone has used them but they are absolutely amazing little devices. They have got a significant number of sensors on them so they've got an accelerometer, they've got a magnetometer they've got a photometer, thermometer all sorts of really really useful inputs which are fantastic fun for kids to use to code and the other thing that was really brilliant for the kids in our club was that whereas Scratch is the block building language and then you can use a text-based language like Python or whatever the micro bit enabled you to toggle between the two so you could build your code in the blocks in a very scratch kind of way and then you could toggle across and see the same code the underlying code in TypeScript so that the kids were able to see what they created and maybe change something in the text code and then go back and see how that changed the block code it was a really really good bridge for certain children who'd reached a kind of ceiling with the Scratch stuff but were able now to move on from there and we used to have an initiation where I would get them in and they would code a compass using the magnetometer inputs they would code this from the micro bit website and then having got the principles of the very simple programme I would ask them if they could now code me a thermometer which would print on the screen, you know, hot, warm, cold depending on the temperature that it reached and once they'd got their code satisfactory and this is, I'm not a coder right but I'm now leading this flaming thermometer project for every kid who arrives through the door but we used to have this kind of graduation ceremony where we would go to the freezer in the kitchen of this venue and we would wrap the micro bit in cling film and pop it in the freezer and then they would watch the screen go down to cold when they got to 2 degrees, it was brilliant they loved it, a real sort of sense that they'd achieved something we used to end each term with a show and tell so people would bring along or would demonstrate what they'd been working on sometimes they would show us a piece of hardware this is the robot again with one of our members showing how he's coded it, what he's coded it to do sometimes we would put their code blocks or text up on a screen we'd project it up onto the screen and people would talk us through what they'd done in 2016, Randall and I brought a pop-up coder dojo to EMF and ran one in one of the children's tents which was challenging for two people because quite a lot of people, you've got to remember that the kids who come to EMF are probably a bit advanced on the kids who come to dojo do so that was kind of scary one summer for our sort of end of year summer party we had a retro games night and brought all kinds of all the mentors who have stuff in their lofts and brought along all the different games that they already had or indeed here we have a pong on an oscilloscope coded by one of the members which was brought along for people to play with as well also at the end of each term mentors curry, rude not to and then in 2018 we came, a group of the mentors came along to EMF for the first time bringing the joy, the wonderful Jeff in his earlier incarnation as I said in the blurb about this talk I said that the things that I'm most excited about what we achieved in a way that the mentors turned up to run a club and ended up being long standing friends and there's five or six of us here today all come today to EMF this year as well as part of a friendship group as much as anything else the other thing that I'm very proud of what we achieved is that some of the kids who started off in 2015 as 12 year olds stayed with the club all the way through went on to become more senior people and doing much more advanced stuff and eventually, and this is the third picture in this slide went on to be mentors so this picture shows the same two kids Sam and Josh once when they were about 12 or 13 once when they were about 15 or 16 and then standing up and putting their own backs out leaning over the next generation of kids in the club and actually Sam is my 12 year old son he was a sort of inspiration for all of this now 19 and reading computer science at the University of York Josh, the other one, also 12 when the club started is now earning his living teaching coding to kids with a particular emphasis on special educational needs and disability and is looking at going on and pursuing that as a career so incredibly exciting to think that these people who walk through the door with no knowledge have gone on to take this forward in their lives as adults so I think that's a wonderful thing well we were planning to come to EMF 2020 and in fact I pitched this talk for EMF 2020 but we all know what happened next sadly EMF didn't happen and Co de Dojo couldn't happen anymore we had to cancel it as everything got cancelled in March 2020 and we migrated it to teams and we tried to run on teams for a while and we had a modicum of success and there was one kid who carried on coming all the way through and was really really passionate and really bright lad who really wanted to progress but sadly eventually it ended up with like six mentors and him and that seemed a little bit disproportionate so sadly we wound it up at that point and we no longer ran on teams and then when the world opened up it was possible to progress I'd moved away a lot of the kids had moved on and were not interested and at the moment the thing is I'm afraid Moribond we're not running the Co de Dojo at the moment I'm hoping that someone will pick it up and start doing the admin but it's a great sadness really that this thing that had so much momentum and was so exciting has sort of fizzled out since this talk when I pitched it was not going to be that it was going to be a talk about this amazing club and that's the story of how we set up a Co de Dojo in our town


I've said many times before if you Are a rounding narcissist if you are with them? They don't really value you You're not really that important to them.  What's the point? So eventually you just give up You don't want to do it anymore You're done and that's when they go from seeing you as this fool who they never appreciated Who they always took for granted they go from seeing you as that To then seeing you As this horrible person Who manipulated them Who exploited them who took advantage of them when they were in a vulnerable place They didn't have anyone by their side They didn't have anyone supporting them and you came along Like this horrible person that you're supposed to be and you took advantage of them When they needed help the most an interesting story That is how the narcissist sees it and of course since when they were with you They never valued They never appreciated anything you did for them. So of course when it's all over They don't take any of that into account They only remember the bad things Which tends to be reactive abuse? It's you Reacting Angrily Towards something that they've said or done to you and yet that's what they Claim is Something bad that you've done to them and then they take that as though You've exploited them You've abused them You've done all of these horrible things and they just never count for anything good That you've done At the end of the relationship they can give you a long list of bad things you've done But they can't even say one thing you did that was right They're very arrogant They expect you to see it as a privilege to be around them Even though they're not really about anything Even though they're not really doing anything for you. I've always said the narcissist needs you more and you need them You would actually find that your life would be a lot easier without them, but their lives would be very hard Despite what they make you believe They make you believe that out of fear because deep down they know the truth Deep down they know they would struggle But yeah, this is what you have to understand Because they react in this way at the end Out of fear they don't know how they're going to make it without you So they hold on to you for dear life Which is why it should be no surprise that most of these relationships End in a smear campaign Or they talk to everyone about you behind your back Or they get the police involved They take you to court This is all done out of fear Because although they may have taken you for granted the entire time Deep down they know It's not going to be easy to find someone else especially someone Who is doing what you were doing? It's very hard for a narcissist to find anyone there aren't many people that want to put up with that Most people don't want to be talked down to Most people don't want to deal with someone Who needs so much attention someone who Always has to be the center of everything Most people don't want to be around someone like that and they know this They know it's hard to replace you Which is why when you're done at first they can't accept it They can't accept that you're done But even if they hover you They try to pull you back in All they're really doing is prolonging the inevitable Because despite how much they may say they have changed Despite all of the false epiphanies fake apologies Despite all of that BS They always revert back to the same old thing Because it's all they know They don't know any other way to operate in a relationship They operate from fear shame envy and jealousy everything they do everything is Just a reaction to their own fear shame envy and jealousy There is nothing else outside of that Because they are stuck In a low emotional vibrational frequency And they can't get out of that because they refuse to take accountability For where they find themselves If they could just look at themselves even for a moment and say Yes, I feel this way Yes, this feeling is because of me Yes, I am responsible for my actions and for how I think and how I feel If they could just do that then There would be no such thing as a narcissist but it continues because The disorder is It functions in a way Where there's no possible way for them to even see themselves They do not see themselves the way that you see them They can't If they did they would go insane If they did they would try to kill themselves But don't ever think Despite what they may say to you in their attempts to get you back Don't ever think that they really realize your worth They realize the value and what you're providing to them Whether it's a place to stay Money, maybe you have good connections Whatever it is that you have They value that But they do not Value you as a person as I've said the narcissist never realizes That you Are the real one they think you're fake just like everyone else Just like them their entire lives. They've been around fake people They don't know what realness is They don't know about authenticity They think everyone's just playing an act to get what they want out of the situation And that's why when you're done They see it as though you just exploited them they don't really believe that you put all your cars on the table as Though you weren't hiding anything No, they can't believe that Because if they were to believe that They would have to look at themselves and think Wait, I just messed something up With someone who actually cared about me Someone who actually wanted the best for me someone who would have been by my side Even when everyone else couldn't give a damn that's just something no narcissist could ever accept Because if they were to accept that That would mean that they're wrong And no narcissist can ever see it as though they're wrong They're perfect They're flawless.    You have to accept But right now Maybe you're not something great Maybe you're not everything but narcissists In their minds they start at the top In their minds they're everything already They don't have to work on anything They don't have to adjust They're just great right now and you should accept them and it's that belief in their heads That destroys anyone who sticks around them for a long period of time If you're around someone like that long enough It will destroy you and you cannot change them Because the disorder is designed to block any sense of flaws or infections They have to feel like they're perfect For the disorder to function if there's something wrong Well, it must be you You must have caused it.  I'll take care of it. You can build with someone like that You cannot build anything with a narcissist as I've always said The key to success is accountability Whether that's in your job a sport Or a relationship accountability is The key to your success and that's why when you're done And you leave the narcissist It's usually because at some point you take accountability You accept that you have found yourself in this relationship And only you can get yourself out of it You accept that and then that is what changes your life and that's why narcissists Stay stuck Repeating the same dysfunctional behaviors For the rest of their lives Nothing ever changes They just find someone who's willing to put up with them for a short period of time and then when that's done They just find someone else because they know it's not going to last They know no one can put up with that for a long time Not without losing their minds Not without being ran into the ground To the point where even the narcissist wouldn't even want them anymore Narcissists know they're not worth anything Which is why once they've been around you long enough You're not worth anything to them either Because you're around them But guaranteed You take a break for a week or two Your value soon comes back They want you back Because they already know They know they're predestined They know they're doomed They know they're nothing And that's why when you're around them for a long time They take it for granted Everything you do means nothing to them So yeah This is just what they think of you when you're done. They think you're this horrible person who exploited them You took advantage of them And then they just play the victim But you can move on Find someone who values you Find someone who respects you Find someone who loves themselves Someone who realizes their own worth Because if they can see the worth in themselves They can see the worth in you Anyone who doesn't see your worth It's probably because They don't have any worth of their own You've got to have it to recognize it in someone else There are different classes of people in this world and if you Go looking in the wrong places for love you're just gonna find someone who Doesn't know how to treat something of value Like I said about giving a $100 bill to a toddler They'll just tear it up just like if you give a Ferrari to someone who knows nothing about cars Come back after a couple of weeks and it will be ruined Because they don't know how to take care of it They don't know how to take care of a high-value person Narcissists are used to garbage They just got lucky with you and yes, they may have wanted you They may have wanted all of these things that you have to offer But that does not mean they know how to take care of you Which is why once you've been with them for enough time After a few months You start to get very tired You're no longer happy Every day you're miserable you lose yourself You stop doing the things that you once loved to do In an attempt to please this person Who doesn't even care about you whenever you feel down around someone Whenever you feel like you hate your life Recognize that it isn't you I guarantee You leave that person for a while Spend time around people who value themselves People who realize their own worth Spend time around people like that And watch how you feel You will begin to feel a lot better When you're around people who are on their grind People who are following their purpose People who are doing something with our lives People who are helping people People who are giving something back to the world People with empathy People with love in their hearts People who have love to give Because there ain't no love in a narcissist There's only hate, jealousy, envy Fear and shame Everything you don't want in your life So yeah Spend time with better people And you will live a better life Narcissists are the lowest of the low Everything that's bad and wrong They're involved in it They're doing it and they're only going to spread that toxicity into your life When you deserve so much better It's just they know how to get into your head Narcissists are predators They know how to control you If you want to control someone All you have to do is make them doubt their own worth Make them feel like they're not good enough Then they will seek your validation They will try to be better for you Just like you're trying to be better for this narcissist Who doesn't even deserve it anyway This narcissist is trying to get you to be more To do more When really You should just look at yourself and realize What it took for you to get to where you are today Recognize your worth Recognize your accomplishments And then realize that they're not even deserving of that anyway Forget about anything more They're not even deserving of what you're doing for them right now Sometimes you've got to take a step back And look at what you're doing for them And see that they're not bringing anything to the table They're not doing anything for you That anyone else couldn't do They're not doing anything that you couldn't do for yourself And yet when you're done They become so bitter and resentful towards you When they ain't done shit You upgraded their lives You pulled them out of the dirt And that is how they repay you And that's why You have to be really careful who you're dealing with You have to vet people You have to find out where they've been in their lives Who they've been dealing with And then You need to decide whether or not They're worthy of being in your life Your life that you worked very hard to build Because it only takes one person to come in and destroy all of that So yes Be very careful Not everyone is meant to be in your life This is just what narcissists will do when you're done They're not going to accept it They were never grateful for anything you did They will always want more They're never going to Come to you and say yes So happy for what you did for me How can I repay you?   I don't care who it is You deserve to be free You deserve time to move on and heal and that's why I do this.  So, yeah, don't worry about what they think of you Remember how you think of them after everything they did powerful message for you all tonight Just staying at this five-star hotel. I work very hard Delivering these messages to you every day To inspire you and now this is my time To sit back and enjoy my life To relax and be happy I've poured my heart and soul Into these videos of the last three and a half years and when you work hard You deserve to enjoy your life Don't let anyone tell you that you don't deserve that Don't work all your life just to give it to someone Who doesn't even deserve it? Who hasn't done anything to earn it? Don't let someone do that to you give it to someone who has something to give to you a return Someone who wants to build There's two types of people in this world People who build and people who destroy and Narcissus are definitely people who destroy they come into your life and destroy everything you've built They're not gonna stick by your side They're not gonna be there for you at your lowest They're not gonna give you help and support when you need it They're not gonna do that They're not built like that, but we are So let's all support each other Let's all be there for each other please like Share your thoughts in the comments And click that subscribe button If you haven't subscribed yet, I will have many more videos just like this come in very soon. Have a great day


Despite concerns that Delta variants would keep moviegoers at home, Ryan Reynolds' sci-fi action comedy Free Guy had a better than expected start at the domestic box office. The movie from Disney and 20th Century Studios collected $26 million from 4,165 North American theater goers. Given its production budget above $100 million, those ticket sales wouldn't be much to celebrate in pre-pandemic times. But isn't a bad result as a plague sweeps the globe. Overseas, Free Guy amassed $22.5 million for a global tally of $51 million. Free Guy marks an interesting test for the film exhibition industry because it's playing exclusively in theaters, which is a rarity these days. Though COVID-19 is undoubtedly deterring people from visiting their local multiplex, Free Guy, which is directed by Sean and co-starring Jodie Comer and Tiaka Watiti, has several factors working in its favor. Thanks to strong reviews and an asynchronous score from audiences, it's enjoyed positive word of mouth over the weekend. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Hi, I'm Rodrig Silva. Let's talk about social inclusion. In the words of today's speaker and their colleagues, many youth in global self-countries whose parents have migrated abroad while they have stayed, the so-called stayer youth, also aspire to migrate. But how do their aspirations change over time? How well do aspirations and capability to migrate match with each other? Analia Oasei from Masrich University in the Netherlands is our speaker today and she will give us some insight on the practices and aspirations of these stayer youth, specifically in Ghana. Hi Analia, welcome to our episode. Hi Rodrigo, thanks for inviting me to be here. The first question for you would be why is this topic so important? Yeah, that's really a great question because there are ongoing research about young people left so said to be left behind in origin countries by their migrant parents and we know that most of the literature focuses on how the parents migration in some way automatically leads these young people to aspire to move. But in response to critical youth study calls, it is important to highlight youth voices, likewise their agency for their experiences and their aspirations. And so we decided to engage with the so-called left behind, which as you rightly introduced, we call them stayer youth, to understand how they choose to aspire to stay or move whilst their parents are international migrants and how that changes over time in relationship with the required means for that aspirations they have set for themselves. And we think this information can shape many actors' decisions about these young people, including academics who write about their experiences and aspirations in life. Of course, I don't know if there was maybe you could tell us if there was any research before. So when you started your research with your colleagues, so what were you hoping to find? What was the research gap? Yeah, so like I said before international parental migration puts stayer children and youth in different positions to try and navigate social factors like aspiring to migrate. But these youth perspectives have been often overlooked in existing literature and the existing evidence about their migration aspirations shows that once their parents move out of the origin country, they also aspire to move. Hence this nature of constructing their migration aspirations sort of rip them off of their agency for their lives, including their migration aspirations. So we entered the field considering that stayer youth in early adults would may pursue their migration aspirations with significant others, especially migrant parents, or they may pursue them independently. As a result, we envisage that they will adapt their aspiration to the required abilities by relying on broad social network support when they come to the need to do so. And some of these needs are that includes finance or moral assistance when they are not forthcoming or really existent in their transnational families. Of course, Analia, let us know about the findings of the article now. So our article first shows when there are alignment or misalignment between stayer youth migration aspirations and the required means to pursue those initial migration dreams, desires or wishes. We also show how the young people try to acquire the necessary means for changing aspirations over time. Our brothers observation is that stayer youth migration aspirations are not static as we often assume or has been found. Those who change their migration aspirations over time lack specific resources for their initial aspirations. Hence, these young people activate their agency through various means to feel on track for their migration aspirations. Breaking that broad observation down there are two specific categories. The first group of stayer youth consists of those whose initial migration aspirations fit the required means for moving or staying. And these were very few in the sample of 38 that we qualitatively interviewed on the field. It is important to note that these young people prefer to stay in the origin country after completing secondary school so that they could take advantage of local opportunities for tertiary schooling. Then later, they either aspire to join their parents and siblings abroad or they go for a visit and then return to the origin country to continue pursuing local opportunities that they desire there. The majority of the young people are in the second category and it is important to note that their initial aspirations does not line up with the required abilities or capabilities for wanting to move out. So it is said that they are experiencing what is called involuntary waiting to migrate. These young people prefer to move out of to move out of the origin country as soon as they complete secondary school, either for family unification or for international students mobility and international labor migration. To them, it is better to move out for the so-called better opportunities abroad than stay in the origin country where opportunities for their future are limited. So they adopt various strategies that we want to encourage your participants to assess our article on your website to learn more about the different strategies these young people try to navigate, try to use to navigate their migration aspirations in relation to the required abilities for that. And my question would be, so what now? Can you indicate to the researchers and our listeners what comes next in this topic? So what's the research get? Because your article focuses on Ghana. So perhaps another geography is to be considered and other education levels to be considered. What can you tell us about that? This study, unlike most of the existing literature, used temporal ways of collecting the data and also analyzing the data. So we realized that there is a need for more longitudinal studies to better understand how parental migration, specifically shapes, stay-at-youth experiences and aspirations in different family contexts and also in different locations, possibly as you said. But there is also the need to engage these young people more to understand how they perceive and relate with international parental migration, hence trying to show all the agency that young people employ to sort of navigate the things that happen whilst their parents live elsewhere from them. By so doing youth centric studies and longitudinal studies are able to enrich what cross sectional and auditory centric perceptives help us to understand about stay-at-youth lives. And are there any materials about this topic that you would like to share with our listeners? Yes, so I would like to say a bit more about the Montreal Project, which the study is a part of. Montreal broadly looks at the mobility trajectories and the life chances of different groups of children with migration background in both global north and south. And on our Montreal website, which is www.multrile.com, you would find some podcast stories from young people with different migrations backgrounds. Over there, you will also find publications by my co-authors, who are Professor Valentina Mazzucato and Dr. Caroline Haxman on the website about the stay-at-youth. Professor Valentina is the principal investigator of this ERC funded Montreal Project. So there is a lot of information on our site about different groups of young people with migration background. Of course, I always finish these episodes with a punchline. So if there is anything that you'd like our audience or our listeners to remember about this talk, what would it be, Analia? I would like to echo that generally more stay-at-youth desire to move out of the origin country for different types of migration. However, they do not often have the required needs for their aspirations, so they are cut up mostly in involuntary weighthood. Notwithstanding, stay-at-youth try to exercise their agency for their lives, including their migration aspiration through a broad social network. For example, for migration information, emotional support and the required finances for their migration aspirations. And it is nice to be here to talk about the perspectives of different groups of stay-at-youth. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thank you, Analia. This episode is available on the Let's Talk About Social Inclusion website, on Koshitatu's YouTube channel, as well as in Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts and other directories. Analia, it was a pleasure. Same. Thanks. Have a nice day.


Aged women from across the 13 Luhu government areas of Nasara state held a protest in Lafya, the state capital, seeking the review of the recently conducted governorship election in the state. The women sang emotional songs in Hausa language, alleging that PDP's mandate was stolen in the state. Speaking, the state's women leader of the PDP Stella Oboshi said the party's governorship candidate David Onibu Gadu won at the poll and not the incumbent governor Abdelay Suley as announced by INEC. She called on the electoral empire to do the needful by reviewing the election results. The leaders in the election, a women's field, they are not happy with what has happened in Nasara state. That is why we went on peaceful demonstration and in qualities it is allowed. The protest is allowed in politics, in any election, and as we are out we have not done any destruction, we have not destroyed any property, we have not abused anybody. The women said they want to get their right, let the rightful person be given his mandate, which is as excellent as David Martin would have done. And the most load they said, two world cannot hold Nasara into ransom. Out of the 13 local government, two world cannot hold Nasara into ransom. The election that was conducted in Nasara state with the same beaver, not the most special, in fact of the governorship and House of Representatives. The new electoral section 16-5 that talks about an opportunity, because why do we have to be this ridiculous, we laid a complaint that was what the wreck said, we had a 20,000, our agent complained, we had a 50,000, our agent they allocated 50,000 to their Gaianmote, our agent complained. And we said we should go for a review. So we took advantage of their advice and we are lower-bidding citizens of Nasara state and we afforded a petition to the INEC and we are hoping that the And we are hoping that we are going to look at our complaint and then review it and then return and reclaim and so on. We can reclaim the mandate of the people. That's all.


Kevin, I know this was just a basketball game today. But because of where you're located and all the stuff surrounding it and what you went through, was there any particular emotion that people carried with them into this game today beyond the feelings about basketball? I think guys are obviously aware of what's going on in our country. And we have conversations about this all the time. But once we step on the floor, we understand what our job is. But the dialogue is never going to stop on how we can better our society. And a lot of guys are doing that part on this team. Malika Andrews with ESPN. Two for you, Kevin. First piggybacking off of what Greg just said.  Is this going to be rescheduled? Not going to be rescheduled. What was that process like? I think most of the guys took their naps right before the game yesterday and got up and got a text that game may be canceled. And it just happened so fast. But we had some solutions. We heard that we was going to play at 1 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 3 o'clock. So I'm glad the NBA made this game happen and that postpone it.  So I'm glad we finished it off. And we want to continue to just keep showing our support and to see who was going on. But also knowing that we got a job to do. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense.  How did you feel? And how does that leave you feeling about, do you want to play? Are you going to play tomorrow? I felt good out there, man. I felt like my win and legs are getting up under me each and every minute I'm playing. And that's the most, that's really what I wanted out of this time. And we'll see how I feel in the morning. And I'll talk to the coach, talk to coach and the training staff and see where we go from there. Thank you. Alex Schiffer with the athletic. Having kind of similar to what Malik and Greg asked. I don't know if you saw the magic Spurs game last night. They kind of met at center court in demonstration for what happened in Minneapolis. Do you guys have any talk in the locker room pregame about doing something like that? Or was more game oriented? Yeah, it was more game oriented. I think the shirts that we wore, both teams wore, spoke volumes. And but we didn't plan on doing anything. I think if we come out there and respect and honor the game the right way, that says that sends a good message along with what we had on our shirts today. So, you know, does handle it well, both teams. Christian Winfield with the New York Daily News. Hey, Kevin, you know, Steve was talking pregame about, you know, the idea of postponing a game, not playing in the game at all, versus having an actual reason to not play in the game in terms of actionable items of things that can get done. In terms of these communities, whether it's obviously police brutality against black people, I'm just curious if that's something that you guys have talked about in terms of action items, like, like a lot of times people are asking NBA players to use their platforms and do all types of things. But a lot of times people, the conversation will stop happening, right? Like, what have you guys had the chance to talk about in terms of actions that could potentially do something to stop this from happening again? I mean, guys are not, we're not talking about using this platform to make a stand. But a lot of guys are doing their part in their communities individually. And we're all doing stuff in our, what we played at, what we went to school at, what we grew up at. So obviously, you know, we want to use your voice and use your platform, but I think a lot of guys are quietly doing their thing behind the scenes and trying to, you know, work towards a solution for all of this stuff. So, you know, whether we do it on the NBA stage or do it behind the scenes, I think it's all, it'll all help. Lisa Salters with ESPN. Hey, Kevin, just what was your initial reaction when you found out about what had happened? The shooting itself I'm talking about? At this point, you just really don't understand what's going on around here. You know, it's different stories every single day about families' lives getting altered because of police brutality. And I mean, at this point I have, I really don't know what to say. Bruce Beck with NBC New York. Kevin, how far do we still have to go in your mind as a society to get this right? I mean, who knows? Who knows? I mean, it's that ongoing problem for the last 400 years. You know what I'm saying? So who knows when it'll stop? But the awareness is good.  But I mean, it's a whole world problem. All those got to come together at some point and figure it out. But I don't know. Tina Servasio with Fox Five, New York. Kevin, shifting towards the game for a second here. You did say, you know, you have to see how you feel in the morning, but training staff aside, medical staff aside, whatever the plan is they have for you medically when you're matching up against the Sixers with the postseason just a month away. And this is the team you're battling with for the top seed. How much do you wanna play in a game like this, particularly against that team? I wanna play just to get back in a swing of things more so than like pinpointing that matchup. You know what I'm saying? I think for us, we wanna get everybody healthy and acclimated to what we're doing out there. And I think that's just as important as like circling the calendar and fulfilling. We're a great team, well coached and I'm sure a team we won't have to run into here soon. But for us at this point, we wanna continue to just fine tune what we do, get better at the things that make us who we are and we'll see what happens down the line. Tom Dowd, BrooklynNets.com. Hey Kevin, you were missing some guys today and you watched this team put up a very good record while you were out. What does it say to you about the way this team continues to thrive in situations like this? Well coached. We got coaching staff that keeps everybody locked in no matter who was out on the floor. We got hungry guys on our team that won minutes, that won opportunities. And you add that combination together. Some of these games that people might have thought we will lose, we end up coming out on top. And that's credit to the coaching staff and the players for staying ready. Thanks.


ways to tell if you might be that guy. You can't stop posting about your partner on social media.  Many people do this to create a perfect picture of their life but it's better to show that you are your own person within your relationship. You don't recognize their individual identity outside of their relationship to you. The way that wife guys talk about their partner is so off-putting because it seems like they don't have any other rules in life aside from being a spouse. My wife? My wife? My wife? My wife? My wife? When you're posting don't only refer to them as my wife, there are plenty of other ways you can refer to your partner that don't make it about you. Your motivation for posting about your partner is tied to you. Do you actually want to celebrate your partner or do you want to be celebrated for celebrating them instead? Think twice before posting if it's the second one or you'll be in wife guy territory.