from Flames of Durga. What didn't make me pick up the guitar? I mean music is my medicine and guitar is my vehicle for my songwriting and that release that I don't get anywhere else but with my guitar and my music. So Flames of Durga pulls from so many different genres, anything from heavy rock, metal, punk, grunge, some blues and I have so many inspirations from guitarists anywhere from Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Page, Zack Wilde, I love Black Sabbath, the Bleach album, Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, that album really honestly changed my life. It also was an obsession of mine when I was forming Flames of Durga so I know some of that came through when I really started to focus on electric guitar from my acoustic roots. In terms of my influences and inspirations I always have to give it up for the badass women, the pioneers, that really helped pave the way for younger ladies like myself. Donita Sparks, Susie Gardner of L7, Joan Jett, Lita Ford, they're some of my heroes for sure. Flames of Durga was this inevitable brainchild formed by me and my twin sister Cecilia and originally the catalyst that made us finally start a band was a crazy car accident that we went through and we lived through it and we were beat up man and it really showed us our mortality and how fleeting life is and how passionate we were about the need to share our music with the world so that was the big initial push that we needed but we grew up writing songs together throughout our childhood and playing different instruments but I have to say the guitar is definitely my favorite and yeah playing in a band with my sibling is might seem unique and different to other people but it's so natural for me and it's it's just I don't have to think about it we just sync up with each other you know there's this definitely they talk about telepathic twin stuff that definitely happens I mean that happens you know in bands with people you play with already right but it's just such a natural expression creatively for us to play music together and perform and get wild and crazy on stage together the bond we have is definitely you can see it I guess in our performance James six oh six combo is such a bitching amp it sounds huge it gives me that awesome feedback and sustain that I love so much I love cranking up the gain personally and it's amazing how lightweight it is I can actually carry the amp in one hand and my guitar in the other so that's a first and it doesn't take up much room in the van I love it it's great for the road it worked awesome on our last tour and it was the longest tour yet that I've ever been on that whole month it had my back and really had a lot of fun with it yes so I actually get a lot of my tone from this amp I don't have a crazy pedal setup I look for a lot of gain that dirty crunchy sound I love that dirty rock and roll sound that's that's a lot of what I look for in this band especially being a three piece and being the only guitarist in the band I like to have that wide spectrum of that full well rounded rhythm licks and also that nice crunchy soloing loud sustaining tone that I like as well so I definitely get all of that with the st. James 6L6 oh man growing up in LA has definitely been not boring that's for sure and full of such a cultural melting pot and I've been really lucky to just be exposed to so many amazing musicians from all over the world that come here but growing up you know well before I was ever in a band or serious about starting a band I was going to shows and I was getting so much of that like teenage angst out before I was rocking out on stage I was rocking out with my sister in the crowd I'm going to punk shows metal shows hardcore shows and it was it was the best it gave us life it gave us that sense of release and that connection to the performers on stage yeah as teenagers in LA I remember my sis and I and our friends we were always going to Hollywood and the sunset strip we grew up in Silver Lake so it's pretty close by just a quick little bus right away at the time and we went to venues like the key club on the sunset strip we saw so many epic shows there and just had the time of our lives I remember there was a specific show and it was on our birthday too and I remember thinking man this is the funnest night this has been the funnest night of my life yet and that was such an awesome feeling so anyways the the key club on the sunset strip was super fun the knitting factory in Hollywood also local venues that I miss like the satellite and Silver Lake we grew up you know only like five minutes away from that place so really sad to see cool places like that not make it through the COVID times but it is great to see the ones that have been able to pull through the Redwood bar I really like in downtown the Echo is always a great staple of the LA music scene you know one of the things that I didn't see a lot in LA growing up in the music scene was very many females getting on stage especially with an instrument and especially in the rock scene and the heavier genres in general so now I'm finally starting to see more and more fellow women or women identified getting up there on stage and really owning their power and joining the boys so I'm really excited to see more women getting up on stage and rocking out and honing their craft and supporting each other along the way too yeah when using the St. James 606 I am obsessed with the gain the with channel two I like it dirty you know I like that crunchy dirty rock and when I want that boost I just use the voice to and I don't even necessarily need a fuzz pedal when I use this amp because I get so much of that awesome dirty crunchy tone that I love so much and it also works great with my SG here I don't really use the clean channel don't need it in Flames of Durga you know it's dirty it's loud I've got a loud drummer thumping away my sis on bass ripping it so I have fun with that gain and channel two yeah so Flames of Durga has our first full-length album coming out a self-titled album we've got an exclusive vinyl release coming out later this summer and then shortly after that we're gonna do a digital release we have the opportunity to record our first full-length album at Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree and wow what an honor let me tell you that place it has so much history so many incredible records have been made there I was just humbled and honored to get the opportunity to record even to just record a song but we recorded 10 songs there to work with Dave Ketching too he is just such a legendary musician you know he's been in projects like Queens of the Stone Age Eagles of Death battle he's in Mojave Lords earthlings and he's just such an amazing guitar player and wizard and and also just a really cool dude really awesome human being and so easygoing and fun we had a fucking blast there recording guitars with him was so epic I was just in a kid in a candy store it was a playground for me I brought my babies of course but he also let me play any of his guitars that I wanted all kinds of beautiful vintage guitars it was honestly a dream come true I'm so excited to to put out this album Flames of Durga has so much to say and we're finally gonna be able to let the world hear it pretty soon so Flames of Durga's self-titled album comes out late summer this year we're super excited we've got a couple videos that we released from singles off the album and then we have another single coming out and we'll have a new video for that one it's called Alpha Woman so we've got a lot of touring coming up and super excited that we're gonna be hitting the UK for the first time ever this September we've got a week over there so I cannot wait to get over there and feel their energy and rock out and show them what we're all about and yeah we're super excited to do more touring in general we want to go everywhere thanks for watching you guys you can find Flames of Durga online everywhere at Flames of Durga


What's up everyone, it's your girl Kenzie here from Layton Sports Cards and I'm ripping 2022 Fanatics memorabilia diamond box break number five random hit style. How this is going to work is we're going to go ahead and open up the box. We're going to go through each item as we go through them. Sean is going to type them into a Google Sheets. And then afterwards we will go ahead and random both the names of those who bought into the break and the items and line them up with name and the hit and we'll match up what you get. Best of luck everybody. I'm really looking forward to this one. Again, I've not ripped any of this yet. I've been watching Forrest and Kayla rip this so I'm really, really excited. It's a really big box. I'm going to leave it right here and then take the items over to the table as we go. So good luck everyone. Thanks again for the film and having a fun night. What better way to end it than something like this? Let's start here. Oh first, let's see what we have here. A little Fanatics box. We've got, ooh, UFC card here that is 11 out of 50. George St. Pierre on the red ink. 11 out of 15. That's from 2014 Tops. George St. Pierre on the welterweight division there. Authentic knockout autograph card from 2014 Tops UFC knockout. Nice one there and then behind the sticker you've got your Fanatics, a little authentication. There you go. Cool, want to start there. That will come with that box. Got one jersey. Or at least I think it's a jersey. Wow. Patrick Mahomes. You got your Fanatics sticker right here. Patrick Mahomes. Sick. Wow, authentic jersey too. I think I saw a tag over here. Is it heavy? Yep, that is a on-field authentic jersey. Wow. That's a $150 just jersey itself. I don't want to touch it too much, but wow, look at that. Patrick Mahomes jersey on the Nike authentic. Again, you had your Fanatics here as well as a, there's a hologram matching card inside the box too. Yeah, something, something crazy, but these boxes have been absolutely insane. All right, we got another box here. This one's a little bit heavier. A little bit heavier. Let's see what we have here. Oh, this one's cool. Bobby Orr autograph jersey. Look at that. For the Bruins, Bobby Orr and that is inscribed H-H-O-F-79 hockey hall of fame 79 Bobby Orr. That's sick. Legend. That is really cool on the silver ink there. Got your Fanatics sticker. Yeah, I bet. I bet. I know he loves his his hockey Bobby Orr. That's sick. Especially your Bruins. Yeah, that's very nice. You got your matching a hologram verification card here as well. That's sick. Heck yeah. I don't know what to do next. It looks like I might have like a helmet in like a shoebox. Oh my gosh. Oh, that's last. Yeah, that whatever is in that box is last. I just saw the, oh my gosh, the name on this one too. Oh my gosh, y'all. That I have never, ever called something like that. I don't know. Don't look, don't peek. Oh, I don't know what I thought it was a helmet. I was like, wait, upper deck, is it a hockey helmet? It's not hockey, but oh my gosh. Perfect timing. Perfect timing. Get ready. Yo, oh my gosh, these are so nasty. We've got cleats autographed by Shohei Otan. Sick. Yeah, cleats, bro. Both of them. Are they both signed? No, just the right foot sign. Wow. That's nasty. Look at that. Yeah, we put these back in there. From Shohei, yeah. Here's the verification. And it doesn't say if they're like game, I mean, they're pretty darn clean. I don't think these would be game. They're game model cleats. Game model. Yeah, you'd be able to tell if they were game warm with all that clay. That is so sick. Shohei Otani cleats, Dean. So what we got so far guys is 11 of 50 George St. Pierre auto card.  Patrick Mahomes, auto jersey. Nike, authentic on field jersey. And then right after that was a Bobby Orr Hall of Fame and scribe jersey as well. I gotta take a picture of those. All right, y'all, don't go anywhere. Here we go. This last one is, I don't know what it is. Yeah, I think, I think. So I'm like upper deck. Okay, it's kind of a big box. I'm thinking it might be hockey. Like, Sean, what should we do next? I see the name on the side. Wow. Oh my gosh, this is gonna be so beautiful. Y'all ready? How about a LeBron James autograph basketball? Oh my gosh, King James. Oh my gosh. LeBron James. LeBron James. LeBron James. LeBron James. LeBron James. LeBron James. Gosh, autographed basketball. That is absolutely nasty upper deck COA on that one. Yeah. LeBron James. Wow. Insane, man. Wow. Insane. What a diamond box. My goodness gracious. I'm not taking that out. I'm leaving it just how it is. I do have to take a picture. I'm gonna take a picture of a couple of these. I might take that. My home's out and folded a lot nicer because it's kind of just slushed in there.  All right, so we've got all five heads here. Give me one second. You got five and five. All right, here we go. We've got our names here. Good luck, I'm gonna roll the dice. Eight times. Name's first. Here we go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Brian S down to Dan M. Eight times on the items. Yep, eight and eight. Here we go. Good luck everyone. Wow. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. The George St. Pierre auto down to the Shohei Otani cleats. All right, we've got Brian S taking home the 11 of 50 George St. Pierre auto. Thomas J with the Bobby or autograph jersey. John A with the Le Maron James autograph basketball. Congrats on that, John. Thomas J with the Patrick Mahomes Nike autograph jersey. And Dan M taking home the Shohei Otani cleats.  Congrats again, everyone. I'll get this posted to the site and drop the link here in the comments for you if you'd like to take a closer look. Congrats to all five of you. Thanks again for the film. We'll get these right out to you.


Wasn't sure I could hit that note. Hello children, welcome back to Spooky Santa. That's me, I'm Santa Claus and I have more scary stories to share with you today. I have a special story that was emailed to me from one of the children on my good list. Kimberly lives in La Mesa, California and she tells a story about what her older brother saw, which is even more terrifying when you hear what happened afterward. Author Jessica Bayless brings us a story about a brand new Christmas Carol that brought jitters instead of joy. But first, I have a scary tale about three sisters who ask their parents for Christmas presents. Now why would that be scary you ask? Well, keep listening and you will find out.  There was a merry couple who had three daughters. The oldest was 15, the middle one was 12 and the youngest daughter was 7 years old. On Christmas, the oldest daughter asked for a laptop computer, the middle daughter asked for an iPad and the youngest daughter asked for a small doll. On Christmas Day, they all unwrapped their presents beneath the Christmas tree. The oldest and the middle daughter received exactly what they had asked for. But the youngest daughter, who wanted the doll, was surprised to receive instead a clown puppet. However, the clown puppet was so cute, she decided to keep it and two days later, the youngest girl disappeared. The next Christmas, the oldest daughter asked for an iPad, the middle daughter asked for a clown puppet in memory of her little sister and two days later, the middle daughter disappeared as well. The next Christmas, the last remaining daughter asked for a clown puppet in memory of her two younger sisters who disappeared. And then, you guessed it, two days later, she too disappeared. The parents became very poor and were forced to sell their furniture for money. One day, they went into the attic looking for something else they could sell. And there, in a dark recess of the attic, in a dark corner, they saw the clown puppet. It was sitting on a throne made from lollipop sticks and arranged all around where the severed heads of the three missing girls. Well, that's a creepy Christmas tale. I sure hope that's not based on a true story. I'm pretty sure it's not. I sure hope so. Hey, if you would like to write a scary story for me, you can send it to me at letters at spookycenta.com. And then, I can read your story in an upcoming episode. I love receiving emails. Email, we get email. We get your email every day. Here's your mail today. I received a great email from La Mesa, California. Kimberly is 12 years old and she sent me this story that we'll call Devil in the Closet. Here is what she wrote. There is five years between my older brother and I. One night, shortly after I was brought home, my brother was asleep in his room. He heard knocking and scraping around in his closet. He woke, sat up in bed and watched a man he described as the devil exit his closet. He walked to the foot of his bed, smiled and said, I'll see you soon, kid.  My brother, understandably terrified at this point, went running into my parents' room and immediately told them what had happened. For the next few nights, they let him sleep with them. And just a few nights later, the ceiling in my brother's room collapsed, crushing his bed. Had he been in bed, he would have been killed. Nothing is scarier than strange, true tales like that. Thank you for sharing, Kimberly, and I'm so glad to hear your brother is okay. That way you can celebrate Christmas with him year after year and not worry about that devil in the closet. My final story is something a bit strange. If you like to sing Christmas carols like I began this episode with, well, this one's going to be for you. It's another story about a carol, but this carol is a bit terrifying. And you'll find out why as I read The Carol by Jessica Bayless. Here's the story. It wasn't until the end verse of the new song that everyone went crazy. Mr. Bellinger sprang the carol on us at the last minute. Nobody complained except me. He was all like, now Zachary, you know this tune, everyone does. You just have to read the words.  Out loud, I said, all right, Mr. B. But in my head, I thought, I never wanted to sing at school on Christmas Eve in the first place. Mr. Bellinger made an announcement before the new song. Parents, students, teachers, and friends, we have a little surprise this afternoon. I found this next carol in an antique text. It's an old wassal song. It used to be sung all over England by working folk who'd go door to door for Christmas treats. But nobody has sung this version for hundreds of years, not until today. You'll find the lyrics in your programs. Merry Christmas. Well, the first couple verses of the carol were all normal. Stuff I'd heard before about wassaling all over town, and good cheer and blessings for the mistress of this house, whoever she was. But the last verse sounded weird, even the non-Latin part. We'd sung Latin before, but still you'd think Mr. B would have given us a warning or something. Veni valint, take all lives longest. Come fill us of the strongest. Else tricks he give ye. Veni valint. Come pray the maker, fill the bowl, and let it round the table troll. Or shame and pranks he'll have for ye. Veni valint.  Shelly Jenkins laughed at me, and that made my cheeks hot. My neck, too, and my hands were all sweaty when I grabbed my folder from under Joey Black's retro Jordan. When I stood up, my stomach felt funny, but not only because of Shelly. Cackles, high-pitched and cold mixed with the song. Everyone kept singing, though, like they couldn't hear it. My mom sat in the audience fanning herself with the program. Dad shook his head at me, but pulled at his collar like, well, like he was hot, too. He stopped to clap for the end of the concert. Finally. But we still had the party to get through before we could go home to start real Christmas. All the clapping turned into loud talking as everyone headed for the food. That was very nice, Zack, Mom said when I pushed my way to them through the crowd. Is it just me or is it hot in here? I'm dying. Can we go now, please, I said. Ho, ho, ho! Shouted a deep voice. How festive, Mom said. Santa's here. Let's go see him. Mom, I'm too old for Santa. I wasn't talking about you, she said. What? Come on, Steve.  Let's go tell the big guy what we want. She grabbed her hand and then they ran. No, no, they skipped to the corner where the line was already growing. They wouldn't. They would. They are. They didn't even wait their turn. Mom got right up in front of Jenny Evans, which was kind of cool because Jenny's a snob anyway.  Even worse, Dad did too. This had to be a nightmare. Some messed up nightmare. Please, let it not be real. I looked around in case anyone was watching, but no one was. Everyone was acting weird. Tanisha Johnson pranced around on stage, singing a Beyonce song into the microphone with no music, and it did not sound good. Like at all. Mrs. Rodriguez, the English teacher, wrestled the mic from Tanisha, but then she started reciting poetry into it. Tanisha tugged the mic, but Mrs. Rodriguez wouldn't let go.  Watch me dunk. Joey Black shouted it out. He blew by me in a running start for the basketball net. Who was he fooling? Joey couldn't even make a basket from the free throw line. Before he could go for it, he slipped on some spilled punch and landed face first into the cake that the home and careers class had made.  I don't know if it was an accident or what, but she fell and her dress went up. I looked away real fast, but Kendall Islam jumped and shouted and pointed, Fruit of the Looms! Everyone wears Fruit of the Looms, everyone! Kendall's boyfriend John came over and that's when Kendall's face went green. What's wrong? John asked. I don't. Kendall puked all over John's legs and shoes. Gross! John said. Oh my gosh! Kendall wailed and then sobbed all the way to the girl's locker room. Zach, what's wrong with everyone? A voice said. Shelly Jenkins. I couldn't even look at her.  Except it wasn't a Christmas party. Not anymore. My mom was arguing with a ninth grader over one of Sana's presents. I caught her eye and mouthed, Let's go please! I made prayer hands under my chin and everything, but mom only crossed her arms and shook her head at me. Oh no! Shelly pointed. Mr. Shepard, the math teacher, had arranged the dessert plates so that they all lined up just right. When Bruce Belsky tried to take a cookie, Mr. Shepard slapped his hand away. I don't think his dad liked that, I told Shelly. And he didn't. Bruce's dad shouted in Mr. Shepard's face. Mr. Shepard shouted back, then shoved Bruce's dad in the chest. What is happening here? Shelly asked. I have no idea, I said. He danced. A teacher cried. I cringed when Simon Cherry snuck up behind Kim Warner, tapped her on the shoulder, and opened a can of soda that he'd been shaking, right in her face. We have to do something, Shelly said. Like what? I don't know. It's like they're all possessed or something. The carol, Mr. Bellinger said from behind us, he grabbed Shelly's arm and stared hard into her face. It was a joke, he said. We sang a song but didn't make an offering to the spirit. What do you mean? She asked. He didn't stay around to answer. He ran to the stage and wrestled the microphone away from Mrs. Rodriguez, and then started singing some opera song. I almost wished for Tanisha's Beyonce imitation again. It was that bad. Did you hear that? Shelly asked. Yeah, Mr. B can't hit the high notes. He had a finger in my ear. Not that. He said something about the carol. I'll bet he means the new song he added to the concert. I got a weird feeling when everyone else sang that last verse. Everyone else, I said. You mean you didn't sing it? That's right. She'd been laughing when I dropped my music, which is why I hadn't sung that part. I felt weird too and I heard Shelly put her hand on my arm. I stared at it like I'd never seen a hand before. She'd painted her fingernails sparkly red. Zack, did you hear me? I snapped my eyes to her face. What? We have to find that book. Where the song came from, that's gotta be it. She tugged my hand and we bolted across the gym dodging crazed partygoers until we reached the hall. It's unlocked. Shelly slipped inside Mr. B's office. We rummaged through drawers and understacks of papers. Here, I said, wow, it really is an antique. Cracked red leather covered the book. Shelly read the gold lettering. Charming chance. What a bonehead. This isn't a book of Christmas songs. It's a spell book. Come on, that stuff's not real. She put a hand on her hip. Then how do you explain what's going on out there? Even from here, all of us in the gym rang out loud and clear. Shrieks, laughs, voices singing silent night but all out of sync. Crashes, bangs, thumps. It sounds pretty bad. Pretty bad. She made that face where her eyebrows scrunched up and her lip gets pouty. Okay, okay, it's bad. Let's see. She flipped through the pages. Here it is. And the lint, the trickster. He haunts celebrations at Yuletide. I knew I hated Latin. Does it say how to get rid of him? Hold on. Maybe there's a counter chat or something. Her lips moved as she read. I've got it. We need to sing these lines. I had to sing in front of Shelly. Maybe you should do it alone, I said. No, it says many voices. Shout dispel him. We'll be lucky if just two is enough. I huffed out of breath. Fine. I had to get close to read the words. So close our shoulders brushed. I cleared my throat. Ready? Shelly met my eyes and nodded as she counted. One, two, three. Crevalent. Let's dawn take ye. Be gone for present. No tricks we will give ye. Crevalent. My bowl is empty. No carols to troll. All pranks beended. Crevalent. My voice cracked. Twice. Shelly clenched the book so tightly. Her fingers turned white and her hands shook. What's wrong? I asked. I don't know. I can't hold it. Wind roared through the room. All the papers on Mr. B's desk flew into the air. The wind whistled higher and higher and louder. I covered my ears. When a gust tugged the book from Shelly's hands she covered her ears. The book smacked against the wall. It stuck for a second then slid to the floor. The pages turned by themselves. When they stopped everything got quiet. Even the party down the hall went silent. Like we were in some kind of bubble. Shelly wrapped her arms around me and pressed her cheek into my shoulder. This surprised me so much I forgot about the book for a second. Zack, look! Smoke curled up from the book's pages. It spiraled higher and darkened forming the shape of a tall, skinny, troll man with limbs no thicker than table legs. Spikes stuck out where his ears should have been. Now I could tell where the smoke came from. Fire burned from each of the lint's fingertips like teeth. The lint's fingertips like ten candles. The spirit's smile was so huge it barely fit his face. Oh my goodness! Shelly whispered. The lint threw his head back and cackled My dears! What fun you've given me! You're supposed to leave, I shouted. We sang the song. I shall but first one last prank. He darted at our heads. Shelly screamed and hit her face. Flinching from the flames, I threw my arms around her. But before he touched us, the lint burst into a million particles of dust that fell like ugly, dirty snow. He's gone. I tried to look all around me at once. Shelly peaked with one eye. Really? Think so? She straightened. And that's when I did something so crazy even while it was happening. It was messed up. So totally messed up. I kissed Shelly on the lips. She smelled like the punch from the party. Her lips were pink from it. They tasted pink. Her eyes, wide from the ghost, got even wider. The lint made me. I jumped back. The lint's crackling voice sing-songed all around us. Tricks for ye! Tricks for ye! Until his words faded to nothing. I tried to look at Shelly without actually looking at her. Should we see if everyone's okay? She asked after a minute. Uh, yeah. Before I could take a step, she slipped her fingers with their red glittery nail polish into my hand. Her hand was warm. As we walked, she clapped her free hand over her mouth and giggled. They're all going to be so embarrassed. I know. Good thing we didn't do anything we'll regret. Totally. I love it when the hero gets the girl in the end. Well, did you like the stories I told kids? If so, do Santa a big favor and tell your friends and family about the Spooky Santa podcast. That way, they can listen too. And remember, you can write your own scary story and email it to me at LettersAtSpookySanta.com I love scary stories and true stories, so long as they're spooky, I love getting them. If you want to learn more about the stories that I've told or the authors who wrote them, you can find links in the episode's show notes. Spooky Santa is a registered trademark of Martler House Productions. Copyright Martler House Productions. Now, be a good little boy or girl and join me next time for more creepy tales from Spooky Santa. Hoo-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!


We have got I've got to confess there's been a bit of a mess up over times because we were meant to be doing a round table with Medina Who is in Australia? I said Atlanta myself in the UK and David is in Perth David Cohen He's in Perth, Australia, but because the American and UK clocks have changed. We've sprung forward these Bloody clock changes on Australia haven't we've all got the times mixed up So instead of our normal round table, the three of us are just going to do a quick sort of Little update for you all about where we're all at with our channels and then we will reschedule and get David on board So let's go around let's go around for the news Let's start with you Bryce because Bryce has got some really exciting news to share about a really exciting interview She did this morning. Well today is my day of Australians. Um, of course, we're missing David This morning early this morning, which was late for you guys in Australia I filmed with Tamara and Ricardo bozi And I kept it really quiet. I told Catherine because I didn't know, you know, you never know um, and I'm so it was such an incredible conversation and I mean, he's just I mean, I love Australians anyway I always just have such a soft spot my heart for Australians but he was I and I told him in the interview like even as a non Australian I look at him as a leader in this movement just for humans anyway the way a lot of people outside of America looked to Mr. T Um as a leader in this great awakening and so and one thing I was telling Catherine that I loved about Ricardo bozi is and I'm paraphrasing guys. You'll have to watch the full interview So I'm not quoting him verbatim, but he talked about how like right now We're so focused on you know collapsing the old system that we also have to plan for the new one as well You know, we can't just because then what what do we do the best is yet to come Well, we have to create that best and um, and we all have to be involved in that I think that's something Catherine and I we've talked about a lot is that it's not just It's not just handing the ball over to another leader because that's what got us in the mess We were in the first place It's all of us being actively involved in our communities and helping create a new governmental system That's going to be fair and that's going to allow people to prosper In their god-given freedoms and rights and um, and so that's really exciting I really liked that he brought that up Because that is that's our responsibility as humans is is to make sure He said something funny too, which I thought was awesome that especially in Australia Like what's going on in Yale's capital that the teenagers need to be recording this because In 50 years time they're going to be the ones to to keep on telling the stories of what humanity did I thought that was amazing to keep and I had the other day. I was in the bath and I thought I should get a journal I should start journaling again about all of this just to have it written down What we all experienced and so that interview is up It's on the full interview is obviously on my rumble page But there is an intro on the youtube channel So you can just click to the link over over to rumble to get the full conversation With riccardo bozzi and tomorrow and they are there At the state at the capital of australia doing what they're doing and god bless them And as far as other things happening on my channel next week, we're going to be finishing up our first magdalen book That has been a huge success that series and we're going to be starting the new magdalen book Which is the magdalen manuscript that's going to get a little bit racy because it talks about sex. So Looking forward to that So But yeah, that's really exciting because This is what we were going to talk about our round table tonight, which we'll probably do next week now Is all about solutions and all of us and david included were really really focused on now moving forward into the creation Of course, we're still keeping up to date with what's going on because Knowledge is power, but we're really all focused on the solution side of things So medina, we've dragged you up very early in the morning Um, how are you what what's happening with your channel and what you're working on at the moment? Sure. Well, um, I've got some Protection workshops that i've been offering. I did one a couple of weeks ago for people with beautiful Invocations and prayers and and also clearings for your energy. So, you know, we're all being very impacted by the The global energies as well as our own individual energies. And so to be able to clear our energies at the moment is really important and to to be able to sort of Release the baggage that, you know, we're collecting along the way And so this protection workshops help with that, which is fantastic And so that that that was, you know, some wonderful Testimonials from that, you know from people that that have now skills that they didn't have before that They can utilize through this time period and you know in an ongoing way So i'm offering that again in a couple of weeks, which is really exciting And i'm continuing, you know with my global clientele, which is great We we are just currently at the moment getting more reins here in Like i remember the last time i spoke to you was it was sort of around the same time and and The reins are really coming down again, you know bioengineered is is what it looks like Rob Deutsch does some wonderful weather reports on the on the many manipulations that are happening with the weather and so You know that there are more Evacuations in lismore again at the moment and and the reins are coming down really heavily so You know just More prayers to to australia would be great. I really really love the concept too that we thought there's some weather weather manipulation that's happening that we can actually Really contribute to to shifting that so we can Send the water beautiful energy and we can send it Energy to cleanse so we can send it energy to to not harm people we can send it energy to bring love and bring um And bring you know the the energies that we need to move forward and and to be able to as well You know with the shaman you know in the native american Indians They would rain dance when they needed rain well in the same way we can ask the rain to only Um come to us in ways that benefit us, you know So we can also work with water in that way and I think that's a really important message to to give to people that we can We can also program the water in the way that we want it to be working with us So um, I think if people have that message, you know, they're not stuck in the victim consciousness with everything That's going on thinking, you know, this is being done to us. We can actually we're very very empowered and water Holds so much energy, you know as the um Masara a mojo the japanese Um, the fellow spoke about who wrote the the book the secret Or the hidden meaning of water he talked about you know how we can program water really easily So I think that's a really important thing to say that we we are empowered and we can um influence very Strongly what's happening here as well, you know with our energy Well, we are more empowered than the dark the light is stronger than the dark So I think I think that's that's a really good thing to get across um, and so in terms of my community, um, I want to continue working with energetically with with what's happening in Australia and globally and um Probably i'm thinking about starting a patreon community. So we'll see how that goes Yeah Patrons are great. I love my patrons. My patrons have kept me going. So we love you patreon For a long time, right? Yeah, I have and they literally are my rock stars because I mean everybody watching. I mean people are very kind and um, so yeah and people I think I I don't want to speak for everybody But I think a lot of people understand how much energy we put into our channels, which it is the full-time job You know 100% it's so much work. Um, can I say brice too? This is really exciting We had a I had a comment on my comment section saying that I should do a chat with your lovely friend taylor taylor moon and so We did we did and I listened to that because I read all the comments and and so we did this chat and we got such beautiful comments from it You know, it was really lovely So yeah, that that that was very exciting Great. Yeah, thank you Good idea. That's something I've been thinking of but haven't got round to because Um, I think yeah, I've got lots of exciting things coming on my channel. Um, having a real Um change in focus and so to my channel Really reflects like both of yours do where I am on a personal level and the journey that I'm moving forward to So I spent the last sort of two years Very much on a journey of discovery And I like connect almost going through the grief cycle where we're all moving through The cycle of all these emotions, but we're moving through our own pace in our own time And that's exactly the way it should be So for me, I'm so long as it doesn't get deleted again Because I've already lost one channel. So I'm being very careful now. I'm putting the more contentious stuff on rumble But what I'm doing is this is almost like my journal I'm I'm using it to have my journal and a sort of a reference point for what A normal person is going through and sort of being, you know, we took all of us to very open and honest about our emotions about what we're feeling. So I'm so excited to Really be solution focused. Yes. I am keeping up to date with what's going on because knowledge is power But I'm very much then helping to just offer up for people to take or leave as it resonates with them or doesn't different solutions So I'm halfway through which I sort of got the idea from prices my book club on manifesting And that's just been received really really well And what I do is it's like where I'm really focusing bringing these things more into my life Like brice and I are doing the meditation series and we've got a really exciting episode We had a lovely one last week with nick alvia and we've got one coming up very shortly with shorn stone, which is going to be amazing um So people sharing their different ways and what's working for them and their gifts and I am reactivating the health side of things because the natural health and and working on harmony with nature For humans and animals and all the natural remedies So I've spent years developing formulas to make my natural soaps my natural gels my natural ointments all the healing things I've got courses already available for using those with dogs and horses and I'm really Bringing I've been doing a lot of work over the last month really working with some amazing new people because What I'm combining is bringing the natural solutions with moving forward to support The ethical companies that are going to help us move forward to our new future Because I strongly believe that you know Money is just a form of energy and therefore where we choose to put that energy Is giving a very clear Message to the universe in terms of this is what we want moving forward As opposed to continuing with the old habits of spending which might be supporting companies that we don't really want to be Moving forward unless they transform Yeah, I think that that is such a great point You know, we've got to really think about which are the big corporations Are we going to support those the ones that are crushing all the small businesses and you know making these? billion upon billion dollar profits, you know and I think if if everything that we buy We take it back to the core root of where that money is going. I think that that's super important and and I have the same impetus as you Catherine that I'm really focused again on solutions and health solutions. So I'm also just starting a Soul evolution series. So working on how we can work with our soul to to really um Work with the energies and go in the flow of the energy so that we can work toward our own ascension I mean the number one thing that we really also be focusing on the minute is our own soul growth our own soul evolution How you know, we're incarnated in this reality because it actually accelerates our growth as a soul because of the density we can actually accomplish more so This is the key opportunity in this moment as well to ride the wave of the ascension and and and Utilize these energies that are so about change so about, you know Transforming who we are and and and so my evolution series Is is a whole range of ways that we can do that. So I just want to mention that as well It's amazing kind of I was telling Catherine before we were filming I put something about this on twitter. I don't think people thought I was serious I've been micro dosing for like a week now and it's actually um, I think I'm going to do this for a really long time because it's a I mean, I think so you just have a small amount of some very small amounts of um, very small amounts So I will admit I've had my fun with large amounts Very spiritual experiences with large amounts. I think some trees talked to me last time I did that but I haven't done it in a very long time and um, we actually talked to A good knit from good line tv about the he did a whole thing on like dmt and all that kind of stuff And so I watched his documentary and I was the clip of joe rogan talking about this.   You function like normal, but what it's done for me You know the last four months have been Really brutal Um, and I didn't realize, you know, we get stuck in these little habits these patterns And I didn't realize that I was stuck in like a survival mode And I hadn't actually allowed myself because my brain was in survival mode I had not allowed myself to really sit back into the sorrow Of everything that had happened And what's happened this weekend was all of a sudden it relaxed my brain enough to actually be able to sit into that and actually cry um And it was very releasing and very cathartic and you know, this is and I said to somebody it's almost like if you've ever I mean, I've done it before before I really understood how bad pharmaceuticals were if you've taken like an antidepressant or something it kind of gives you the same type of um Feeling but it's natural and it it relaxes it Well, it doesn't I don't know if it relaxes the brain it opens the brain more And so you're perceiving things in a little bit different of a way that's really healing It's it's been very healing and so many people I've read Articles that people have written I've listened to interviews that have people who've really benefited From from doing this from micro dosing and I know a lot of people who even struggle with headaches Migraine headaches will do it just for that alone.  You're not nothing really shifts as far as you're not partying You know, you're not like at a fish concert dirt twirling all day. Like it's it's very um That's what we say in the united states dirt twirling the noodleers, you know, the the dirty hippies fish concerts Um, but but you're you're able to maintain your life and work and drive and do everything else It's just it's given you more of a your brain more of a way to kind of like settle into itself more um And so people maybe look up that and get more information on that for us if they're interested Well, um, again our friend nick from good lion tv did the dmt documentary he did also talks about micro dosing as well Um, there's a lot of of resources out there. I'm not like the conno sore when it comes to psychedelics Believe it or not. I'm not um But um, but but you can find a lot of stuff out there that will tell it's tiny that it's like the size The amount you take every day is like the size of a dime in the united states dimes are like the smallest coin we have It's about the size of what you take you just chew it up and and eat it in the morning and You know, you don't like homeopathics Do what yeah, because you you have a tiny amount with homeopathics to to be able to create the immunity To be able to deal with things. So it's the same sort of concept It's the same thought but with homeopathics you haven't got any of the actual substance left in it You've got the energetic signature coming back to the doctor a moto. It's similar to that. So it is Fascinating I'm just all for these people just really, you know grasping what nature has to offer and it's really important this subject of recognizing where you are at as an individual and what you need right here right now and and the sort of i've been doing a similar sort of processing of You know, I think everyone who's watching this we're all going through our stages of having to Let go of certain things and process everything that might be going with that and welcome in Making space for the new and we were again talking about this before when we were waiting With the time change mess up About how it's such a cliche that you need to create the space in your life to allow new things of whatever it might be to come in and It's so so important because when you do let go of what no is no longer serving you however Painful or not that process might be It's amazing. Isn't advice what comes in to fill the gaps in the universe I mean I was telling Catherine before I mean I really feel very blessed even though I've been through hell and back I do feel very blessed by the universe like I I have a really great life and things are just I'm really relaxed and things are just coming in and it's it's it's wonderful. It's what I'll tell you guys funny So when I the first day I did it It'd been like two hours since I did it I was actually sitting on my yoga mat and I was like texting everybody I was like I don't feel anything I don't feel anything and I was like you're not supposed to So I was actually expecting to have like to start you'd have this like real groovy experience But everyone's like you're you're not supposed to feel anything like it's a micro town.  When's it gonna happen? When's it gonna happen? So it's so fascinating when we look And and we will be carrying on folks for this discussion When we get david on board when we reschedule of how much of what we're doing in our own individual journeys are obviously A reflection because we are all connected and we are but together we all create The world I can't I can't help mention when we talk about, you know, we've been waiting waiting waiting for disclosure Didn't we just have it yesterday?   Sorry Robbie's very excited right now. I don't know if you can hear that He's the sheriff. He he's sheriffs everybody that walks by When people go to lose weight, right When you drop weight really quickly Um, it comes back fast, right? But if it's a slow process It stays off because better habits are being established that are going to be more permanent And and I think that's where the patience comes in where we have to be very patient With the macro as well as the micro And I think come that patient is working on the micro That that's one of my main lessons in this lifetime patients patients because when you when you see yourself as a spiritual eternal being And you've been in all the other, you know cosmic areas and you've been able to manifest like that, you know, boom I can manifest, you know that quickly and you come here and it's so dense and so slow and it's this 3d reality that you're trawling through Oh my god, isn't that lesson patience for so many people? It's it's just too And I think it's getting quicker now to manifest like it is getting much more instantaneous than it was but such a lesson in this lifetime to be able to To just release in non-attachment the things that we want and trust that they'll come in in divine alignment.  So when I I live in the beautiful sandy woodland And it's just amazing. So when I walk slowly The amount of wildlife I see just in the sand and I'm not talking about the snakes and the lizards I'm talking about the different types of ants the different types of bugs You don't have snakes do you Kevin? We do have snakes, we have snakes Okay, only two Yeah, oh lucky you we've got like hundreds Yeah, but you know, but when when how much you miss when you rush through life And and I've been my friends used to could say that they put hurry up on my gravestone because I was always In a rush to everything because everything's so exciting I mean people take the mic out of me because I'm like, well, so this is exciting and that's exciting But learning to slow down Oh my goodness and how much would we have missed if we didn't look at those micro details But again, we would talk about this early price It's like we we tend to because we're all speaking to people that are looking at these information sources We forget that there's a huge percentage of the population That don't ever see any of these things that we all see By us taking it on board and seeing it that's going to have an effect on how we behave And what energy we're putting out there Which is going to have a ripple effect to everyone even if they're not watching the fox news thing Yeah And that reminds me of looking also Of looking at the world too with that microchism that you know that detail which we perhaps missed before, you know, we we we saw Things happening and and it actually wasn't reality of the truth or of what's really happening because we may be glossed over things And we didn't look in detail that At things I mean even you know when you think about you know child traffic and things like that If you don't look closely at what's really happening Underneath you're gonna skim past that you're gonna miss it. You're gonna you're gonna So I think that the ability to see things at a closer level is is really important In order to be able to see the bigger picture more accurately Yeah, so important It's like even Sorry coming up with even with the the hard stuff like there's there, you know like this week And I said I finally was able to like cry over a situation that happened in december Because I was able to actually feel because I wasn't in survival mode. I was able to actually feel a broken heart I was able to feel the pain of betrayal and the sorrow that it brought with it And there's something as horrible of a feeling as that is I don't think I don't know anybody who really likes to cry and likes to be there But there's beauty there if you can lean into that and that's what the micro does when we really start to look at things In a very like looking at the nature you're able to lean into these cracks And it's like the more the heart breaks the more the light comes in And so the more we're able to look at even the darkness The more the light can actually come in and there can be a friction and a change that happens And so and that is the beauty of the world down I love you said that right sparse that that it's um making that space to be able to feel Um the things that we don't necessarily want to feel the the negative things to say and there's some I was the same as you and maybe it was a global energy But I had a good cry in the last couple of days as well about everything and there wasn't anything specifically But I just felt all this energy coming up to be released And and it's it's a great thing, isn't it because instead of holding it in your body and suppressing it or avoiding it or ignoring it You're actually allowing yourself to transmute it and and release it and This is part of this whole process. It's so important and and human beings like you say we'll do anything to avoid pain You know, we we don't want to feel that but actually that there is Great beauty and presence in in going into that space where you can feel things Fully, you're not you're not just partially feeling that but you're able to feel them fully because then when you feel them fully And and you release that it makes room for all the good stuff It's like if you numb if you numb the sadness and the pain and the grief Then you'll also not be able to on the other end of the spectrum feel the joy Because you'll be numbing that as well And so when you allow yourself to feel the depths of the emotion and Emotion is energy in motion and it flows and it changes and it moves all the time So when you when you go and feel the depth of that emotion On the on on what we perceive as a negative side of the spectrum You're allowing yourself to feel that that the great extremes of all the really good stuff that comes in And you know, I find with with a lot of and it's not a judgment But with what I've observed with a lot of antidepressants and things like that Is it just puts a block on your ability to be able to go in and feel these things So that then you end up not feeling much at all Yeah Yeah, and recognizing I think that you know, there's a time and a place and just sort of I I had the same as you definitely must be global energy because Friday my body just crashed and it was purging in a more physical way Um, and I just had to just stop Um, because my body just said enough and and and whatever way, you know, we will get the signs And I think what's really wonderful and what we've got in our friendship Is just having the resources around you to know when you've got that backup support Even if it's not sort of physical for when you're ready, you know, so All of us have chosen this time where our bodies our minds our souls are ready to release certain things And I think people respecting that for themselves that you know, you'll know when the time's right And and support is out there for people for when it's right for you to process certain things Yeah The the the energies of the sun, you know are really Powerful at the moment and and the the lighting coatings that are coming down and scientists have been just showing the last week that they've been finding high frequency Solar emissions that they've never experienced before or seen before and they don't know how to identify them or Explain them and and so this is also part of this ship that we're feeling and releasing all these emotions and things because We're releasing these really a high frequency bursts of energy that we've never experienced before and they're bridging up all the The unhealed, you know, soul wounding that's been within us And allowing it to come up and it's activating our dna in other ways to really help in the ascension So, you know, not only are we globally being Encouraged to release this but you know, there's there's all these Energetic reasons why we we're we're experiencing this as well Yeah, it's lovely. Well, it's a lovely chat you girls We're gonna have to apologize to david what I am going to do is david coan Obviously, everyone's links will be below. I'll put the link to your rumble interview Obviously, Medina's links will be below but david has released on his youtube channel david coan music A really lovely new song. I'm sure you like So I am going to also um put the link to that and then one which javid joins us Hopefully sort of within the next week We'll we'll let him play that and explain behind that because I find it's really good. It's really catchy And yes following his passion with that. So thank you so much ladies any other closing words before we finish I just want to say My friends are so cool You guys are so cool david is so cool like how many talented people are out there right now Just doing their thing and that is such a beautiful beautiful thing to see and even though david's not with us like i'm proud of him for putting that out because And for all everybody for you both as well putting all your work out like it's it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out like that and And with courage there has to be faith as well. And that's a beautiful beautiful thing Oh, thank you vice. It's beautiful to to share. I really appreciate that You know, I think what I find for it for me as well is it's separating The ego from putting my stuff out there because there's such a thing as a lack of negative ego where you You know when when people make comments and things like that and you're putting yourself out there If you're too attached to your own ego, you're going to block yourself So it's like separating my ego from all this is saying well, this is my mission. I've got to do it and regardless of you know perceptions and and my own How my own ego my negative ego is impacted. I just I release and transmit that and then I Just do what I need to do to to be on my soul mission So so I think and that is also a reflective of the whole ascension process which is transmuting negative ego and being able to release control and surrender into the divine flow. So thank you Oh, and I would just like to thank you both and um on the subject of ego I've got lots more coming up about messages from the animals because they really really teach us A literally living examples of how to let go of that Thank you so much to everyone who's watching we all really really really appreciate anyone who takes the time to watch this because When we do all our energies are mingling. They're all creating and we're co-creating together and All three of us and david as well. We're really lucky touch wood To have really amazing listeners because we see so many positive comments Where people are supporting each other and this is a new world that we're creating we're creating a world where we're going to put our energy into Positive, you know, I'm sure one mothers have all said it if you can't say anything nice Don't say anything at all And I just think it's you know, you guys anyone who's watching this Virtually all of you are really examples of that and every time You you take the time to say nice something nice to something at someone else. You are literally changing the world So, thank you so much anyone who's watching. Thank you ladies It's a spiritual family, isn't it? It's a spiritual family We're all just wanting each other home with our dogs, right What we say in the south is if you can't say anything nice come sit beside me Yeah Thanks everyone and we will be back soon with david and we will give him more of the floor Bye guys


I welcome Petra, she's currently in Spain and she's the Director for Reproductives, maternal and newborn and child health. She's been a plenty of experience working with an independent midlife. She also manages and develops for organisations and public project partnerships. Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r i'r ICM, ac mae'r cyntloedd yn cael ei gweithio'r cyffredinol i'r ICM ac mae'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. So, ydych chi'n gweithio'r gweithio? Thank you very much, Sarah. Thank you for that introduction. Let me just correct on the form of ICM Secretary General. I was with ICM from 1998 to 2003 and then went on to do the partnership for Maternal New Warrant Child Health at WHO. So, after having been away from Maternal Health for a couple of years, what we are doing now at ICS Integrary and what I'm about to present to you today is really very helpful and nice to get you back closer in connection again with both my former areas of work, both the partnership and ICM. So, first of all, happy international days and goodbye to everyone. Thank you that I've sent any of you online. I see we have 110 participants and the number is still going up, so I'm quite impressed. It's like a really full room. I'm going to talk to you about something very different from the previous session. This is really much more from a global health perspective from how can we improve access and quality of needs with free care. In countries where there are still a lot of women dying, obviously needlessly. So, what we've decided or what we've started to do together with the UN agency, WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF and others, the World Bank, but also with a lot of NGOs in countries and a lot of support from large groups like IntuPygone, Care etc. is to try to get a sense of what's going on with the military workforce or the maternal new born health workforce. So, not just midwives, all the people who work in maternal health in countries where maternal mortality and new born mortality rates are still very, very high. So, why is it that it's difficult for them to get access to midwives? What's going on in the labour market? Not just, you know, what's going on with, are there enough of the MNH workers or the midwifery workers? But what's going on? Why is it that they're not available to all the women who need them? So, I'm going to give you a little bit of the background, how this came about, why we're doing this, what a midwifery workforce assessment is, how to do it, and then looking at what is the outcome, what are the results and what do you do with them, how do you read them once they've been developed. So, the background of the internet of this work really comes from a lot better things that happen at the same time. In 2010, next to the women deliver symposium, there was a midwifery symposium in Washington DC the first ever. And there was a big focus on midwifery, midwives, and out of that came several initiatives. One was to, you know, help countries look and further develop their workforce. Others were to strengthen country initiatives and work that countries have done and also to create better intelligence, more literature around midwifery. The workhouses of this, the proposals that came forward went to a meeting called the Green Tree Meeting, which took place in September of 2011, and where quite a few Ministers of Health in response to the State of the World midwifery report, which was launched at ICM in 2011, also said that it's important for them to have an opportunity to look at their workforce assessment and their workforce in particular. So, in the left side of this slide you see the eight countries who, at the Green Tree Meeting, decided that they wanted to have a midwifery workforce assessment done. You'll see in the slide underneath what the maternal mortality numbers are in those countries in the middle bit, and you'll note that this together, these countries together, contributed 60% of the global maternal mortality. In addition to that, several other countries working with Muscoca funds, which is a Canadian and French francophone initiative to reduce maternal mortality, decided that they would also like these midwifery workforce assessments undertaken. So, a couple of others are using the same methodology with support from integrated with Secretariat for this work, but also working with other partners to get a better sense of what happens with the workforce, midwifery workforce in their country. So, what you see in this slide is that there's a great interest for doing work, there's a great interest for finding out what's going on and why there are so many complications. And every country that we're doing, at the moment we've done, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Tanzania, the Muscova countries are starting up, which DR Congo is the furthest and next on our list are Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, and hopefully also Mexico. What you're seeing is that the situation is very different in every country. So, the way we're doing the work, the analysis, is really to give the opportunity for countries to understand what specifically for them are the issues they need to address. So, if we look at the global agenda, another is, of course, it's also feeding into a lot of the work that has to happen in the post-MDG, the Millennium Development Goals will come to an end officially at the end of 2015. So, there's already a big discussion going on around what are the next steps, what are we going to do after the end of the MDGs in 2015. And the issue there is that there are a lot of issues scrambling for attention, health is not only and definitely not the primary goal anymore. Sustainable Development, economic strength, reducing poverty, those are all things that are very visible and very high on the agenda climate change, of course, as well. So, health is going to be in a subset, in the much larger subset of topics than it was in the MDGs where it was very common. So, as you see this calendar, there are quite a few opportunities in which we're going to be able to put together and strengthen the understanding for many people, not just in these countries where we're doing assessments. Of the importance of the military workforce, there are a lot of goals and ideas that you can want to make happen, but unless you have the people who are going to do this and the policies are going to be implemented and are carried out by health workforce, nothing is potentially going to change. So, the overall arching question that we looked at is what is the appropriate military workforce and other countries will call it maternal health or maternal newborn health workforce, or I predict a maternal newborn health workforce. How is it best deployed, so how does it best get to the areas where it needs to be? To equitably deliver essential M&H interventions at scale and at quality. Equitably deliver, with that, we mean that everybody has access to them, no matter if they're rich or poor, no matter if they're far away or close to a health facility. The essential M&H interventions are those that have been agreed as the life-saving ones and those that are essential to prevent and treat complications as they start. At scale means that they are available to everyone, so to 100% coverage to the best possible coverage in a country and at quality, which means that they need to be provided by people who are fully competent in military or maternal newborn health. What including cost needs to be put in place to achieve this universal access, so you'll see the emphasis is on equity, everybody needs to have access, quality and effective coverage. So this is a very complicated slide and I'm going to just explain it really briefly to you, but in case you want to look back at it in more detail. So what we do first is a desk review, which is what we call the preparation. We look at what's happening in the country, what's the need in the country and what is the availability of staff in a country. And we look in that regard at things like policies. What are the policies that determine or that define where military services are provided, where the health system can do, how supported it can be to maternal health, how does it finance, what is the need to the population, how many pregnancies can we expect and we project that and you'll see that in one of the slides up to 2025. And what are then the care needs, what are the people who are working in midwifery or in maternal health doing you, is doing what, what does the nurse midwine do, what do the subsidiary do, are there roles for community health workers, what's by the secondary and tertiary levels of care. And then we look at the, at the triple HU, availability, accessibility, acceptability and the quality of care. So after we've done this analysis and we've looked at all these core data, we identify if there are any gaps, you know, what are we missing. For example, in Tanzania we were missing what people are actually doing at a facility level. How do we see, how do we know what a midwife is doing, what a nurse is doing, what a doctor is doing, do they refer, do they, what do they take care of themselves. And so, for example, we've got to those parts of Henry's or constructed labour, what are the issues that the computations that they send on, do they categorically send everything on, which was the case in some facilities. So how, how, how does it work and how much time do M&H workforce as they're called in Tanzania spend in actual prevention and treatment and the basic assessment that they needed for maternal and new born health. Because you can see that sometimes if people have more than one skill or have a, you know, their nurse midwife and they can do other things that could also be pulled into A&E or they could be pulled into HIV programs and in essence that means that their capacity for 100% time spent on maternal and new born health is reduced. So we do, we find together with local research institutions and also with local midwives and nursing and OBGYN associations, we try to find the data that is needed to give us a better detailed picture and not only looking at what happens in the, generally in the country but also at the disaggregated level so that we can see exactly what's going on in the more remote and rural area. So with all those data together we then do an analysis of what is, where is midwifery, who is accessing it and what is the effective coverage, does the country want to go to 100% coverage, is it looking at 50% or 60% as its set goal for itself to reach 100% by 2010, 2015, 2020. And then we kind of make a set of what we call costed policy options so we say if you increase training then that's all cost so much and it will reach so much but if you then don't also move deployment or providing centres for attention in those remote and rural areas etc. So we, we develop what we are calling costed scenarios so that the government has a real notion, a real understanding of if we take this option this is what it's going to cost and this is what it's going to bring up because ultimately, a minister of health who wants to improve maternal new born health is going to have to negotiate for funds with a minister of finance and he'll need a lot of political policy with respect to financial arguments to make his case. So this is one of the first steps and it's a really interesting way of looking at what's going to happen in a country. We kind of pull together the pregnancies and the redder, the more pregnancies that there are to be expected. So we look at where people live and we calculate how many pregnancies are based on a social facility rate taking out certain percentages for spontaneous abortions, carriages and things like that.  We also give for example three pictures for Afghanistan in which you can see by the change in the colour where people are, where more pregnancies are to be expected, which helps a government tailor some of its planning to the areas where the needs will be greater in 2010 or 2020 or 2025. And then we look at what is the, you know, what are the people who are doing these services, who are providing what and we do that per essential intervention. So WHO and the partnerships between the new born and child health have made a list of the essential interventions between the new born health and they start, you know, all the way in basic screening, et cetera, et cetera, but also things like dead nets and tetanus and you know, HRV and all those kind of things. So all these essential interventions are assessed per provider. So what do CHWs do and what do nurses do and what the community which wants to do, what the OBGYNs do. So the we can get a kind of a sense of, so the main providers in the M&H workforce in this country are X, Y and Z and we usually come up with a group of three or four Cardo's or community health providers. We can then target much more of our data collection and the details that we need on what they're providing. So if we then look at what the whole labor market looks like and how that works, I mean, this is not a health system or a health related issue only it's really, you know, the whole, any kind of a labor market looks, looks like, you know, looks at what are, what is our pipeline, how are we going to be, how are we going to look at the people that are going to come into a certain area of work or in a certain profession in the future. So you start from high school graduates and you look at how many of those stream into healthcare education and training as of those, how many are then qualified, which gives you a sense of what your potential supply is. From those you have several that are employed, which is a lot of the employment run through the central government, so there are certain numbers of positions available. Obviously based on funding but also based on some of the economic situations and criteria that are determined and agreed with World Bank as conditions for loans and the INS. So there are a lot of influences on how many people can be employed. Some of them will be unemployed, some of them will have executed to other jobs. So how many are unemployed is actually then going to the health sector because there could be some going to something else like academia and pharmaceuticals etc. And then out of those how many come into the public and into the private sector. So you'll see if you look at the big bar of high school graduates at the bottom, how many you could potentially be left with in the public sector. Who would then be available to be sent or to go to take care of people that need this research. So if we're looking then at how many, what the cost is, is one of the things that we try to address. So what does it cost to train a midwife? What does it cost to train a nurse? What does it cost to train an auxiliary? What does it cost to train a community health worker? And then compare that to what they do in the slide that we showed you earlier. I showed you earlier, you can get a census to what is the best economic benefit. What is the group of providers that we can educate for a relatively affordable cost and who can kind of cover as many as possible of the essential intervention. So that you have a lot of skills in hand with one person. And then you have the issues of what the triple A keywords we call it work like. So if you look at what's available, on the left there's a situation in the rural areas of the country and on the right it's in the urban areas. So availability in the rural area is quite a lot lower than availability in the higher areas. So the means that the purple blob is on the left, more to the left of the middle of the chart from the left hand sign in the rural side than on the right hand sign in the urban. So there are more people available in the urban areas. There are also more easily accessible in the urban areas. So you see that even though they are available accessibility has an impact from that. There are many areas in the world where despite living in a city people are still very poor and being able to access services has a financial cost. If you look at accessibility in a rural area of course their transportation and distance taken impact. So you see that's why the purple blob has gone even further to the left. Moving up to acceptability which is really our providers giving the kinds of services that women find acceptable. Are they culturally correct? Do they kind of respond to the needs of women? Are they acceptable in the community and in the culture in the family of the women? Both of those in rural and in urban situations make the availability, the social availability and the coverage of built birth attendance on the twice much lower. And then of course the number of times that you actually contact is that there are, how many people really actually go to these services despite that they would be available accessible and acceptable reduces the number. So is it the top you find worth effectively? Does you calculate around 45% if you look at the number left in rural or 45%? That would be available effectively about 10% are going to be used and in the urban areas there would be 80% available effectively. There would be about 30 to 40% maybe probably just about 30% that's actually effectively going to be used. So if a country has a coverage target as they're saying they want the country to be covered for 60% by accessible available acceptable built birth attendance or M&A services then just because of this impact of one of the on top of the other they'd have to put a lot more energy into making them available accessible and acceptable to get to their 60% target. So those are interesting pieces of information for a government to understand and tweak their policies on. So if you then look at what you have, what the story is, on the left of this you see the stock. So this is the number of work that the workforce there currently is. And on the right hand side, in the year X, as I'm saying, when we model for 2020 or 2025, you see exactly how much you need. And of course you can use the need and put in a service target. So if we're here projected for 100%, but you could imagine that the country that's only protected, that's only wanting to cover 60% would have a lower bar on the right hand side. So between the stock, the number of people that there are and what you need, usually people make a kind of a linear decision. So okay, we need to train more mid-wise, we need to train more doctors, we need to have community health workers who can do more X, Y and Z, et cetera. And if you look at the small graph in the middle, actually the story is a little bit more complicated because of this entering into the education stream. Those that come out of the education stream, you'd think there were as many as went in, but there are quite a few that you lose along the way because they go to another area of work or because they find that they don't get employed or because they don't get to the place where they're supposed to be working. So in essence, though, you think if you add the stock plus the entry, you would have about 60% or 70% of your needs covered. In essence, you only have 50% or 45% covered and the gap is much larger. So all these are ways of making it insightful for government to find their way through this maze of impact and influences on the middle of free and internal health workforce. So in the reports that we're doing, this is an example from Ethiopia, we provide what we call an infographic, which is a piece that really in a very short, in a quick overview gives an impact, an image of what the situation is in the country. So, of course, you have what the situation is, the needs, the supply, what the gap is, and then what the strategies are for getting the middle of free and the family of health services out there. So this is something that is for policy makers and for development partners, international organisations, but also midwives and middle free associations of UINs, becomes a very easy to understand and easy to use tool that will help them in their discussions and their negotiations with the government as to how to improve services. Because, of course, in addition to this, this is the workforce component, there are also a lot of other tools that have already been developed that are being used in these negotiations that talk about the health system, the quality of the facilities, the reachability and the accessibility of the services at the facility, you know, have they got full equipment, can they do all the life-stays and interventions. So then you have the two biggest impacts on M&A services in the country, what are the facilities like, how can people get their support, but also what is the workforce that supports. So this is the last slide with some information on the main people who are working on this. I'm sharing myself with our staff that are based in Tigraria, I work at the Zardiniza area and Jim works from Barcelona and our main connection for this work, our main person that we work with is Feliz de Brenis at UNSPA in Ziniza as well. He works on the topic on behalf of what they call the H4 Plus, which are the UN organisation, sorry that's a concern, but it's the UNSPA in the World Bank, UNA to UN Women. So I think I'll leave it there. Any questions for clarification please do feel free to let me know and then of course we can start a longer discussion on some of the areas that you might want to give me your opinion or suggestions on. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? There are some people writing in the chat box. It was a great presentation to her. Amazing work. It's really interesting. It's very rewarding as well. Well, yes, because it's about the midwifery workforce, but also because it's really just, you know, it's life-saving and I think that's very, very important. Nicol. I'll just go ahead. Nicol, I'll answer that in writing. Some of the training innovations are to use more of the current technologies for learning, but specifically trying to find people to enter into midwifery schools. That will go back to the communities that they come from. What you see is when people in many countries that we work in find, get an education and get a profession, they all tend to want to go to the larger agglomeration by the capital city or some of the larger cities. Whereas in essence, they are so much needed in the remote and rural areas. So some of the ideas around that have been to put midwifery in nursing schools in the remote and rural areas so that they are very close to where they are, others are for communities to put forward their people to go to these schools so that they will then also go back to their communities when they finish their education. So there's quite a lot of ways in which there are, you know, people are looking at making it more attractive to increase coverage by staying close to where you're from. And it also makes services more acceptable because you know your culture intimately and would, you know, be better, be very well-placed in making services available that people really, you know, accept and that use the same language, etc. So these are only a few, there's quite a lot of other ways of being innovative around training. I'm just going to move on to the next area that there are online innovations indeed. I think that's indeed really important that the issue there is that connectivity isn't ubiquitous in the rest of these countries. So still, you know, when you use these online mechanisms, you have to be aware that they have to be available to very low bandwidth and they have to be accessed by that. There are many more technologies now with mobile phones, which I think we also should look at in a way that as a future option for doing educational work. Learning about maternal newborn health and becoming a midwife or a nurse midwife or whatever the kind of title might be really does need 50% handgun work. And I think that is not stable. You can't learn that, oh my, you have to learn that in a clinical setting. So, obviously, it would only be half useful, I think. Moving on to Caroline's question. Yes, there is definitely interest in expanding this work. We've had interest from Mexico and South Africa as countries that aren't in the original group of eight. You've seen the Muskoka, the Francophone African countries, adding to the group. And in essence, what we'd like to be able to do is to create a body of knowledge and a body of consultants and support through the Secretariat and together with the H4 that they can really carry these out. So, we're going to write, we're working along an operational guidance and framework that we would like to make available. We're looking to publish that in September so that more people can put the user system and hopefully then produce quality. I think that's important. Similarly to the emergency of such a care ways of analysing what the facilities can do in emergency of such a cases. I'll come here to say why there's a conflict in that. It depends a little bit on the countries that you're in. The ones that we've been working in, a lot of, as I was saying, a lot of the deployment and recruitment and deployment and also the tension mid-wise and the work force goes through the government. That means there is a large bureaucracy and administrative mechanism on top of which sometimes there are what we call feelings imposed by development partners, either the World Bank or INF or others, who are saying you can only use an extra percentage of your budget and of your health budget to start the rest. You have to use the X, Y, Z other topics. And that means that it's hard for the people to, for government to actually deploy and send and retain in remote and rural areas, the staff that they would like. In the situation in Tanzania, which is one of the countries we analyse, we found that about 50% of the high school of the midwifery education or the health education graduates were lost in the deployment chain. So 50% of them didn't, quote unquote, survive or didn't last between coming out of their education programme and staying in post for one year. So those are areas where there's definitely a lot that can be improved. There are other ways that governments are trying to approach this by having recruitment happen locally, which is also sometimes easier or sometimes not. It's still a bit of a struggle. And as you will probably know, health workforce is not really at the top of everybody's agenda. It's saving lives and those are the big topic. It's now the noncommunicable diseases. So when you're working on health workforce issues, it's a constant debate to convince people that without the workforce all their beautiful targets and programmes won't be achieved. Yes, in some areas midwifery are costly indeed. However, there are also many places where midwifery is provided by other kinds of cardoes, involved nurses, others who take a role or take a key role in providing and aid services. And that can be very challenging because on the one hand you want quality of care, on the other hand you're looking at the reality on the ground. So it's a question of really being strategic and creative in getting midwifery out there. In essence, I think the workforce is costly. In many countries, workforce takes up about 60% to 70% of the health budget in other countries even more. So I don't think we're going to ever be able to say that this is a quick fix or no-hanging fix. It's a sustained effort that will be sought in the long term, but that's important for people to want to and have to be enthusiastic. We have cost estimates for deployments, as I was saying in the answer to Michaela's question. We have done those in the areas where deployment is the main issue. In Bangladesh, deployment is obviously a relative role as an issue in Ireland. It's a lot stronger already. And the new midwifery has been trained there. But deployment really means adding on cost for incentives. But in many cases, for example, also schooling for children, housing, things that will make people stay in the emotional areas and actually kind of build their life there without saying, oh, I'm going to do this for three or five years and then I'm free to go wherever I want, which means capital city or outside the country, effectively. Some of the cost estimates around that are also to do, or would also include supportive supervision and ways in which people can make better use of the services that are around them. Mary, you're asking what sort of provision did you encounter in relation to maternity care assistance and report workers? Are you asking whether or not we found them and what they do? Or are you asking what kind of support these people are receiving? Which provision are you looking for? Yes. Well, there's always the presence for the low hanging fruit and the quick fix. And that's not only or not mainly government actually. And often it's the development partner to ask for a quick result and give countries an amount of years to make an improvement and then expect them to be able to sustain that improvement from their own funds, which doesn't always work. So, yeah, there are obviously, what you see is a lot of results of these quick fixes. So large numbers of community health workers, for example, in Tanzania, as I was talking about earlier, who had a certain set of tasks, but for example, haven't been taught what the signs of onset of labour are. And that would be something that would be very useful for people to be able to send women on or to keep tabs on or to inform other kinds of health care providers or the midwives around them to say she's starting a labour, et cetera. So there's a lot of little pools of programme and impact that you can see that haven't been joined up. It's a bit of a join the dots sometimes. And then there's, of course, there's the issues around what the government really wants, which isn't always all these projects. There are also governments that are proactively rejecting small projects for trained community health workers like this or make partnerships available or do this or that. They want a full, long-term sustained programme. And I think one of the results of the work on the focus on the Millennium Development Goals is that we're starting to see that long-term thinking is needed and that the invent or the investment in quality. For example, had we in 1987, when the State Model Initiative was taken, started out with midwifery programmes that would give a fully competent midwife to international or whatever the name is. Midwife, I'm not talking about specific kind of, but if it is trained to the kind of continuum of care covering quality professionals, then we would have already had a much stronger impact on the term than you would have. I see you agree, Nicole. Fundswell, are there any more questions? No? Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your presentation, Petra. I really, really enjoyed it, and I think it generated some really, really interesting expressions. It's quite inspirational what you do, and thanks so much for giving up all your time for us, and I would really hope for an update next year. Just to say that you have our contact details here. If you're working in a country or you know a country, I'm just getting a question about the OECD countries. If you wish, think that there would be interest, then please don't hesitate to write. Of course, it has to be a government initiative. They ultimately have to be the ones coming to the H14 plus to say we would like a workforce assessment, but that can always be achieved through very many routes and ways, so feel free to start a ball rolling if you know it's going to be of interest or of effect in the country that you're working in. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Thank you.


I'm Stephen Cox, I'm a sculptor, I'm English and I'm generally known for working in stone and in particular I'm very very interested in working with the hardest stones in the world, in particular imperial porphyry. My interest in working in stones in a more specific way or historical way was to do with the fact that when I moved from England to Italy to begin work on an exhibition at the Palazzo Reale my work was out of a kind of conceptual minimal background and I was working with ideas of developing from a tabula rasa from big plaster reliefs made with building materials in the building process these things were not architecture, they weren't sculpture and they weren't painting or they were all of those things but precisely the activity of making these things was as a temporary installation, this was back in the late 70s using building plaster, as I say, just common regard and building techniques so there was the demystification of the processes of art but one of the things that's developed from the very first pieces I made which were to do with relief, if you like them in a line is either engraved into a surface or a line is seen to evolve from the addition of material then the space of otherwise blankness becomes ambiguous in terms of spatiality so I was working on these panels that were leaning against walls and the reference on the surface by using illusionistic techniques through using Alberti's principles of single point perspective the images on the surface of these either carved stones or leaning slabs was an image of the space within which the panel was leaning so I was involved in a pictorialism which really opened up a whole idea of working from an idea of an artist being someone involved in the dialogue with contemporary issues so using Vasari's on technique, I travelled around Italy visiting the quarries of the stones that he listed as being of interest to the artists of the Renaissance so at the beginning I was in Milan, I went to places that were of particular interest to Adrian Stokes so I went to the quarries of red Verona marble and subtypes like Bronzetto di Valpolicella which was a beautiful kind of champagne coloured stone from the Verona region and I suppose that was my main sort of interest in the land and then I went south to Florence and I went to visit the quarries that produced the beautiful blue sandstone of Piazza Serena, Piazza Forte and associated materials in that area and then when I went south to Rome where I was then to house near Bracciano, Lagoon Bracciano at a place called Angolara which was close to the Peperino quarries which was the building material of Rome before the Travertines so it was a very profound significance to the Etruscan civilisation and the interest in the historical as well as the materiality of these stones listed by Vasari and worked in these places and created exhibitions using these stones Interestingly the one stone that was not listed, it was not available in Italy but listed by Vasari was the very very hard deep red and liverish stone called Imperial Porphyry they knew I think that it came from Egypt but nevertheless no one had a source for it but its interest which Alberti became profoundly kind of obsessed by was how with the metallurgy of the Renaissance it was impossible to carve this material how did the Romans deal with it which they did with extraordinary imagination there was obviously a fantastic will to master this hardest of stones So these are things that became of particular interest to me and I had been working in Italy, I had a studio at the American Academy and I worked on this exhibition using at that time Peperino stone and exhibited in Rome at a gallery called La Salita which was quite a well known radical gallery which coincidentally was the place where Richard Serra had his first exhibition when he was a student at the American Academy So as time went by I did some interesting exhibitions I hope in various places working in Florence, working on ideas with fragmentation the idea of archaeology being if you like as creative for the present as it's to do with trying to give an indication of what came down to us in the past So the scientific analysis, the sort of forensic look at fragments marks on stone what they mean with some that somehow very reassuring that whatever happens in the past whatever comes to cause let's say an extraordinary change in the powers that be in directing how civilisation is going to go often requires some kind of iconoclasm but the extraordinary say forensic analysis of things of the past enable us to rebuild a picture of the past and see how the passage of time is changed by all sorts of forces So I left to go back to England and out of the blue a couple of years after I returned I was asked by the Foreign Office the British kind of foreign policy department who we've always had an idea I think in England for the soft power of art and so the British Councils had a very, very profound interest in politics in a subtle way and I was asked if I would be prepared to make a sculpture for the Opera House in Cairo as a gift to the Egyptian people from the British So this rang a bell and I was very, very excited about the possibility of being able to negotiate access to the imperial porphyry quarries of the eastern mountains of Egypt which I knew a bit about, I'd done some research and so this sequence of events enabled me to go meet some people It was amazing that amongst the people I met was the Minister of Culture in Egypt who had happened to have been friend of In meeting the Minister of Culture in Cairo I met a man who had been a very good friend while he was director of the Egyptian Academy in Rome of Giovanni Carrendente who had been a great friend of many American artists and was very, very significant in the selection the invitation to David Smith, one of my heroes to represent contemporary art 25 years before in this related festival So whilst I was in Egypt I was able to speak a bit of Italian and communicate with the Egyptian ambassador who was very, very helpful to me and through the minerals, geological mining and mapping authority of Egypt I was given access to the quarries and negotiations with the military because this area was a military zone when I first went there So access to the imperial quarries was given to me and since then I've tried to maintain access to the material through various people who collect stones in the desert and sell them through various sources in Egypt and so here we have in my studio in Shropshire about 20 tons of porphyry about 15 tons of which came back just a couple of years ago to go with the material that I brought back after I had finished my project for the opera house in Cairo I'm pleased to say that the sculpture that was made for it there's a pair of sculptures that are still standing and one of the pieces that I brought back that wasn't selected for that particular job is in the collection of the Tate Gallery and another piece, a very large piece is here with us here which we can see later