Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. My name is Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Tom Wagner. And as you know, we're pleased every month to focus on the different department, some programs and services in Sheboygan County. And today we are very pleased to have our veteran service officer, Charlene Cobb with us. Welcome, Charlene. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. Well, it's nice to have you here. You know, you may not recognize it, but we have a lot of veterans in Sheboygan County who certainly deserve our respect. And we were just talking off the air with a population of about 115,000 people here in Sheboygan County, about 7% are veterans. So somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 veterans in Sheboygan County who have really done a lot through their life to make this county and this nation a better place. And Charlene Cobb and her staff are in a unique position to help our veterans and their families. And we really appreciate the work that you do, Charlene. And before we get started, please share a little bit about yourself when you became veteran service officer and a little bit of your own background. Well, thank you. I've been the veteran service officer here in Sheboygan County for almost 10 years now. And it doesn't seem like it's been that long. I mean, the time has gone by really quickly. There again, off air time, and I were talking about having a job where the day goes by really quickly instead of having to just sit there and watch the clock and oh, is it time to go home yet? I never have days like that. But I've been with the county now just about 10 years. I'm retired military, which is a statute requirement for my position here in the county is that I have to be a veteran. And I served 21 years in the United States Navy, very proud of my service. I joined the Navy because of my grandfather. He was a World War II veteran and I didn't find out until just probably within the last year. So he did underwater demolition in the Pacific during World War II. And that's the precursor of the Navy SEALs. So my grandfather was a Navy SEAL. There was a frog man, huh? Yeah, and didn't know that. My dad was in the army, served in France and was wounded there. But grandpa was the one that kept saying I should look into the Navy. And so because of him, I spent 21 years in the Navy as an air traffic controller, which was very interesting. And the same thing with my Navy career. No two days were exactly alike. It was fun to go to work and see what was gonna happen that day. Since getting out of the Navy, I returned back to Wisconsin. I'm born and bred. I grew up here in Wisconsin and went to the University of Wisconsin before joining the Navy and came back and finished my Master of Divinity with Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Worked for the State of Wisconsin. And 10 years ago had a privilege and honor of being selected to be the county veteran service officer by you, Adam. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. It's unbelievable, as you said, that 10 years have already passed. Wow. So 21 years in the Navy, 10 years as veteran service officer. And as Charlene and I discussed just the other day, I don't think you've lost any passion for your appreciation and desire to help veterans and their families. And so again, I appreciate you being here today. So I'll set the stage for us a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your office, your mission, roles and responsibilities. Our office is very small. There's just three of us that work in the office. And actually when I started, there was just two of us. Thanks to the county board. Thank you very much. And the other supervisors and your support, Adam, we were able to fill the assistant service officer position that had been vacant since, I think like the late 70s, early 80s is when that was the last time it had been filled. And there was a need for it. We definitely have the workload to warrant that. So the three of us are pretty busy working in the office. Our motto is to serve those who've served. So we help and advocate for veterans and their families in dealing with the federal and state government. Whenever you're dealing with a bureaucracy, it can be cumbersome.  And so we help to fulfill that and make sure that everything is there when it gets sent off to the federal and state VA's. As you said, one of the few departments in the county that actually has gotten a larger, but doing very, very important work. On average, how many people come through the veteran service office a year? And I was thinking about that. And I would say on a very conservative number that we have about 1,500 to 2,000. And I'd say that's a conservative. I was thinking, we looking at appointments of this saying if we had like 10, 15 a week, which that I think is light because there are days like today, we had four appointments scheduled today alone. And then I was just looking at like five walk-ins per day. So like I said, a very low average times of 52 years, it's still put it up over 1,500 up like 17 something, almost 1,800 folks. So I'd say on a conservative figure, 1,500 to 2,000 people come through our office. And then that doesn't count the emails that we get and the telephone calls. A lot of the things nowadays, especially with the internet, a lot of it is done electronically. And so we don't actually see the individual in our office as much as we used to years ago, but we're still doing all that work. It's just, we don't actually have to see them as often. Right, right. And again, it's either the veterans, it might be a spouse, and I know- Son and daughter. Son and daughter. And I know when you started, and maybe it was a few years ago where you made this change, maybe it's been longer, but you started encouraging people to make appointments. And I thought that was really a good move on your part because as you've told me, sometimes it can be a 15, 20 minute discussion. Sometimes it can be a two hour discussion, depending on the types of programs or services that they might be able to apply for. And let's roll right into that. So if a veteran or a family member comes in and they wanna know about some different programs and services that can help them, what's out there? What might they be applying for? There are a variety with the federal VA and that's a lot for us to know and be familiar with. I tell individuals that I'm the Jack of all trades, master of none. I need to know a little bit about all these programs and know who to refer our veterans and their families to and then let the subject matter experts within the VA or the state actually take care of doing the work. But from healthcare to education to employment resources, pension, compensation, burial benefits, those are just some that the federal VA has available to our veterans. And within the state VA, there's grants, there's aid to needy veterans grants and for dental and mental health issues that they have. The state also does with job search, both the state and the federal government are doing veterans ID cards now that will provide an ID card for a veteran to be able to use at Home Depot to get their veteran discount without having to take in their discharge paperwork that has their social security number on it and other personal information. The state also has education programs and a homeless and they maintain nursing homes and cemeteries and the federal government has the Cemetery Association as well. Broad range. And then within the county, the county services, we have our Veterans Treatment Court, we have our Veterans Service Commission that also helps needy veterans. We registered DD 214s here within Sheboygan County and that's a secure, they're not a part of the open records law because they've got private protected information on them, only a veteran or the veteran giving permission to a family member or the next of kin if the veteran is deceased is allowed to request those records from our register of deed. So it's very secure here in Wisconsin. For veterans, when they go to a state to register their DD 214s, they need to check on what the rules of that particular state are because in some cases they may not be protected records but in Wisconsin they are. But we provide that service too of helping them to get those registered so they can always have a copy of them if something should happen to their personal belongings and things like that. And then we have a volunteer driver program where we have individuals that come through our office. There are other veterans generally that will provide transportation out to Cleveland for medical appointments with the VA with somebody that may not be comfortable driving any longer or not able to drive any longer. So again, you said 7% of our population is comprised of veterans and we have veterans from World War II in Korea. My dad is a Vietnam veteran. He just turned 79, he's retired and financially is doing okay. I don't think he's ever called the veteran service office to seek assistance with something but what would you say to veterans throughout the community that might be watching this program or interested in learning more? Should they all at some point be checking with your office for certain services or not necessarily? And actually I would encourage them to because you just never know. And even individuals that said, well I checked with the VA when I got out of Vietnam and they told me I wasn't eligible for anything. Everything changes. Nothing has stayed the same. It's an ever-evolving federal government and the programs and services and things that they have. And so especially for Vietnam vets, a lot of them feel like they got slighted when they came back from Vietnam the way they were treated but there are services and things that they're available for and that's not to say that they may get everything but I would still encourage them to reach out to our office and have somebody, one of us sit down with them and take a look at what they did, where they were at, what their circumstances are today and what things they might be eligible for and also to tell them what things they may be eligible for in the future. At a very minimum, they're eligible for a flag in military honors at their burial. That's just what I was gonna say that at minimum, if you don't feel you need any services or just don't have that desire to check with the Veteran Service Office, at minimum you have that and I think that's important and certainly a family wants to honor their deceased veteran and show that respect. That enough is a reason to make a phone call and do some. And what we can do is we can help them to get the information that their families will need that at the time of their passing that they know what to do to kind of trigger getting those benefits available for them because that's gonna be a real short time turnaround of being able to accomplish that. Last question before I turn it over to Tom, you mentioned earlier our Veterans Treatment Court just celebrated its fifth anniversary. Talk about time going quickly and of course, Arlene, you are such a leader to initiate that and there's been strong support from the County Board and our organization as a whole. Tom and I had the chance to participate during the fifth year anniversary celebration and I don't know how much of a celebration it was but we got a chance to observe and see all the good people that are involved, the resources that come to the table and people that are being helped. Just briefly touch on why Veteran Treatment Court is so important and why that was something that you wanted to see happen here. And I do think it's very important. First of all, we've talked about the whole reason for our existence here is our Veterans are deserving of our support and care. When you look at less than 1% of our total population serves in the military today, I think the other 99% have an obligation to stand up and help take care of that 1% that actually spends the time serving and when we have the Veterans Treatment Court, it's a way of not having individuals just be thrown in jail and throw the key away but we actually get them treatment for whatever the underlying condition is and what we're looking at is we're looking at Veterans that have an underlying service-connected condition. So something happened to them while they were in the military that's causing whatever's going on in their life today that got them into trouble with the judicial system. And I've said this on a number of occasions that our military does a phenomenal job of training our military before they send them to a war zone to keep them safe, to teach them the skills they need to not only come home themselves but bring their other fellow soldiers and airmen home with them. But I don't think the military does a very good job of that transition back into the civilian world and so the skills that they learn that keep them safe in a war zone can put them in jail here in the United States because when they react to something, thinking it's a threat, chances are it's not and then somebody gets involved that says, well, that was kind of an overkill or that was an overreaction to somebody getting on a cell phone sitting in a dark SUV at a stoplight and you take them and drag them out of this SUV and break their cell phone. I mean, that's a little bit of an overreaction but in the war zone, that's how they detonate IED. So it's not an overreaction in a war zone but they aren't de-programmed to not and so they get into trouble here and so our Veterans Treatment Court really helps to bring them back into a productive member of society. In the five years we've been in existence, we've had 20 individuals graduate. We had five that either were dropped from the program through non-compliance or withdrew themselves but that's still pretty good statistics when you think that in five years, we've had 20 out of 25 that have successfully completed the program and we have number 21 graduating on Friday. So we have another one that has completed the program and our team is phenomenal. Judge Angela Sakevich is the Veterans Treatment Court judge, she's been involved in the program since its inception, I met with her the beginning of 2011 and we started looking at putting the team together. Our, at the time, was an assistant district attorney, Joel Armansky, who is now our district attorney and he is still committed and involved and takes the time away from all of the things he has to do to participate in the treatment court. We've had the public defender's office has been very supportive, probation and parole, the sheriff's department, the city police department, the clerk of courts, we've gotten support from all of them and a lot of the key players, Joel Armansky, Pat Adelman, Kelly Lukich, Chaplain, Rick Cathon, they've been involved since the very beginning. They were in those very first meetings when we were putting the whole thing together back in the beginning of 2011 and they're still active and participants in the court today. Yeah, it's a wonderful, wonderful service and a lot more cost effective, I think, to help people get back on the right path and that type of approach rather than sitting in the detention center. So again, my compliments to you and all involved, Charlie. Tom? Thank you Adam. And your numbers, with the veterans court, you're batting 80% or a little better than that. So I mean, that's 80%, that's pretty darn good, in my opinion.  Absolutely. First of all, thank you for your service. And every year we have state and federal holidays like Veterans Day and Memorial Day and Pearl Harbor Day and we use those with a little different emphasis at times and why do you think it's important for the public to buy into these important holidays relative to our veterans? And I do think it's important, along with what we're saying, talking about the Veterans Treatment Court with the fact that 99% of the population nowadays don't serve in the military. But another thing, there's a couple of quotes that I really appreciate. One of them was Ronald Reagan and he said that freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance, it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again. And I think historically that's true. And then George Santiana said those who can't remember the past are condemned to repeat it. So I think that's where the importance for events like Memorial Day and Veterans Day come into play is to educate individuals of exactly what our veterans gave for their freedoms here in this country and to recognize that and commemorate that service and sacrifice that they have given to our country and the price that it costs, especially Memorial Day. Memorial Day commemorates those that gave the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country. And I think it is important that we do honor that service and acknowledge them and commemorate their service and sacrifice. Yeah, I was just gonna say, you talked, you definitely hit on this. How do you think we can ensure as a general public that the sacrifices of these people are not forgotten? Well, not just barbecuing out on Memorial Day. I mean, and that's important because to be quite honest, that's the whole reason I served. I served so that you could be back here in this country enjoying having a barbecue on Memorial Day or on Sunday or Saturday or whatever day to be able to go and do the things you wanna go to a movie, have the freedom to elect who you want as the president or as a senator. So that's the whole reason that we fight and go to defend our country is to preserve those freedoms that we have here. But I think that along with having those fun times on Memorial Day is to go to the cemetery, listen to what people have to say, the commemorative ceremonies that they do to honor and recognize our young men and women. Maybe even before Memorial Day, we here in Sheboygan County, for those that may not know this, Sheboygan County purchases the flags that you see at the cemetery there in the summertime. They're put in in May before Memorial Day and generally left up until after Veteran's Day here in Sheboygan County. Other counties may do something differently but that's what we do here in Sheboygan County. The county purchases those flags, our Veteran Service Organizations actually place them on the cemetery and I'm here to tell you we put out over 10,000 flags per year on our cemeteries. So if somebody has some time available, talk to your local post and say, I would love to come and help you put out flags at Sunrise Cemetery or Green Lawn. Green Lawn, they could use help, there's over 1,000 in that cemetery. And then talk to the Veterans, find their stories, hear their stories while you're doing it. The other thing is, is this time of year, a lot of the Veteran Service Organizations will be doing poppy drives. Those poppy drives, the monies collected from them are used to help and assist Veterans and their families within the community. None of that money can be used to pay a light bill or a phone bill or anything like that. It has to go directly to supporting and providing for needs of Veterans and their families. So when you see them out in front of Walmart or wherever with their can, take a poppy and give them a little something because they are helping other Veterans in the community. Thank you. How many Veterans Organizations and what are some of the projects that they're involved in in Sheboygan County?  I was listing them as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Disabled American Veterans, Marine Corps League, Vietnam Veterans of America, AMVETS, VETS Journey Home, Wisconsin Military Network, Salute the Troops, as to programs that they're involved in. We have the Veterans Memorial out on Kohler Memorial Drive. There's a group from our Veterans Organizations that are on that board and maintain that and keep that up. The Camel Quilt Project here in Sheboygan that is sponsored by the Green Bush American Legion. Oh, let's see. There's Warrior House over in La Myra that Salute the Troops has that is a transitional housing that Veterans can utilize. And so that is something that our Veterans here in the area get involved in helping to support that and do fundraisers for that.  Volunteer Drivers, our Veterans Service Organization also provide the mentors for our Veterans Treatment Court. And that's something they volunteer to do and it's a commitment of the individuals are in treatment court anywhere from 12 to 24 months. So that's a commitment that a Veteran takes on that they're going to be available to be there for that Veteran as they go through Veteran Treatment Court for that length of time. So if somebody would be interested in possibly joining a Veterans Group or finding out more information about these how would they go about getting that information? They can come through our office, we can help them. Online checking out the organization whatever when you're interested in on their online website that they have or the local posts themselves just stopping by like the post 243 and Plymouth you just go in there and tell somebody that's how I joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars when I retired out of the Navy. I joined the post that my dad was a member of back in Delavan, Wisconsin, but I just walked in there and said I'm interested in joining the VFW and had somebody go, a girl wants to join. Good for you. Thank you very much, Adam. So you started the program by sharing how one of the smallest departments in the county which you certainly are, but big role and I think this is going to surprise some of our viewers right now. Big role in that you're really helping Veterans and their families tap into resources at the local, state and federal level. So annually, how much comes into Sheboygan County to support our Veterans and their families? And you're right, I think it will be a surprise to people when they hear this, over 33 million dollars per year. And again, this is predominantly coming through the federal government, some of the state government, smaller portion of the county level, but it's three county staff that are helping assist people tap into these resources that are life changing experiences. I mean, from time to time you've shared with me how you may have a widow or a veteran who is really struggling financially and all of a sudden a year later after going through all the process and criteria, what have you, they see these checks start coming in that really change the quality of their life. Make a difference for them. Well, and some of it is just getting them enrolled into the VA healthcare that if they were struggling to figure out how they were gonna get their medication and then we can get them enrolled in the VA healthcare and they can receive that through the VA with a minimal copay or if their income is such, no copay whatsoever, or if it's a service connected condition, there's no copay. I was told a veteran that this morning we're applying for benefits from exposure to age and orange in Vietnam. And I said, no matter what they determine as the level of disability, once they service connect this, there'll be no copays at the VA because that's the reason the VA is there to take care of those individuals that have a service connected injury or disability. Yeah, so I've always really appreciated the mission statement of the veteran service office. Of all 19 departments, I've really appreciated yours the most to serve those who have served. As you reflect on the last 10 years that you've been doing so, and then the 21 years serving in the Navy prior to that, but as you reflect on your years of service, what message or is there anything in the last minute we have that you'd like to share with our viewers? And I thought about that. And what I would like to share with the viewers, and I will talk to them instead of to y'all, is that I am proud of their support of our veterans and their families. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the care and for allowing me to be your emissary for these last 10 years. It has been an absolute joy, and I really appreciate it, and I thank you very much. Well, what a nice note to end on. We thank you for your service and your leadership in this community, Charlene. Thanks for being here today. It's my pleasure. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you very much. If you have more questions or would like to talk to Charlene, her staff, please don't hesitate to contact our veteran service office. There's a website that has this information or you may know the number if you're a veteran out there, but please don't hesitate to follow up. Thank you for joining us this afternoon, and next month we're gonna have another department head with us who also does tremendous service for our community. Our family court commissioner, Ryan's gonna be here, and I think you're gonna find him an interesting person to listen to and learn from as well. So until then, please enjoy a safe and wonderful Memorial Day. It won't be long, and that'll be upon us. Take some time to give thanks and maybe teach a young person the significance of the day, and again, thank you for your support.


What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another video. Today we're gonna be taking a look at SQL versus NoSQL. Now if you've watched my videos for a while now, I am sure you know what SQL is, but I'm guessing a lot of people haven't heard of what NoSQL is, and that's exactly where I was about maybe two or three years ago when I joined my current company and they said we use a NoSQL database. I was understandably pretty confused because I never heard of what that is. I'd really only heard of what a SQL database was. And so I thought it was worth looking at with all of you to kind of explain the differences so that if you do encounter a NoSQL database, you aren't completely unprepared like I was. Now when we say SQL versus NoSQL, what we really mean is a SQL database versus a NoSQL database. SQL is of course the querying language to be able to retrieve data from that database. And that database is typically or always a relational database. Now a relational database is gonna have tables that have columns and rows that store your data for you. So it's very organized. Rows are gonna store your data as well as have unique identifiers which helps you distinguish your different rows from one another. And a relational database is also gonna be vertically scalable. So let's take a look at this picture really quick. So as you can see on this left hand side, there's a vertical scaling and it says increase the size of your instance, a RAM or CPU. So you can picture this as if you were trying to pick up a very large couch and it's just a little bit too big for you. And so you take some steroids and you get a little bit stronger and you're able to lift that very heavy couch. Now this is compared to horizontal scaling on the right side, which is you add more instances.  Horizontal scaling has been proven to be quite a bit more efficient because you're not putting so much workload on just one server or one instance. What you're doing is really spreading it out and allowing a lot of people to help at once or a lot of instances to help at once. Some examples of a relational database or a SQL database is MySQL, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server. A quick example of how data would be stored in a relational database is you have your columns at the top. So this employee ID, first name, last name, those are columns. And then for rows, we have 1,001, 2, and 3. And in each one, that is a unique identifier. So that 1,001, 2, and 3, those are unique to that individual. And that is also labeled the primary key for this table. To query from a SQL database, you're gonna be using the SQL syntax, which you can see right here. So we have select from and where and a few other things as well. And then we have our output on the bottom. And again, it's in that same format of columns and rows. So now let's look at NoSQL, which is kind of a short version for saying not only SQL. It can still hold relational data, but it doesn't store it in a table with columns and rows like a relational database does. It also can store completely unstructured or semi-structured data, which a relational database cannot do. A NoSQL database is also horizontally scalable, which if you remember from before, is where it brings on more instances to decrease the load on one specific instance. Now there's not just one type of NoSQL database, it's many different types that you can pull in many different types of unstructured and semi-structured data. So we have a key value database, a column-oriented database, a document database, and a graph database. And each one is specifically used for that purpose. Some examples of NoSQL databases are things like MongoDB, Cassandra, and many others that you can see right here. So now let's take a look at how these two databases can store their data differently. A relational database like we looked at before can store it in columns and rows within a table. But for a NoSQL database, it's gonna look a little bit like this at the bottom, where it's in this semi-structured form. It has the exact same data as above, but it's just stored in a semi-structured way. Now to show you how to query out of a NoSQL database, we're gonna take a look at MongoDB. And there are a lot of languages that you can use to query a NoSQL database, but you can't use SQL. Now to show how you can query the data out of a NoSQL database, we're taking a look at MongoDB, which is one I am most familiar with. There are a lot of languages that you can use to actually retrieve your data from a NoSQL database. The one that I'm most familiar with would be Python, but I've also used the MongoDB query language as well. Now there's really no way of saying which one is better because they really have different use cases. I personally have used SQL for a lot longer, and I really like the simplicity of it and the organizational abilities of using a SQL database, but there are so many different purposes for a NoSQL database. So if you're looking for a place to store your data, here's some things that you may wanna look at in order to determine which one will be better to store your data in. So for a SQL database, it's gonna be very good at storing structured data, has very easily understood data integrity or a lot more understandable than a NoSQL database. It's gonna be very flexible with how you're querying it and the things that you can do to kind of manipulate it when you're retrieving that data. And it also handles medium level of transactions well. Now I say medium level because if it's taking in a ton of transactions, if 10,000 or hundreds of thousands per second, then it really gets bogged down and can even break. Whereas typically a NoSQL database can handle those high transactions a lot better. So for a NoSQL database, it stores unstructured data or semi-structured data very well. It also is very highly scalable. So if you're bringing in a ton of data, a NoSQL database will be able to handle that a lot better than a SQL database. And it also has a very low latency for data retrieval or it typically has a much lower latency for data retrieval. It just depends on what you're querying and how much data is actually there. So I hope that that was helpful. I know that when I started using a NoSQL database about two or three years ago, I had no idea what they were. So hopefully you know a little bit better about the differences and the use cases for those types of databases. Thank you guys so much for watching. I really appreciate it. If you liked this video, be sure to like and subscribe below and I'll see you in the next video.


whenever asked where are you from I always get confused because it comes back to my mind in another question where is my home anyways is it home as in the place of birth the place where I spent my childhood is it my nationality or my parents original countries usually my answer depends on the context of the conversation or person I'm talking to because for me home is not here or there it's about finding home today I'm privileged to address you all I'm quite nervous to speak to such an important body but as I accept this privilege I would like to remember my ancestors my parents and all others with migration experiences I tied with mine my task here today is not only to share my story but also to give a voice to the children of migrants who are desperately in need of helping my life has been a continuous process of emigration and immigration I have a Japanese father met my Filipino mother by doing research work in the Philippines except for my eldest brother who was born in the Philippines three other children in my family were born and grew up in different cities in Japan my nationality is Japanese and I lost my Filipino nationality upon reaching the age of 20 as a child until I became an adult I went to nine schools in Japan in the Philippines and in the United States presently I live and work in Japan there's a common belief that it is monocultural country that is not true it is multi-ethnic and multilingual Japan has a variety of people in terms of culture and ethnicity more than what the majority of people in the country have been taught or have taught we have the indigenous peoples of Aino in Hokkaido for instance we have the Okinawan the old-timers or the so-called Zainichi people from Korea and China and during the last few decades Japan has received so many newcomers mainly from neighboring Asian and Latin American countries I grew up in Osaka Western Japan where a huge community of ethnic Koreans and descendants live now reaching the fourth generation when I was a child I had a difficulty speaking about myself to others especially about my Filipino nose I was a shiger so I didn't want to stand up or be given special attention so sharing my Japanese similarity with other children became a coping skill I wanted to get along with my peers still it was hard for me to admit the fact that my mother is from a foreign land because her looks and ways of speaking were completely different from other Japanese mothers but whether I like it or not my family is unlike other typical Japanese families at the same time also Japan is my home base and my first time is Japanese language I couldn't be 100% sure about really being a Japanese I have a Japanese citizenship I still feel some kind of strangeness in my daily life in Japan remarks or jokes about foreigners are very common and many of these are insulting I've heard stories about the challenges that my mother has been facing as a Filipina in Japan I came to realize that the stereotype images of the Philippines will be that of street children and scavengers in garbage shelters also there is an image of the Filipina in Japan as an entertainer those images that I've heard and seen are often negative or prejudice which gave me a lot of pain because the Philippines was never a foreign land for me as I had many happy experiences when I visited our relatives and friends so beautiful beaches and met warm people plus there was always a conflict within myself of being half Japanese and half Filipino given the stereotype image of the Filipinos and the Philippines in Japan it was quite difficult to have a positive appreciation of my background so what makes my situation more complicated is that I spent a few years in the United States where I was educated in a multicultural context learning different cultures and values was interesting in a way but sometimes I had to face the dark side of the history of the Philippines which was for stigma and discrimination I tried my best to be adaptive to different cultures as we become more open to diversity I was given many opportunities but still I had a hard time and I became more introverted my growing up period was spent with the feeling that I was caught in between cultures and societies and I was completely lost in the middle of finding the way to home so I decided to go back alone first to Japan and to the Philippines during my high school years it was the first time that I was exposed to two cultures without my family and I became more comfortable going back and forth between two cultures appreciating similarities, difficulties, differences, a negative and positive side of these two cultures that's when I finally realized the importance of trust and love for people around me family, friends, teachers, classmates and people I met at each life stage were the best of what I got in life they fulfilled my life by sharing happiness and sadness at times this idea is more trans-cultural about who you are and where you're from as I discovered myself during my university years I realized that locating home is not so much a big deal anymore instead of searching where is my home and who am I I started to do something for others I tried to think about what makes them happy and how I could help them that kind of realization gave a purpose for myself and gave me comfort in everyday life thus working for others became a purpose in life and my interest was shifted to how do you make use of my multicultural background and experiences I majored in international studies in university to study about history, politics and sociology of Asian countries I visited several places around Asia, Africa and Europe where I immersed myself in the more diverse ways of living beliefs and varieties of communication I have been involved in volunteer work in Japan and the Philippines for multicultural use we plan and coordinate family oriented programs while interacting and learning about each other and our cultures I enjoy working with them sharing experiences and ideas which eventually build a sense of fellowship with deep empathy and trust with each other a lot of migrant families and children that I've met need support many have complicated personal lives coming from broken families having a single parent and or face problems financially and socially just like other migrants, migrants in Japan are vulnerable in many ways they are migrants in the first place so they lack a support system and acceptance in the communities where they live and within the majority society many parents are working under severe conditions and raising children at the same time in a foreign land children of migrants have different issues, miscommunication with parents, conflict with peers, misconduct, bullying and discrimination in schools some suffer from psychological and mental issues I went to graduate school to specialize in clinical psychology and counseling and I worked with migrants, their families and especially their children whenever I meet clients or stakeholders I try my best to listen to their stories each of them has a unique life history that are challenging and oftentimes overwhelming but I carefully look into their stories and try to catch the light of hope I learn a lot from the difficulties and strengths they have I make use of my experiences and emotions as a minority to understand their hardships my dream is to encourage and empower young people with a multicultural background in Japan who face difficulties about themselves and their situations it's my duty and responsibility to let their unhoved voices be heard in a country where migration is seen as a problem I think many of you who are here were children of migrants and you are parents of multicultural children despite the complicated history that forms our migrant experiences each one of us is here now this is the most essential thing to remember when one feels lost or left in the middle of nowhere no one should deny our presence and backgrounds our multicultural backgrounds could be used in positive ways to understand and overcome many obstacles to create a peaceful world thank you for listening to our voices


What's up everyone, Takedown here. Today I'm going to be doing my second conspiracy video. You guys seem to really enjoy the first one I did where I talk about fly earth. So today we are going to see if the moon landings were fake. Let's get right into it. So right now there are five to 10 percent of Americans that believe the moon landings were faked. A lot of people believe the moon landings were faked because of the space race. In the late 1950s the USA and Soviet Union were the biggest forces on earth and were both trying to prove that they were the superior country. They were always trying to out match each other and space became the new proving round. They felt that whoever could master space flight first would show the rest of the world that they were superior. Both countries started to launch their own satellites into space. Then in 1961 Russia made a huge leap by successfully having their rocket complete in orbit around the earth and return safely. The following year JFK made the speech telling the world that the USA will land an astronaut on the moon by the end of the decade which was only seven years at the time. Now at the time most people believed that it was in fact happening but now in today's day and age some people believe that at the time as the years went on and it got closer to the end of the decade the US realized that they would not be able to accomplish this goal so they got the help from movie makers to fake the moon landings. That way they could claim that they won the space race and make the world think that they were superior. So to me this is all very interesting so right now I'm going to be sharing some pictures with you guys that a lot of people believe is evidence proving that the moon landings were fake. Okay so the first picture here we're going to focus on the right side of the picture. In this picture it is Buzz Aldrin coming down off of the eagle. If you look at the bottom of the picture it looks like he should be in the shadow of the spacecraft but if you look at the right side of Buzz Aldrin himself it appears like he is glowing. A lot of people that believe that the moon landings were fake believe that this is proof that it was studio lights producing that light but if you actually think about it the moon is super reflective and what I believe we are seeing in this picture is the little light that is in the area is reflecting on to Buzz Aldrin and it is making him appear like he is glowing even though technically he should be in a shadow right now. I could not find a picture with a close-up to see this but we are going to focus on the reflection in his helmet but a lot of people believe that in the reflection you can see studio lights you can see camera men and a bunch of other stuff that if the moon landings were actually real they shouldn't be there. But when you think about it you have to remember this was back in 1969 the camera and picture footage was very terrible and the process to take it from the camera to an actual hard copy picture or video was a very long process and a lot of things back then could have gone wrong. Some of the stuff that some people claim they are seeing in the reflection could simply be a smudge because of developing the picture. So now the second picture what we are going to focus on first is the background. As you can see in the background of this picture it is just a black sky. Some people believe that this is proof that the moon landings were fake and claim the movie makers purposely left out the stars because a lot of astronomers and a lot of other people would try to prove that they were fake so a lot of people think movie makers just left them out. But in reality like I just said the moon is so reflective so if you are standing on the moon and you are trying to look up into the sky you will not see any stars. Some of the guys that actually landed and walked on the moon actually claimed this as well stating that if they look up in the sky with their naked eye they were not able to see any stars. A lot of people respond to this saying it is not with the naked eye it is in fact with a camera but once again you have to remember this is back in 1969 qualities of the cameras was not the greatest so they did not take in a lot of light they were set down to take this picture and then they were picked up pretty quick. If the astronauts had in fact set down the camera and let the camera actually focus you would be able to see the stars in the background of the image. The last thing we are going to look at in this picture is the American flag. A lot of people claim that if the moon landings were real whenever they set up the American flag it would simply fall down because there was no air supporting it to make it look like it was waving in the air but what the astronauts did and you can clearly tell by the top of the flag in this picture they put rods in the flag to help support it to make it actually stand out so you could see what flag it is. A lot of people claim that the bottom of the flag should not be waving but the astronauts themselves claim that the bottom rod got bent that's why it appears like it is waving in the pictures and also the fact that even though there is zero gravity if you look at a video showing this the only time that the flag actually looks like it is waving is whenever the astronaut moves or hits the flag. In total there were six moon landings that the US did the first one was in July 1969 and the last one was in December 1972 so now I am going to be sharing with you whether or not I believe the moon landings were real or fake so I strongly believe that the first moon landing was in fact fake. I believe that the US simply ran out of time and they quickly realized that they were not going to be able to hold the promise made by JFK saying that they were going to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade so they could win the space race making the world think that they were the superior country. However I believe the last four recorded moon landings were in fact real. I think they just needed a little bit more time so they could actually go and make this actually happen. Now I'm not saying that we're never going to go back to the moon I really would like to see that because that would be something very interesting to see in my lifetime so hopefully someday that does happen I would really love to see that. Also since this is my second conspiracy video down in the comments let me know what other conspiracies you guys think I should explore. What other conspiracies would you guys like to see me dive into do a little bit more research and share in a future conspiracy video. I hope you guys did enjoy watching this video I really really enjoyed making it looking into the research and putting it all together for you guys and with that being said I am going to leave this video here and I will see you guys in the next one. Please take care. Peace.