Besides other reasons for depression, do you think birthday depression is real? Well, it turns out birthday depression is actually real, where the person with birthday blues doesn't have any friends or family, as it is common among elderly people who often spend their birthdays alone. Birthday depression may even result in self-inflicted deaths. A study of persons aged 75 and over published by Barraclough BM and Shepherd DM titled Birthday Blues, the Association of Birthday with Self-inflicted Death in the Elderly found that in the 30 days before and after a birthday, the rate of self-inflicted deaths increased. This is because, as a researcher revealed, people's morale are greatly affected during their birthday season. A study published by American Academy of Neurology found that birthday stress made people with a history of high blood pressure have a higher chance of having a stroke or heart attack on their birthday. The study also mentions a woman who developed anxiety symptoms around her 75th birthday because her mother had died at 75. Let's define what birthday depression is. According to Urban Dictionary, birthday blues or birthday depression is a general sadness or feeling down by a person on or around his or her birthday. A person feeling birthday blues should know that it is normal to feel this way and should be supported by his or her family and friends. Symptoms of Birthday Blues According to Bethany Cadman, the author of Dr. Vanilla's Sunflowers, these are some of the symptoms that indicate that someone is suffering from birthday depression. Some of these symptoms can also be noticed in person with chronic depression. Person with birthday depression might experience being tired and on enthusiastic in the days approaching their birthday, feeling sad and unable to figure out a reason why or shake off the sadness, feeling mildly paranoid or anxious beforehand and on the day itself, losing their self-confidence or self-esteem, difficulty concentrating and inability to stop thinking about the approaching birthday, wanting to avoid contact with people including family and friends, trouble falling asleep or waking in the night thinking about the birthday, losing their normal appetite, having physical aches and pains, having thoughts of self-harm or suicide in severe cases as a birthday approaches. Which set of people can experience birthday depression? As National Best-Selling Author of the book, Captivate, the science of succeeding with people and founder at Science of People, Vanessa Van Edwards posits, people who can experience birthday depression include person who have few friends, family members and loved ones. This set will experience birthday depression owing to the fact that they do not have anyone to spend their most important day with, persons with insincere friends. Where a person thinks his group of friends are true but they are actually fake, they may still feel empty on their birthday, notwithstanding the fact that these fake friends come on their birthday, they will feel empty because these friends are conspicuously insincere, toxic and unreal, persons battling anxiety. If a person is struggling with anxiety, they may have fears about their birthday, namely, they may be concerned about the people to invite to their birthday, where and how it should be celebrated, how they will carry themselves amongst their social circle. All of these concerns can breed anxiety or even depression, people who are introverts. Although introverts enjoy spending time alone, they may have anxieties about spending time with people on their birthday. People whose expectations are high concerning their birthdays can also experience birthday depression, where they are unable to meet all of these expectations it can lead to depression. Why people experience birthday blues? People can feel depressed on before or after their birthdays for so many reasons but some of those reasons include, aging, Milton Alter, PhD, told a story in the study published by American Academy of Neurology Journal. I recall a 74-year-old woman in a parent good health who dreaded her upcoming 75th birthday. As the day approached, she became more and more anxious. She kept her fears to herself because they did not make sense. The happy day arrived and was celebrated as planned. Only some 7 months after the event, was she willing to confide her worries to her doctor. She had vague complaints like a headache, dizzy spells and fatigue. But 3 different doctors found nothing more unusual than a rapid heartbeat. What caused her 75th birthday anxiety?  Birthdays are clear reminders that we are getting older and yes, drawing closer to the grave. This can induce fear in some people and may grow into depression. Another birthday is simply a reminder that we are not getting any younger anymore and so birthday blues may come where a person thinks this would make him start to experience what all the people experience. High expectations Having high expectations about the birthday as it comes close can also induce depression. Where a person worries about who will come, how will he handle himself, what and where the birthday should take place, what gifts he would receive. This can grow into depression, lack of accomplishments. As birthdays draw closer, we may not be happy with ourselves owing to the fact that one is disappointed over the achievements he has made in his lifetime. Where a person considers where he is compared to where he should be in relation to his age, he may not be happy to look forward to his birthday. This may grow into anxiety or even depression. A feeling of dissatisfaction with accomplishments is usually a common reason for birthday depression. Social pressure Having observed so many birthdays in movies on social media or even with people you know, a person may feel their birthday celebration will never be good enough and so this may induce pressure which may lead to anxiety or depression. Dysfunctional family issues A person may want a perfect birthday but where the family is dysfunctional, always creating tensions, stress and sadness, it may spell birthday blues. For people who have toxic or abusive family members, birthdays may not be an exciting moment in their lives. Less excitement As we grow older, we may not feel as much excitement as we used to feel about birthdays when we were kids. This may cause birthday blues. If this video inspired you, like the video. We love you.


Look at these grown-ups man. Look at these grown-ups.  Exciting to see that more African-Americans are making Africa home again and I must repeat that if you look like me and you live in the diaspora, this is your roots and I want to welcome you all officially to the Motherland. Welcome to Africa, the cradle of Mankai, the home of Africans in the globe. Listen, don't shy away of your roots. Don't shy away of where you came from.  And what makes me even more super excited is to see African-Americans investing in the Motherland, calling this place their home, mingling with Africans, doing businesses with Africans. My goodness, I feel like crying, but I won't cry just because of you. Listen, a year ago, I was here, my feet touched down on this ground and there was nothing. It was more like a virgin land because I did a video on that fish farm. Do you guys remember Evans, the fish farmer that slapped your guy? This is right opposite. But when I came, there was nothing in here. And to see that a fellow brother, not born on the Motherland, born in the diaspora, came, saw the opportunity and decided to add value to this land. Makes me want to shed tears, man. The revolution is happening and it's about time you all take part in that revolution. Listen, I'm not going to give up on you until you make Africa home again. I feel like my brother is super excited. He doesn't even want to come and walk on me. But I'm going to walk on him to the Motherland because, yo, my brother. Thank you. Thank you. You're living your best life every day, man. Every day. Are you living or surviving? I'm living now. You're living. I've been surviving for a while, but I'm living now. When you're in America, you're working hard all the time, all the time you're on this rat race treadmill. But here you get to work and you still have time for family and friends. So this is what life is about. You're living. Amara. Hi, baby. Come. Oh, look, they got my wife. Oh, wow. They bring Amara. Amara, come. Come meet Wadamaya. It's because of him. Your daddy's here. Your daddy came here because of me, huh? Oh, he's bringing plenty of African-Americans back home. This is the woman responsible for me never leaving. You see, she's giving me beautiful children. Oh, right. We have one on the way, too. Oh, thank you. Congratulations. So this is my wife, she's from Entuatre, right outside the Sunyani. What is that? Entuatre. Entuatre. My friend, stop it. My friend, stop it. Entuatre. Entuatre. See, I'm learning small. I have to get my Ghanaian son. No, you guys, this is the border region. Yeah, that's amazing. Oh, hi. And then you see this little beautiful one, right? Thank you. Okay, nice to meet you. So I get to, you know, give back to the diasporan, you know, helping more of them transition to have a beautiful family here and do it in a sustainable way. And that's the key. Listen, in America, African-Americans think that Africans don't like that. Yeah, I've heard that. Did you also believe that? For a while, I did until I came to Africa. What changed? Well, you know, what changed was the way that they welcomed you when you came. He said, if these people don't like us, they wouldn't welcome you. And the thing that let me know that they really loved and appreciate us, when they would always say you're invited, I would see them eating. And every time, even though it may be their last meal, they say you're invited. So the fact that they're willing to share their meal with you and have you share an intimate experience like that, there's no way our parents could hate you and say, come and share my food with me. You've done something that I personally want to celebrate you because a year ago, you see that fish farm over there? Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you ever watched that video. I sure did. And you can't, I just didn't know it was that fish farm. You didn't know? No. I came up and I was like, what is that? And then the guy said explains the fish farm and I said, yeah, and then I saw your episode. And then the guy, I actually met him. So then I saw his face. I said, you're the guy that would invite him to do, but he still didn't tell me it was this one because he has several fish farms. Okay. He wanted the content, but yes, this is it. Exact same fish farm that I came to do a video on. And right opposite, there was nothing. And you are adding value to this line. Well, that's because of you. The spirits called me here when I saw the video. That's how we ended up here. You know, I'm most super excited for you because of what you're doing. But I believe that most of them don't know what you're doing. They sure don't. Please. What are you doing? So what I'm doing is I'm creating a community that makes transitioning to the continent a sustainable experience. And what I mean by that, my is I don't know if you know, a lot of African Americans are coming home. Thanks to you. Thanks to the group at Afrochella that are connecting people in a meaningful way. But a lot of people are also leaving because they come in and they run out of money, right? You have to come here to find out that a cry is the second most expensive place to live Fox, right? But in America, typically you'll pay one month rent, one month security. A lot of us come here with $20,000, $50,000, $100,000. And if you want to live at the same level that you lived in America, sometimes you're paying for one or two years in advance.  And that's where Shark Island resort and residents come in. I encourage those in the diaspora looking to come back to purchase a part of this community, own the home, and then we run it out and manage it for them and provide all of the external activities and amenities that keep their unit occupied. And one of the great things is we're right across from Aqua Safari, the number one visited attraction in Big Adah. So, you know, we give people that opportunity to experience Aqua Safari. And those who have already experienced can now experience Shark Island. You're saying Shark Island? Yeah. Are there sharks in here? You know, that's a very good question. Are there sharks in here? No sharks. Even though we're right near the estuary and Atlantic Ocean, there's no sharks here. The sharks are sea breaches. The sea breaches are underwater submersible and I think you saw that, you know, Ibrahim Mahama was trending here lately. Exactly. Exactly. So what I want to do is, you know, you don't have to be wealthy and rich like Ibrahim Mahama and those boys to experience that. So now they could come and Shark Island and they can rent a sea breacher. They can rent one of our jet cars. They can run around on our overwater obstacle course. So, please, when you want to use the, you want to go down, please don't go too much because we just lost Billionaires, man. So, just use the shark on top of the surface, man. You know us Black people, we don't go too far.  Don't go too down. Please. We don't go too far. Are you still selling? Yeah, we're selling, but the beachfront is sold out. But fortunately, I own four islands over here. So, we're opening up four islands. I know so many people love beachfront, man. Yeah. So, I mean, they could get the beachfront, but right now we're selling our condos. So, we have the story buildings coming up in the back and then that's what we're selling. So, we have the ground floor, the first floor and the second floor. You live right here? Yeah, yeah. So, you live here and you're building? Yes. I built this home because I wanted to be on the property. I think when you came, you saw some of our clients leaving. So, some people came, they just bought, we just sold two units. So, I wanted to be here and not have to travel from Accra, East Lagone, where I stay now to David Seller. So, I built this home and it functions as our office. That's incredible, man. But if the beachfront is sold out, are you still selling behind? Yes. So, the story buildings will be back here. We have six story buildings that are going to go up and they could purchase one of those units. Each building has six apartments, two bedrooms, 1,550 square feet. I don't know how many meters that is. You guys do meters here, we do square feet in America. Exactly. So, yes, we're making those available. We have 30 out of 36 units left of those and then, you know, we'll open up our second island in the beachfront. Since it's sold out, I guess it's affordable. You know what? Unfortunately, I have to say yes. I didn't want to make it too expensive so that our people at home that were trying to get to come back can't afford it. Yeah. Because in the US properties like these, these are three bedrooms, 1,815 square feet. These things will sell for $3,400,000 easy. So, we're selling them here for $179,000. $179,000. Our two bedrooms, $127,000 and our condos, the ground floor units is $99,000. You know what? I really want to know more about you. All right. How long have you been on the motherland? I've been in Ghana now going on five years. I came here October of 2018. Left went back to the states, came back December of 2018. Signed my contract with an organization here. Left went back to the US, packed all of my things and came back February of 2019 and I've been here ever since. What did you come here to do initially? Initially, an organization that shall go in name brought me out here to improve their health care. And so, I developed the technology called Daycare Health app and it allows Africans in the diaspora to connect their family members here with health care workers, but it also allows local Ghanaians here to have access to medical transportation to and from the hospitals. When I first came here, Ghana only had 16 working ambulances in 2018. Thanks to the worker, the president, now you guys have 321 ambulances. It may sound like a lot, but for 35 million people, that's not a lot. So, I built the app for this company so that they could use it and employ all of their members of their organization to work on a platform. So, we trained them in CPR first aid, provided them with first aid kits, but unfortunately it didn't work. I learned the meaning of Ghana man time and chop money. So, it didn't work out, but I think that that was the tool needed or the vehicle to get me here to Ghana. So, that's how I got here. It didn't work out and never give up. No, no. First of all, I'm a Guyanese. I'm a United States Marine. Okay.  We don't give up. We don't quit.  And then you become better when you go through challenges. So, I stuck it out because, like I said, I'm a Guyanese. Yeah. When I came here, the culture was so similar to the culture back in my country, right? And when I was growing up in Guyana, you know, and I moved to America. In America, they would always say, where are you from? Cause I had the accent. I was talking pigeon. And I said, man, I'm burning Guyana. And they say you're from Ghana. I said, no, Guyana. So, then when I came here, the organization that bought me here, my mom or my dad, I can't remember who called. And just like a guy named when you guys switch from English to treat, I started talking to Patua and they all were looking at me like this. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you, I'm not American. I'm Guyanese. I just grew up in America and through that organization, I found out that, you know, a lot of Guyanese come from Ghana. And so I did, I traced my African ancestry and found out that a percentage of our blood, it could be found in central region and Anomabu. So I'm fancy. Fancy. Hey, that's how I record them. So I'm here to stand anything. No, no, no small tree. What's in there? What's in there? Fancy. No, I haven't learned fancy yet. No, I'm a fancy guy, you know. I didn't know that. But water. I'm learning tree. I'm learning dangbe. The people here speak dangbe. I'm learning ga. I'm learning eve. But since you trace your back, your roots from fancy, you need to, that's the first language you need to learn. Let me teach you what. Teach me one. Or tendon. Or tendon. Yeah. Just like saying, how are you? How are you? So it's like saying it's the same. It's the same. Good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But you know, the Fancy's don't say, I don't know you don't say it. We say Boko. Boko. Exactly. Okay. So what's in that? Boko. Oh, I'm a fast learner. Exactly. Exactly. So now you move there. Yes. Your first business did not work. Yeah. That's why you decided to go into real estate. No, but I still kept doing my first business. I just now, I, you know, broke out of the contract with that organization and I started doing it here in Ghana. And it was working, but unfortunately, a lot of the African-Americans were the only one patronizing it because I learned that a lot of Ghanaians don't make enough money on a monthly basis to have discretionary income for that. So we pivoted our business model and we started targeting Ghanaians outside so that they could use the app to connect their family members. But while doing that, I was looking for property so I could build my own home. And I found this island first and that's when the idea came to me because several of my friends ran out of money and they left. And one guy in particular, Corey, I missed him.  Let me build a home for him. And it started out for doing it so I could get that guy back because we're on the same page.  He didn't go back to America. And I missed the dude, right? Because we were on the same page. So it started like that.  I have all this space. I can't use it for myself. Why not make it available to the aspirants and manage it for them so that they have a vehicle that's making the money. So that's how it really came out. What has been the mid-judge challenge since you moved to the mother learning? The challenges at first for me was, you know, adapting to Ghana man time. I'll be honest. But the good thing about that is I'm learning that it's teaching me patience. Right? Now I'm not saying that it's still good that they should take forever, but that was the biggest difficulty for me. And then also the systems are not in place to function as smoothly as developed countries in the West, right? But also that's where the opportunities are, right? So I figured from that I had the opportunity to come early and watch it develop. And what helped me understand that was somebody said to me, Marvin, you know, Ghana's only at the time 65 years old. You have the developed countries that are 400 plus years old. It's like expecting a three-year-old to do the same thing a 25-year-old. And once they say that and put it in perspective, but now because of that switch in, you know, my perception of things, I actually now, you know, don't really have too much to complain about. I don't. And let me tell you a secret. Marvin actually married a Ghanaian. Yes, I did. Bro, you're more like a Ghanaian now. Oh, I'm very Ghanaian. I don't even eat none of the foods that I used to eat in America. So I eat my Omutio, right, which is my favorite smoked salamander, my groundnut soup. I have my, you know, okra stew with, you know, the bancou, right? And one of my other favorites is the bean stew with plantains. Like, I love that. So my diet is fully 100% Ghanaian diet. You see, let me tell you something. That's a typical Ghanaian stew, man. Oh, I have to hold it in, you know that? I see you trading. I mean, so I have to start trading.  But you know what? I want to help you. Yeah. With the app that you have. Yeah. I know there are a lot of Africans in the diaspora especially Ghanaians that watches my channel, right? So if you can tell them about the app for them to download it and use it, just feel free and do that. Yeah, because they need, I have over 300. So let me tell you in the diaspora, any African in the diaspora, the daycare health and transport app empowers you so that when your family members on the continent call and say, Charlie, I need some money. I need to go see my doctor. You could say, no problem. I have the daycare app. You download that daycare app and you could get medical transportation to or from your family members home to their hospital to their doctors for as little as $3, right? But then also, you know that the money that you're sending for your family to get health care is really being spent on what it is because that's the challenge one Ghanaian told me. So I love my family but sometimes they call too much asking for money. But I don't want to not say send the money when they say they need it for health care. So now if you download the daycare app, you could use the daycare app and you could manage your family's health and ensure that they get the care that they need. Connect with our doctors, connect with our nurses and provide non-emergency medical transportation to their doctor's appointment. Does it mean a medical practitioner? No, no, no. So I actually used to do medical logistics. So one of my biggest contracts was with the American Red Cross. So I would transport time sensitive materials like blood and organs to and from medical facilities for patients who needed it. And at first, my platform was only transportation. And then because people needed attention to nurses during COVID, they needed, you know, to consult with doctors and maintain social distancing. That's what really gave my app the boost while I was here. And that's what got me some of the money that I needed to start living a comfortable life. And God, I started licensing it. So that's what I do. Since you're more into medical logistics. Yeah. Is that any project that you're doing that gives back to the society? Absolutely. So, you know, what we do is my company, we always want to practice corporate social responsibility. So what we do is we go into all of the communities and we do free health screenings. You know, things that we take advantage of in the States and think that is not important like just being able to check your weight. So we go into the communities. We check their blood pressure. We check their heart rate.  We get them to the doctors and get them to care that they need. So we've done it in Cape Coast. We've done it here in our doc. And we just basically go to areas and support those communities by giving people the ability to find out their status. This guy right here is really inspiring and I hope and believe that you guys will find this story very inspiring to the extent that you shut your friends and family to know a man like Marvin. But yeah, Marvin, can I also buy one of the properties? You absolutely can. I want to help. I need more than that. No, no, no. I want a beach front. I can get you a beach front. But he said it's you already sold out here. But I told you on four islands. So we're clearing the land on the second one because I knew that once we came on Maya people would say I don't want to be on a counter. I want to get the beach front. Let's do this. We're selling all the four islands. But we need only beach front. You're only the beach front. Do you want do you? Can we have what a Maya price? Of course, you can get the what a Maya price. Can we have the what a Maya price? I gotta show you love. Yeah. So what is the lowest to the highest? Okay. So our lowest price is 99,000. But what I'm going to do is we're going to give any person who's a subscriber to your channel. Right. They will be able to get a rebate of $10,000 on the 99,000 So they're going to pay $89,000. $89,000. Listen, let's do this. How? I'm going to sell each and every property. Oh, are you sure? I have the best audience in the whole world. Okay. And we're going to prove you wrong. So I am going to be the first person to own one. I'm going to give you my $89,000. No, $89,000. How many rooms? Yes, you get the two bedrooms, now I'm three. You want three bedrooms? Because I am married. So if you want the three bedrooms, you can get the three bedrooms. The price is originally $127,000. Okay. I will give it to you with a $15,000 rebate. So you get it for $112,000. Let's do this. Yes. See, the link is in the description. The numbers are in the description. Call right now. Even on the screen. When you call, I'm going to pick it myself. No, that's an assurance. That's an assurance. This is your home, man. Yeah. No, it's beautiful, man. Is that how all the units are going to look like? Or this is just a different model? No, this is a different model. This was just something we built. So do we have an office on the land? But those are some of the home data. The two bedrooms are actually bigger than this. Oh, okay. This is a smaller one. That's, that's nice, man. What is so unique about Shaka Island? So what is unique about it is that this community has everything you need that you don't need to leave the island. We have a medical center here. Actually, four of our owners are medical doctors from the U.S. And we actually have two doctors here in Ghana. All of different specialty. So you have the medical center there. So if you have any type of medical condition, we can treat you immediately, sustain you, and then get you to a hospital for any serious needs. We have a supermarket that will be put up so you can get all of your organic foods from our organic farm back there as well as anything else you need for your house. We have a Wi-Fi cafe that lists the digital nomads who work from their, their laptops that they could then come and they could work here and meet other diasporans and connect. And then the, the trigger of it all is that the community is an entertainment hub, right? So you have the event stage. I'll be bringing artists from the U.S. I was, I worked in the music industry. I had several top 10 hits, number one on Billboard charts with my artists. And then also I've worked with several major labor artists, written songs for them, won several Grammy nominations as well as Grammys. So we'll be bringing those artists and every month you could have a miniature version of Afrochella or Afrofuture as is now called. And then we will connect them to the diaspora and sell them home so that they don't go back home. They bring their skillset. Because the diaspora also love partying, yeah? Yeah. So they'll come they'll party, but now you will only do it in December. You'll do it every month of the year.  So I'll also entertain you in. Yeah. Yes. So that's what makes Shark Island special. No, thank you so much for doing this for us. Really, I appreciate you and trust me you're an inspiration. If you have a message to Africans living in the diaspora would that message be? So my message to Africans in the diaspora as well as African-Americans is one, you need to bring your capacity back home. Africans in the diaspora because a lot of Ghanaians and Africans leave and they don't want to come back. But when a global economy now you do not have to live abroad to work and earn money from abroad. And I want to teach them that. But also to the African-Americans do not believe the lies that we have been told. Come and see the continent for yourself whether it's Ghana, Gambia, South Africa, wherever but come see for yourself because we have been lied to we've been bamboozled and me you cannot get me to come back to visit not even. So what are the kind of lies that you had before coming?  Right? Lamborghinis, Bentley's they're thriving here and one thing that is a really big lie most Africans don't have mortgages they build their houses over five years so they're more rich than people in America if the African has an iPhone they own it if they have a car they own it they don't do all of this credit stuff that we have in America and I think that that's amazing and that's what I learned from them this is my first paid off home with no mortgage I've owned homes in America but I had a 30-year mortgage you know what mortgage means? Till death you're paying on it till you die but Africans have shown me that I'd rather build small over five years but I don't pay all that extra money and interest and then they own it so that's that was the biggest eye-opener for me I think this is your client because I've seen them around you do oh yeah so you see two people left that just parts of home yeah but these are actually two of my clients that came to check on their property that bought homes that supported us oh wow we have Marissa from Washington D.C. hi I'll let you tell you about her properties and why she chose to work with us and then I have Kulu my Eritrean sister oh wow and I have to credit our husband Solomon I love them both we've become like family but Solomon came and he saw the community and he got it and he wouldn't call his wife he said babe you have to come and see Shark Island and you know everybody you have to talk to the wife first I'm married now so I understand so then Kulu came but I'll let you tell them about the experience you know how we build but yeah they came today to check on their property and then they got to meet you so I'm glad I'm giving them a great experience all around you're happy oh wow nice so so Kulu has a three bedroom unit tell about your three bedroom Kulu three bedroom beautiful ones on the waterfront and I'm one of the first owners you believed in the dream yes it's beautiful and it started like three months ago and now I cannot believe it's almost finished now instead of this three months ago three months ago three months ago whoa it was bent and how many of them do you own? I own two what? I'm a big believer in the dream and of Marvin okay we met like three four years ago when I first moved to Ghana and he was my neighbor and my business my first location okay and he had a business there as well and so he became like a brother to me and on the way back from buying land in Cape Coast he was showing me the sea bridge and I'm gonna bring you to Ghana I said okay do it bro and I came home from US and he bought these islands and he was doing this and clear the land I was like wow I said okay so I want to for me I want one to live in and one for passive income because this is gonna make money exactly and how can I help? so now I'm the International Sales Director for Shark Island bringing all of that American capacity back in Ghana you all walk home you guys home come and buy one and get one free I don't know about Ghana I don't know I'm gonna get you the free one buy one and get one free from whatever I from the one you bought Ghana and then I'm like you hear all things in Europe and the Western like in Africa it takes forever and you don't know if you get your money back all the stories just not true because and then his building is like he started three months ago and every week every two weeks you get an update through Facebook email through YouTube event you're uploading it to YouTube I can't check it check how proud you're supporting yes and you know that your house is built and you can see it and you can also visit and come on everyone come try on everyone baby just come and like like two weeks ago I called him three weeks ago my family came from the Western she bought a whole family from the Netherlands to buy units so buy units and I and he said I said can I come he said of course you can come with your own house here you'll have to ask you so that's nice and one of the coolest thing about this place that to get here you need to be in a boat that's absolutely beautiful I want to say thank you all for believing in Marvin's dream I'm here to believe in the dream because I need to own one too and I believe that you all believe in the dream too right Marvin we're selling all your units I would love it I would love it oh don't say you love it tell them that yeah that's so cool thank you all so much for watching and I'm going to see you all in the next one I have to buy it


Ewch drpl tharr. You don't worry about this. You have to excuse me. I'm much more nervous about this talk than normal, because it's much more personal to me than anything I have done before. Normally when I talk about inclusivity in any way, it's usually in the context of accessibility inclusive design. It will probably talk a bit about dark mode and CSS and stuff. And that is my happy place. So this is quite far out. And one of the reasons for that, the reasons I've never really wanted I've never really wanted to talk about this. I don't really feel like my experience is especially interesting, so I've never really suffered from any kind of prejudice, or in some cases some people have suffered violence and all sorts of things like this, and I've never really experienced that. I'm definitely not the most knowledgeable person about LGBTQIA+, I say that a lot in this talk. Issues, I don't know all of the history either, and I definitely can't speak for all of the individual groups that are encapsulated within that acronym. So, for anybody that doesn't know, this stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and then the plus sign is literally every other identity that doesn't fall under one of those, so that's quite a lot of people really. Siobhan has just done my intro for me, so I could probably mostly skip this slide. I'm Kirsty, hello. I do work at Humanmade. I have been there for over five years now. I am a senior engineer, and I am trying to figure out how to be an engineering manager. It does have its interesting challenges. But for the context of this talk, I am openly gay, so this is not something I've ever stood up in front of a crowd of people and said before, so that's a bit weird in itself. But I identify as a lesbian. I married my wife in 2022. Nope, 2020 even, during the pandemic. It was like in a six weeks period where we may or may not be allowed to let it happen. There's more than a few of you in this room that know my wife. She's been known to crash WordPress events quite frequently. Fun fact, she's also crashed Humanmade events before I started at Humanmade. Well, the WordPress community is diverse. I think simply by the nature of it being a global community, it's diverse. Diversity generally refers to the existence of different characteristics within a group, whether that be race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, cultural background, et cetera, et cetera. So with WordPress having people from all over the world contributing in all sorts of ways, I think it'd be really difficult to argue that it's not diverse. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I think we pride ourselves in the diversity of our community. But does that actually mean that it's also inclusive as well? And what is the difference? So when we talk about diversity, we also combine inclusivity quite often, but they don't automatically mean the same thing. Inclusivity is about creating a welcoming environment where everybody feels equally valued. Achieving diversity doesn't automatically mean creating a truly inclusive environment. In fact, diversity without inclusivity is actually pretty useless. I really started thinking about this talk and this general topic after I came back from WordCamp Europe. I really enjoyed WordCamp Europe and there were some sessions about inclusivity. There was Women in Tech one, Petia did a really cool one on cultural intelligence, but there was nothing about the LGBTQIA plus community or how to represent it in that schedule at all that I saw. So I took a look at the other two flagship events, so WordCamp Asia and WordCamp US, and their schedules were pretty similar. There was nothing in the main event that spoke to LGBTQIA plus people. But there was pride vent parties at all three of them, which is fantastic because it acknowledges that there's a recognition that we need to make space for this community within WordPress. I did go to the WordCamp Europe one. I had a really great time except for the 15 minutes where I was trapped in the toilet and actually had to be rescued. That was embarrassing. I don't recommend that. But anyway, the pride events, they're still any side events. They're not in the main agenda anywhere. I did also look at the community summit sessions as well. There was one on diversity, equity, inclusivity and belonging, which sounded really interesting. I read the notes back of that. But again, most of the talks as far as I could tell from that was language barriers, accessibility for meetups and events, and managing different cultural behaviours. We really didn't say anything about LGBTQIA plus. I told you I say this a lot. I figured, well, somebody's got to be talking about this somewhere in the WordPress space. Maybe it's at another WordCamp that I've just not been to. I checked WordPress TV and I searched for LGBT that resulted in a total of six results. Two of those are the same talk. I did a search for lesbian. That gave us two results. I searched for gay, which gave us only one relevant result for talks from WordCamps. Now, admittedly, I didn't try particularly hard to search for anything more than that. Maybe there are others out there that perhaps a language barrier prevented them being in such results or I don't know, I just searched the wrong terms. But if I was an LGBTQIA plus person and I was coming newly into the WordPress space and I wanted to know how inclusive this is for me, I don't think I'd try that hard to be honest. I think this is what I'd see. This tells me that there's not a lot of open conversations happening. For this community within WordPress. So, what are the challenges? I think what's unique about this community really is that it's not always obvious that somebody identifies as LGBTQIA plus. And then on top of that, even if they do, they're not necessarily willing to be open about it. And there are many reasons why that would be the case. It's definitely a deeply personal choice about whether you're going to come out or whether you're going to be open within the community. But it usually bottles down to just this. Fear. So, for this slide, I did originally start by trying to list all of the reasons I could think of. Somebody would be fearful. It was taking a really long time, so I asked to chat GPT instead and this is what I got. Actually it's pretty accurate, so I was quite pleased with that. The yellow ones on here that I've highlighted are the ones that were personal to me. So, you know, I said everybody suffers from some fear. These were mine. So, fear of rejection I think is pretty straightforward. I was concerned about bullying and discrimination. I'd seen a lot of it in the hometown I used to live in. Fear of being stereotyped, I said earlier that I identified as a lesbian. I still actually hate the word lesbian because of the stereotypes that are associated with it. The impact on relationships. So, it was a concern to me that my friends and family would look at me differently and see me differently and therefore that would impact my relationships with them. And of course, I was obviously uncertain about being accepted as me. So, if we know it's not always obvious when somebody identifies as this, let me ask you a question. Here we have a very generic stock photo of what should be a diverse group of people. But as an example, I'd like to ask, could you identify a gay person in that picture? Like genuinely? Or maybe bisexual or asexual? Do you actually think it represents LGBTQIA+, at all? No, I don't. We can't always wear rainbow t-shirts and glitter to immediately identify ourselves. It's not always that straightforward. And then if we choose to hide, it becomes even harder to tell if we're there or not. So, for the most part, we do get to choose how open we want to be. I mean, unfortunately, there are cases where that's not always true. But for the most part, we can hide in plain sight. And this can be good for us sometimes. You know, it gives us the... You know, we have that protection of hiding. But the downside of that is it really can make it so much harder to come out and be open.   If you were to hear an overtly racist comment, that would probably be deliberate. But homophobic slurs are generally not challenged at all. Because people that say in them don't even realise they're saying them, and everybody else just accepts it as the normal. These few examples.  Like, implies that it's really bad to be gay. It reinforces that message. Assuming someone is in a heterosexual relationship by asking the question, there insinuates that heterosexual sexuality is the only normal one. Everything else is abnormal. And so it continually reinforces these negative messages. There are others as well. Some of you, I'm sure, remember Little Britain.  Like, I'll after that at the time, but it doesn't set a very good tone. And I've also been really guilty of this from time to time. There's a specific example where I've told many people that I think my wife's taste in music is really, really gay. And I've justified it in that I've thought, well, you know, you could call that genre of music.  She loves every single one of them. But nearly all of the time that will actually be interpreted as, I think, her taste in music is terrible. And just between me and all of you, I do think her taste in music is terrible. But it is these small slights, the seemingly innocuous comments that continually reinforce that it's wrong to be gay or identify as LGBTQIA+. You know, it tells you that you should hide, that you will not be accepted if you try to be your true self. Right, so I did do a little bit of research for this and reached out to some friends in the community and this is what I got back almost unanimously and I admit to it as well. This is what I'm talking to about hiding in the open. It's often much easier just to not talk about your personal life other than risk letting something slip that might make people suspect. For me, I would never refer to my wife or then girlfriend by name ever. So I would always call him my partner. I'd always avoid phrases like wife or girlfriend because they're not gender-neutral and that would give that away. I'd always use gender-neutral pronouns. And I don't do this very much anymore to be fair. But I do still do that within work occasionally. Not with my human-made colleagues but with larger project teams. So those teams will include clients, stakeholders, external development teams, designers all sorts of other people and they could be located literally anywhere in the world. I don't know their cultural or personal beliefs so I do tend to keep things a bit more quiet. And thinking about that, there is still 64 countries in the world that criminalise home of sexuality. Half of those are or were in the Commonwealth. And according to Google, I didn't ask chat GPT this one, I just googled it. It's probably wrong by now. There's 195 countries in the world at the moment which means nearly a third of all of the countries in the world are registered against LGBTQIA plus people. So that means it's actually really, really highly likely I could work with a contractor that lives or who has lived in one of these countries and believes these issues. I could meet people at work camps or meet-ups and things that have lived in these countries or still do that uphold these beliefs because it's not always possible to know what their cultural beliefs are.  But it does mean that I am always much more cautious about how I engage in what is for everybody else small talk or trivial conversations as a result. And I know I'm not alone in this. And unfortunately unless the world changes more it is getting better. I sat on the train next to a group of teenagers that had a very enlightening conversation in the open yesterday which would never have happened when I was a teenager. Most of us will never feel truly comfortable at the moment. So what can we do in the WordPress space? Well, we can't fix all of the world's problems. But hopefully I've started a conversation here and made some of you think and we can then continue this conversation in the wider WordPress space so the next time we have discussion sessions about diversity, equity, inclusivity and belonging or you want to pitch a talk to a word camp the LGBTQIA plus community is considered more heavily within those things. I have talked a lot about fear and hiding. We don't know how many people in the WordPress space are just not open and just don't want to be. Probably never going to be. If you are somebody that is open and comfortable I'd encourage you to be even more visible than you currently are. This is the first time I've made myself this visible but of course only if you're comfortable to do so. And to literally everybody else in the room look around and think about how your actions and interactions could help someone feel more welcome. It's not enough to just assume that because there's a few of us that are open there's no more work to be done to create an inclusive environment. This isn't unique to WordPress of course but WordPress is a huge community so even the smallest change in this room today can have a really big impact on the wider community and hopefully extrapolate out into the wider world as well. I certainly hope so. Thank you.


It is an honor to be here, and I bet you're wondering, why is Google calling all doc stars? Well, the answer is simple. We have so many rock stars in our open source industry. Excuse me, I have a little cold. But we do have so many rock stars, and we've made amazing software together. And it's being used all over the world as Erica and Cheryl had mentioned. And let's face it. We like when people use our software. It allows us to help people at scale, and let's face it, it feels pretty good when people use our stuff. So the question is, how do we get more people to use our software? And the answer is documentation. And that's why we need more doc stars. So you can see from this survey, from DigitalOcean, that documentation is the number one adoption driver for our projects, and that makes sense. It is obviously an easy way to help everyone learn how to use the software, and it also makes our projects much more accessible. But unfortunately, we don't have enough doc stars. In this survey, only 4% of the participants said they're contributing to documentation. And that's a problem. That's a problem for Google, and that's a problem for our whole industry. It's a real missed opportunity. And Google wanted to start to address this. So we conducted some research to understand, what are the top blockers to contributing to documentation? And we found that there were three, time, support, and reward. And well, let's face it. A contributor only has so much time, and they're going to choose a path that's easy and rewarded. And that's usually the case with contributing to code. It's a very well-documented process, very supported, and of course, it is very well-rewarded with lots of recognition programs that different projects provide to highlight and amplify those code contributors. But unfortunately, this just is not the case with people who contribute to documentation. And so if you are looking to address this in your project, we have three pro tips for you. The first one is target your first-time contributors. If you remember your first-time contributing, it was a little bit scary. Well, you can make it less scary by giving them a path to contribute to documentation. It's just a little bit easier. But if you do offer that, you want to make sure that you provide a very smooth and easy process. And what that means is that you need to document how to contribute to documentation. And that's a little meta, but it's really important. You also need to take out the mystery of how to write good docs. And so you want to provide templates. And that's another thing Google's working on with a new project called the Good Docs Project. So keep your eye out for that in the future.  Make them feel like they're just like heroes, like all your other kinds of contributors. And include them in your release notes. So we hope that you'll use these pro tips. We're using them at Google. But we also feel there's a sense of urgency. And we want to make sure that we have more than 4% of contributors writing documentation. We want 10% and 20%. And so we are putting our money where our mouth is. And we have launched a new program called Season of Docs. It's similar to our Google Somewhere of Code, which matches students with projects to work on code. But for Season of Docs, we are hiring tech writers and paying them to work on project documentation. I am really pleased that this year we are working with these 50 projects. And we have already secured the tech writers. And the work is underway. It's going to be concluding between December, January. We're really excited to see what kind of impact we can make together. And I'm also equally excited to see what kind of learnings we're going to get from this program, so that we can evolve this program more and also share the learnings out with all of you so we can all improve together. So if you would like more information about Season of Docs or Google Somewhere of Code or any of our open source programs or projects, please check us out on our website or follow us on Twitter. And in the meantime, please remember to thank a Doc Star because we need them. Thank you.