All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to Pringle for our second session on post-conflict transitions. And welcome to our moderator, Dr. Scott Gardner. He is the Provost and Chief Academic Officer at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He previously held the position of Director of the Penn State School of International Affairs, where he remains a faculty affiliate. His research focuses on great power conflict, counter-terrorism, conflict mediation, policy assessment, and of course most relevant to us this morning, women, peace and security. So thank you so much for being here, Dr. Gardner. The floor is yours. So let's start out real quickly by creating a pyramid. So we start at the base as we should always in any conference presentation and panel and say, why do we care about the theme? Why do we care about women, peace and security? Why is it important? And I think the key answer is it contributes to the warfighting advantage and it contributes in a number of different ways. Right now the United States, particularly United States Navy where I'm employed, faces two pacing threats. The first is the PRC. The second is the United States labor market. At this point, none of the services have been able to meet their recruiting quotas across the board for enlisted or for officers. And there's a challenge in populating our military with the best and the brightest who are able to compete, particularly since, given the first pacing threat, we're smaller in terms of this population and we're smaller in terms of the military. So we need high quality committed people. Ruling out half of our population is a bad way to start. So if we can be more inclusive, figure out how to make women a bigger part of the military, that will dramatically have an impact on our ability to be an effective fighting force and contribute to the warrior advantage. The second reason is diversity, having different perspectives, different point of views, just like you want to have a diversified stock portfolio, you want to have a diversified staff, a diversified population that you're drawing from the diversified crew, so that people are approaching things of different perspectives, different ideas, and you're stronger as a result. The third is normative. It's a good idea. It's the right thing to do. Women, peace and security is the right idea. And it's not just the right idea, but allows contributes to the warrior advantage by leading through quality, leading through ideas. I would argue leading through leadership. So that's the floor of our pyramid. The answer to why women, peace and security is a contributes to the warrior advantage and why this panel on post conflict transitions. We all know as leaders, that key is hiring good people coming up with good ideas and follow through. And if you look at military situations, national security situations, post conflict transitions can be thought of as follow through. You can look at NATO coming out of World War Two. Korea, those are very successful stories, outcomes for the United States with very successful follow through. So the reason we're looking at post conflict transition is that if you win the war and lose the peace, you lost the war. And so the transition is critical to obtaining and executing the outcomes that you started the war with. And that's particularly the case for women, peace and security, which tends to be less visible, less important, which is why we're having viewed as less important, which is why we're having this conference trying to raise its importance. And needs to be more deliberately addressed. And so you have to think about how to deliberately address it in the post conflict transition. Then the third question in our pyramid is, well, why these folks that sitting next to me go introduce to you in a second. What makes them special to talk about post conflict transitions in a women, peace and security. Conference and the answer is they're both outstanding academics and incredibly experienced operationally experienced individuals. So they're going to blend their operational knowledge and their academic insights together, which I think is is kind of the secret sauce to creating really impactful observations. So we have three as I said outstanding experience folks we have Dr. Amanda Metcalf from the United States Air Academy. Professor Metcalf has also served as a practitioner for years and years, dealing with extensive cases of military trauma both individually and through policy, as well as addressing family issues throughout the United States military and especially the Air Force. We're going to hear from Mr. Joe Evans, who at Villanova University in the finishing up his doctorate in theology. And Mr. Evans is former Lieutenant Colonel in the Army has extensive experience in the United States and around the world, operationally and addressing the situations that we're talking about. So we're going to hear from Dr. Natalie Abu from the Military Academy of the Armed Forces the Republic of Moldova. In addition to perhaps claiming the I came the furthest for this conference award. She's an experienced and well regarded academic who also worked extensively in Moldovan policy groups setting Moldovan policy on 1325 and other critical issues. And I think we're in for an exciting panel. We only have 1313 three presentations. Many of them have four so we should have some time for some really good discussion so you all have homework I'd like to hear a good question from everybody. So, and with that, Amanda, if you believe us off please. All right, thank you Dr Gardner, I want to first say thanks to the Naval War College and Dr mean for inviting me here to talk about something I'm very very passionate about. And broadly, and you heard this from Dr Gardner, I study gender and leadership. And this really means going into countries and looking at strategies that create ethics of gender equality and in those regions. Today, however, I'm going to focus on two grassroots movements as an expression of leadership. And we'll draw peace insights from these two regions and those two movements. The two movements I'm going to cover is an immediate approach in Serbia, and a local governance approach in Rwanda. I chose these basic these regions because of the basic disruptions that they've incurred. I believe it's important to study post conflict zones because they impart important insight into peace. And it's particularly important to research those in the context of women's reactions and women's experiences. My aim is to examine the relationship between history conflict and social movement. Each of these movements has attempted and I would argue is doing a pretty good job at addressing some deep structural violence in the region. Okay, so I want to talk to you a little bit about the methodology and the kind of walk you through the thinking of this research. We all know and that's why we're here that women's empowerment is linked to peace. Okay, but a lot of what we know about that linkage relies upon macro data sets. So we've drawn from data sets like the World Economic Forum varieties of democracy of Oslo, some conflict data head of state data, and even some UN and human rights Commission data. So when I start looking at this in the countries I've gone to sometimes these big data sets tell a really confusing story. They don't always match up. So, when I go in and do this work I really want to come out with something that I can apply or we can apply as leaders. So in order to do so we have to ask questions about the history, how does history affect the leadership and the movement, and what's linked to the delivery of these leadership strategies. So what we come up with is grassroots movement in these grassroots movement piece, often operates in really unconventional ways, pretty nuanced ways. So to capture that, we have to ask micro level questions and so I use a micro sociological theory from Randall Collins to do my analysis. My methods are qualitative. I go in and conduct interviews for these two regions. 26 interviews 24 with women, and two with men, and the analysis is a focused analysis so I'm connecting history to the movement in that focused analysis. Okay, so let's start with Serbia. Serbia sits number 26 in the global gender gap data. Actually 23 United States is 26. So they're hovering in there with us in order to understand this movement we have to get a little glimpse of their history so after World War two Tito kind of took hold of Yugoslavia and Tito was considered an authoritarian leader, socialist leader. Some would say communist regime but by all accounts of the participants that I spoke with. He was pretty good for women's empowerment, and it was a peaceful time in Yugoslavia. So after the fall of Yugoslavia and Serbia Milosevic took over and it wasn't quite as peaceful. During that regime, the, there was a perpetration of a genocide in Bosnia, 12,000 women were raped, 8,000 civilians killed. Those are probably pretty conservative numbers actually. And by accounts of participants and the freedom house data. Serbia is currently in a democratic backsliding regime. So let's go to. Let's go to the strategies. Okay, so the first thing I found out is it's pretty dangerous to be a messenger in this movement. There, I'll refer you up to the first quote, this is one of the participants talked about being held hostage as a journalist. And I talked to some of the, the, the younger journalists and, and even some of the heads of states would say it's very dangerous to be a female journalist in this movement, twice as likely to be targeted with death threats, against a family, and certainly character Milase in reporting. Why is it so dangerous from from the reports when you're calling out gender based violence you're also calling out the regime and war crimes are wrapped into this call out. Okay, so moving to the actual media strategies. So I'm going to focus on the feminist media strategies. I mentioned that I'm going to talk about, but the efforts are really linked and wrapped into women's experiences so the second quote, a pie talks about the interviewing and the research of survivors and coming up with really basic guidelines and reporting on violence. Okay, so this is really important to remember. This was a coalition that started maybe eight years ago it started with nine female journalists and it's grown to 90 men and women who are committed to these guidelines. And they're involved with this coalition group pretty regularly on their own reporting of violence. And then some of the guidelines there's many guidelines but three that that stood out as a very important is the not reporting a victim identities. This implies guilt when you're reporting on violence. The use of graphic details and homicides or rapes or any sort of violent event. This produces victim blaming, and then the attention to visual cues in any sort of media reporting produces subordination or perspectives of subordination of women. The final theme was the transformative approach that this coalition is taking on. They're moving from what stories are being told to how those stories are told. They rely heavily on the survivor perspectives. And those perspectives do tie in gender based violence and experience through the genocide. The empathy is baked into this message and the narratives get people to value others more. Okay, so we'll move on to Rwanda's homegrown movement. A lot of people would say that, or ask questions about this being a feminist movement but my response is that this movement started after genocide where many women were left to clean up the pieces. Rwanda sits number six, as far as gender quality in the in the gap data, the world economic forum data. So the history of the history of Rwanda is also very important 1959 was the first round of Jenna genocidal attacks in the 1994 the big one 800,000 people killed and mass rapes were also wrapped wrapped into that the ethnic cleansing and Rwanda. The imperial powers in the 1980s began with the Germans, later the Belgians. So this is really key in 1935 the Belgians implemented a discriminatory identification system that instigated centralized power in Rwanda. The event in the 1980s the World Bank implemented a structural adjustment program that instigated the prioritization of privatization in Rwanda so you can imagine the two of those blended together can would produce some some tensions and conflict. One of the strategies homegrown solutions is what they call this. The first part of the solutions is the reliance on local knowledge and there's a lot of ways that Rwandans do this but I'll highlight the gacha process our, our provost spoke to this a little bit in the introduction of this symposium. The gacha is an ancient process wearing the community at a small level addresses perpetrators. Okay, and they rely heavily on truth and details of the truth. So often asking questions about who did you rape, who did you kill, how did you kill them and where are the people that grew some details, but that's important in producing remorse forgiveness, and then ultimately reintegration to the gacha process is moving away from international court systems to the tribal court systems, and by their accounts this worked fairly well. The other strategy is Rwandi identity. So they call this in boot to this is another word for unity, moving away from the identification from who to and to see or perpetrator and survivor to we are all just Rwandans. The last one is a trust in the community. Okay, and this one, it was, was pretty impressed, impressive to me and a couple things wrapped into this new Bukami is a word for 10 houses. So think back to that identification system that the Belgians implemented in 30s. This is really a process of decentralizing. So 10 houses is the opposite of the Belgians centralization efforts. It's a word for trusted judges. So, at a small level in the community, essentially these judges and panels of judges which now requires 30% of them being women after the genocide. There's care for those communities at a very local level. They work with these teams at 10 house levels to address economic issues, conflict issues, crime, environmental concerns, and resource distribution. So in this movement, these three strategies really acknowledge old approaches that were stripped away from Rwandans. And it lands upon a valued process and shared values that people believe civil liberties truly depend upon the takeaway from these two movements. The policy and principal implications are we really do need to ask questions that surround history. We need to ask questions that surround women. We need to address deep structures and I'll jump back to to what Valerie Hudson proclaims is very important how we treat our women is how we treat our state. That's really addressing deep structure. We need to explore strategies from the grass. And in doing so, we'll discover approaches that sway beliefs attitudes and ultimately change how people people value others. Thank you. So Nepal is a small South Asian country between India and China faces frequent major natural disasters and a decade long civil war that ended in 2006. These challenges are exacerbated by high rates of human trafficking, gender based violence, discriminatory social norms and poverty. Despite a growing consensus for the importance of women's involvement in the process for peace and security, gender discrimination continues to restrict the participation of women in Nepalese decision making processes. I look at how incorporating women peace and security or WPS into military security cooperation programs can be a source of mitigating these issues. I'll argue that incorporating WPS and the security cooperation is both necessary and feasible. Likewise, security cooperation like warfare should be planned and conducted with the ultimate objective of achieving peace and WPS can help. These programs can offer a strategic advantage as part of a multi track diplomacy process which corresponds to most peace building frameworks. I start with a brief examination of defense planning and contextual aspects of peace and conflict in Nepal, and then evaluate the contribution of WPS related security cooperation programs. This is part of a larger project that examines the benefits of collaboration between military security cooperation and religious peace building. But today I'll focus on the importance and benefits of WPS programs and security cooperation using Nepal as a case study. I base much of this on my experience as the chief of defense cooperation in Kathmandu from 2014 to 2017 and WPS initiatives that we implemented during that time. I'll also rely on insight from female peace building scholars as well as concepts of multi track diplomacy as an approach for peace as outlined by Ambassador John McDonald and Louise Diamond. The purpose of defense planning, whether for war or other purposes, including security cooperation should aim to establish a sustainable peace. As an infantry officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, I saw that this planning commonly fails to account for women who comprise over half the population and were generally the most affected by war. Arm conflict inflicts damage on vulnerable populations that have left untreated, confessed her and lead to sustained violence and instability. Women suffered disproportionately both during and after a war. This includes disruption to their family and social networks, amplification of existing gender inequalities and increased threat of trafficking and sexual exploitation, and the loss of basic rights like education and safety. Fortunately, numerous directives and guidance to reinforce the integration of WPS initiatives, starting with all those described throughout this symposium, the national action plans, executive orders and guidance from the combatant commands. Despite these incentives incentives, there's still likely to be some resistance. No matter the cultural or bureaucratic challenges, there are ways to navigate obstacles to implement these programs. Like many countries, Nepal is a space of great power competition between larger countries. In Nepal, however, the United States is a secondary figure to the influence of China and India. Despite the strategic competition between the US and China, India tends to be more antagonistic to US efforts in Nepal. Given that Nepal is unlikely to purchase expensive US military equipment as well as pressure from India on the Nepalese government to limit cooperation with others. And that the Nepalese military does not have a strategic external adversary that requires lethal efforts. US security cooperation is best suited to areas such as supporting Nepal's UN peacekeeping contribution, disaster response and WPS. Each of these lines of effort helps to promote peace at the global and local levels by seeking to reduce or mitigate the violence injustice and instability. Nepal experienced a 10 year civil war from 1996 to 2006, which not only disrupted the political stability and economic development, but resulted in numerous hardships and threats to the flourishing of women throughout the country. Both for combatants and non-combatants. In 2011, though, Nepal became the first South Asian country to adopt a national action plan. As a result, the government has attempted to increase the percentage of women in the security forces and established a ministry for women, children and social affairs in 2014. Despite these efforts, obstacles remain. For example, gender based violence and culturally entrenched gender discrimination persist. There are some encouraging trends such as a woman being named president of Nepal. Yet women continue to be sidelined from the influential voices in the post conflict peace processes, and fail to have a proportionate level of participation in government decision making. So WPS security cooperation programs can make a crucial contribution to promoting peace, while also offering a strategic benefit of regional stability. Despite the steps taken by the Nepalese by the Nepalese government and other directors and guidance. There were no WPS oriented programs in US security cooperation efforts in Nepal, aside from a few humanitarian assistance projects. In fact, of the thousands of US student training nominations from 20 to 2008 to 2014, only three were females. The US, excuse me, the US Office of Defense cooperation or the ODC in Nepal developed a plan to integrate WPS initiatives into its security cooperation programs in 2014. The primary areas of focus were UN peacekeeping operations, post conflict security sector development, humanitarian assistance projects, and a special emphasis on appropriate female nominations for US funded courses. Each program attempted to incorporate WPS objectives of participation, prevention and protection. Likewise, post conflict and disaster response efforts included WPS principles of relief and recovery. Some programs effectively addressed all areas of emphasis. For example, the ODC developed a girls mentorship program with an annual workshop for female students, capitalizing on the expertise of female graduates of ODC sponsored training. It was a common refrain from women who returned from training in the US was that they were thrilled with the opportunity experience and knowledge, but they get but that they gain but wish they had been exposed to it when they were younger. So the ODC, in collaboration with these female alumni plan to workshop to share these experience and knowledge with teenage Nepalese girls. The program included mentors from the government, army and civil society. The three day workshops which included hundreds of Nepalese teenage girls emphasize leadership skills to develop the knowledge and confidence to make a difference in their schools and communities. The workshops were successful and spawn numerous subsequent programs in the schools and communities of the participants. From a peace building perspective, these programs were invaluable for empowering young women leaders who can contribute to community and national level efforts, while simultaneously addressing aspects of injustice and instability in society, such as human trafficking, gender based violence and other discriminatory social practices. There's also a direct correlation into the framework of multi track diplomacy, especially in the areas of conflict resolution, grassroots involvement, education, activism and raising awareness. Military security cooperation is embedded in, excuse me, in this nine track conceptual and practical framework or a complex system of peacemaking activities. Women's participation and security and peace and security cooperation processes can promote enduring and innovative post conflict outcomes. Unfortunately, women in Nepal remain absent from many official and official and informal dialogue efforts. This was illustrated in 2015, when Nepal security cooperation sector development group argued that including women in their conflict transformation dialogue would be a distraction for the men. When confronted with this blatant misogyny, the subsequent argument was that there were just not enough qualified women in Nepal. While the WPS programs attempted to mitigate this lack, it highlights a specific gap in the important concept of including all stakeholders, especially women in the process of building peace. Collaboration between security cooperation and civic organizations can help identify gaps in areas of divergence to find an approach that is mutually beneficial. There is a risk as both NGOs and American military assistance can be viewed as far an intervention, but this danger can be mitigated by inviting local participants into the planning and oversight of the programs. Benefits include maximizing resources and momentum to normalize women in the peace process. One final aspect is to remember that sometimes our best intentions may cause unintended harm. For example, when linking security cooperation WPS programs with economic development projects, we must be aware of how the western pattern of development has over exploited natural resources becoming a process of development that subjects women to hardships and exploitation. Suspicion of security cooperation activities can occur at the local and national levels for a variety of reasons. Widespread mistrust can occur because of misperceptions about the intent of foreign programs, localized concerns can occur such as distrust from former combatants or communities who are concerned with outsider meddling. WPS programs can enhance trust at every level, although it can be difficult to navigate the impression that these programs disregard or contradict local cultural norms. In addition to helping build trust, a WPS program can help maintain strategic credibility. China and India do not advertise their events in Nepal, but have numerous programs for women leaders. The systematic approach of US women peace and security is simply one among an existing array of options, as Nepalese women are invited to conferences and courses related to women's leadership development in both India and China. Furthermore, WPS programs do not occur in a vacuum but within a larger context. Our partners are unlikely to differentiate between programs provided by the ODC or USAID or the Department of State. WPS programs can offer a strategic advantage, but they would need to be sustained and expanded to compete with established and better resource programs from other countries. Nepal faces cultural biases, political and social instability, a recent armed conflict, and frequent natural disasters that negatively impact the lives and livelihood of women. WPS programs can contribute to building a more peaceful and stable society, promote the dignity of the marginalized, and enhance trust and credibility at the local and national level by countering factors of suspicion while also helping to sustain influence amid competing international objectives. Thank you, Joe. Next we're going to hear from Dr. Natalia Abu on WPS National Action Implementation in Moldova. Hello to everybody. Thank you very much for invitation. And I'm delighted to be here and to present very sensitive issues regarding WPS implementation in Republic of Moldova. And it's very good to be the last because it's not enough eight minutes. It's very difficult to present so complex and complicated issues in eight minutes. And in order to keep the time I will try to emphasize through three main points. First of all, it's very important to understand the context of Elaboration of National Election Plan on Women, Peace and Security, a special security environment of Republic of Moldova. Also why NEP was adopted because it's not sufficient to be mandatory. And also we have less learned and good practices. In this context it's very important to highlight that recently in the March the government of Moldova approved the second generation of National Election Plan. But it was elaborated in a different security environment compared to the period when the first program was adopted. In fact, the geopolitical situation of the country influences its security policies, neighboring Romania and NATO member country and Ukraine invaded by Russian Federation Moldova is a part of extended Black Sea region. And in June 2022 Moldova obtained the status of EU candidate country. More than this, for Moldova, vulnerabilities, challenges and threats to national security are interconnected, both internally and externally, have a complication for human security as well. Especially the issues of respect of human rights on the territory of the country which is controlled by the separatist regime is also frozen conflict, Transnistria conflict, but the negotiation process is frozen. And it is a non-solved conflict artificial created by, managed by the Russian Federation. Thus, Moldova is a neutral state but it's not recognized internationally and the Russian violation violated its neutrality because we have Russian troops on non-controlled territory. But it's peace. Secondly, it's very important to understand why Republic of Moldova adopted and implement now a national election plan on women, peace and security because at the policy level Moldova has been assumed the responsibility to take action to implement the in the framework of the individual partnership action plan Republic of Moldova and NATO. It's very important to have this push at the external level and to have this international commitment. In general, at that stage the legal framework for ensuring gender equality in Moldova was already developed and functional. Plus, at the regional level and global, there are a lot of study that provided a different argument why you need to implement women, peace and security in the context of peace and conflict. At the national level research was also carried out. It was useful to have this kind of approach regarding the different security needs was very helpful for Republic of Moldova and special when you have to ensure a human security not only in peacekeeping mission but also at the national level. But also the results of the survey of on the perception on women in security sector. According to survey, it still exists the retides above the role of men and women in military because they think that the sector it's very dangerous for women. But in the institution related to public order citizen are more friendly for gender equality, because we believe that more women in the security sector will bring additional value to it. The most obvious benefits are related to fighting corruption, but according second nap, because we now have a second name, it seemed that they were in Ukraine. Change perception the role of women in peace and conflict because now we have on our territory, refugee, and 87% from the refugee are women and children. In this is regarding this aspect as well as barriers identify regarding the provision of an inclusive security framework influence the structure of the plan. I would like to highlight but during my presentation, I'm going, I'm focusing on the process known on barriers, but barrier it's very important issue. Yesterday we discussed about that. The first nap was primarily focused on women's participation in the security and defense sector using the free basic approaches, reducing stereotypes. Second, developing an inclusive and proactive human resources management system. And to create this cooperation with civil society it to end to strength and transparency regarding the action of from the implementing of resolution 3025. Regarding the second map, it's focused more on prevention because now we understand it's not a time for reaction it's important to have this prevention. Since the Republic of Moldova is a country with your candidate status with an active war at the border, and it is essential to have this kind of perspective on human rights, as well as the fight against any type of abuse and discrimination to ensure peace and security. And thirdly, regarding lesson learned and good practices. A well-written net doesn't mean good implementation. I think it's very reasonable for all country. In fact, the process of implementation of 3025 is often approached as an upfield battle that will involve substantial resistance and yesterday we spoke about that. Or unforeseen situation can arise such as a pandemic because pandemic was very good excuses to not implement women, peace and security activities. And not budgeting because only 27 countries that implement 27% of country that implement women, peace and security plans have budgeting for this. Actual estates are different. Respectively, the gender issues is taken differently. And there is a not homogenous set of policies tools for implementing the UPS agenda. However, it is recommended to organize priority intervention according to the four pillars, pillars that usually stress the state. And for example, it was difficult to integrate reliving recovery in the first national action plan because the leadership used to say, Dr. Albu, we don't have a problem with refugee. But due to misunderstanding of this approach, the need for relevant action on these issues was realized when the war in Ukraine has been started. That's why it's a good advice for the country as Republic of Moldova to have this approach, not only through four pillars, but to structure at a free level, strategical, operational and tactical. When we speak about good practices, it's very important to emphasize that a specific element for Republic of Moldova was the elaboration of the ministerial action plan depending on the institutional need and different capacity at the internal level and external level, because it's complicated to increase women participation security and defense sector if you don't have a special regulation regarding harassment discrimination. And it's very important to have this mainstreaming approach of gender and the security and defense sector. For example, we integrated in the national defense strategy, the gender aspect of the chapter of human resources. And also it's very important to implement at the external level because we have understand that security for whom or for who, for citizen, for population, and if you have a sufficient security institution or culture during your daily activities, it is important to integrate these issues and to ensure inclusive security. For example, Republic of Moldova adopted during the implementation of national action plan strategy on domestic violence. But also it's very important, not last at the least, to have this critical piece of leadership, especially if they are commitment from the male leaders. And if you have advice, advocacy at the high level of leadership, it's very successful implementation of national action plan. Here you can see that during the, when our deputy prime minister of reintegration, Mr Balan was ahead. He helped us a lot to push and to adopt the national action plan, because it was very difficult to convince leadership that we need to this kind plan but male leadership help us a lot. In this context, the implementation of women, peace and security agenda suppose that gender sensitive policy and practices should be considered as a precondition for responding to challenges and will became a reflex for decision makers involved in ensuring security. And yesterday we discussed, and Dr. Sirai Amin mentioned it, how it is important to implement at the national level women, peace and security agenda to ensure prosperity. And then at the international level there are indicators that show that the top country from the indicator good governance, they are at the top of women, peace and security index, and also the 10 countries on this top are in the top on the human security indicator. Thank you very much for your passion. Thank you Dr album. So I'm looking out at an audience filled with filled with leaders. Right, we've got ambassadors, we've got senior military officers, we've got faculty members from multiple military and civilian schools. We've got students. We have people who are committed to this issue. So leaders, I welcome your feedback on behalf of our panelists.


Hey, how you doing? This is Rich from Rich TV Live and Rich Hicks Daily. How you doing? This is Rich from Rich TV Live and Rich Hicks Daily with some big, big, big news from Grand West Transportation News Symbol VMC. We're going to get into that. Now, we do have a trading club. Rich Hicks Daily is an online community designed for traders to exchange smart, straightforward and profitable trade ideas and investment ideas. Join us today on richpicksdaily.com, subscribe to our YouTube channel to learn useful stock trading secrets and discover the next 10 bagger. So this is the big news, vicinity motors, Grand West Transportation, new symbol, not even on their site yet, and vicinitybus.com. This is the reason why they're making the change. Here it is, vicinity motors receives vicinity lightning, trademark electric vehicle order from ABC companies, vicinity motors. The new symbol today is VMC looks like this. Here it is. It's $7.50 up slightly, 3.3% traded very little volume, only $10,330 shares so far. But it's up today and that is good news for the company and for shareholders that this reverse is now complete. And the symbol in America is still BUSXF, as you can see here currently sitting at $570. I don't believe it's trading in America due to the reverse. So most likely by tomorrow, maybe later today. So we'll keep you updated on that as it happens. The symbol in Frankfurt, Germany is 6LG, no change there. So only a change in Canada on the TSX venture from bus to VMC for vicinity motors companies. And BUSXF in America on those TC QX exchange and 6LG in Frankfurt, no changes there. Formerly grand West transportation group now called vicinity motors corp. So this is why it's VMC new symbol VMC vicinity motors corp is the new name. So new name change, new symbol change as of today, no longer grand West transportation group. So I have no idea if this website will be changed or altered. Let's just remove that site from here. This is going to be most likely the new site unless they have any changes. We'll keep you updated on that. Pretty cool. Now at 750 and let's see here, a leading supplier of electric CNG gas and clean diesel buses today announced it has received initial orders for 10 vicinity lightning EV buses from its strategic US distribution partner ABC companies, a leading provider of motor coach specialty and transit equipment in North America. Look at this more orders. These orders just keep coming in the new vicinity lightning EV bus brings a unique 28 low floor offering to the US market 28 foot low floor offering to the US market with a flexible floor plan utilizing proven components such as BMW sourced battery packs, it's a big name in BMW modules and components, public and private customers will be able to offer zero emissions transportation to a variety of passengers game changer. The 10 new vicinity lightning EV orders are scheduled to be delivered to ABC in the third and fourth quarters of 2021 for resale into the US. The size flexibility and quality of the vicinity lightning EV bridges the gap between larger buses and lower passenger shuttles with a very compact footprint which benefits the operators, drivers and passengers. We think it's a real win win win said Roman Cornell, president and chief commercial officer of ABC companies. The vicinity lightning EV joins the portfolio of zero emissions vehicles, ABC cells and services to meet the rapidly evolving battery electric market, a very exciting market. The order is the first from ABC who recently entered into an agreement with vicinity motors to distribute its full line of products, which currently includes the vicinity heavy duty midsize bus, the vicinity lightning EV and vicinity LT light duty models in the United States. The vicinity line fills heat transit and private shuttle roles within the ABC vehicle portfolio, enhancing its offering to current customers while expanding sales further into the US transit market. We anticipate high demand for a clean, sustainable vicinity lightning EV and these initial orders mark the beginning of a valuable partnership with the excellent team at ABC. Key word there is initial orders. My prediction is those numbers will grow and hopefully they grow to the goal for William trainer who's the CEO of vicinity motor corp. His own words is he wants to grow to a billion dollar revenue company. A billion dollars in revenue company and obviously they are just getting started. So William trainer is the founder and chief executive officer of vicinity motors corp. People are recognizing the need to move people more efficiently using proven zero emission technology with a smaller environmental footprint and governments are responding to these demands. In fact just last week the government of Canada announced a 2.75 billion investment over the next five years that includes zero emissions, public transit and school buses and I believe that that is huge news for vicinity motor corp. As our customers transition to and adopt electric vehicles, the vicinity lightning EV provides maximum versatility to support multiple transportation applications, utilizing high quality proven and commercially available technology and industry standardized charging solutions. Game changer. With our production ramp up we now have 25 vicinity lightning EV buses in the production phase and are gearing up for significant growth. Gearing up for significant growth. Key words there. We look forward to expanding our reach and sales in the United States through our partnership with ABC driving forward a more sustainable public transit system concluded trainer. Wow. Just quickly take a look. 750 right now and now that they're priced at 750 I think over the next 30 days if they can stay over this price they would then qualify to up list to the NASDAQ. I know that that is something that they're very excited about something they're interested in doing so we're going to keep our eyes on that as well as a huge catalyst and after this share consolidation they actually have less shares issue note standing making them one of the most tightest float stocks that we ever talk about. I believe that they now have 29 million shares issue note standing. I'm going to get into that. ABC companies about ABC companies. ABC companies is a leading provider to the transportation industry with diverse product and service offerings that cover a full spectrum of operational needs including new and pre-owned full-size highway coach equipment along with transit specialty vehicles including battery electric vehicles. ABC supports customers with a comprehensive after sale service network for service and repairs collision services extensive OEM and quality aftermark parts needs for transit motor coach and heavy duty equipment from 10 strategically placed locations throughout the US and Canada. Additionally private and municipal financing and leasing options are available through the company's financial service group one of the largest financial service providers within the industry about vicinity motors. So this is the new name big news about vicinity motors vicinity motors court VMC on the Toronto Stock Venture Exchange TSXV in America on the OTCQX under the symbol BUSXF and in Frankfurt Germany under the symbol 6LG is a leading Canadian supplier of electric CNG gas and clean diesel buses for public for both public and commercial enterprise use. The company's flagship line of vicinity buses which maintain a dominant market share in Canada are produced by world-class manufacturing partners or at the company's Buy America Act compliant assembly facility in Washington State. The company's innovative vicinity lightning EV bus enabled through a strategic supply agreement with BMW seeks to lead the global transition to a more sustainable public transit system. So they are saying you can still go to grandwest.com for more information so that's interesting so they're still keeping this website not sure if they're going to change the name here or if they'll keep the site but they still have the old symbol here so I'll try to find out about that it is in the press release and as you could see currently at $7.50 what do you think of this news are you bullish on this are you waiting for a dip do you think this goes higher from here I want to show you something with their share structure which I think is extremely exciting they were already a tight float stock with a three to one reverse this makes this stock even tighter so the share structure is extremely appealing to me I believe it will be appealing to other investors as well that understand tight float stocks 29 million shares is an outstanding only a 55 million market cap with those classes and right now 166 million market cap price that today's prices so I believe this is one of the most tight float stocks right now that we are talking about very excited about the float we're going to be watching to see how it trades now that it just did the reverse now remember Rich TV Live is strictly for education entertainment purposes always do your due diligence always do your research invest in the best the best is blessed consult a financial advisor ask them what they think ask their opinion on anything before you even consider thinking about buying something we talk about here we are only talking about assets for and stocks for education and informational purposes we want to give you the information but we want you guys to do your own due diligence your own research and we have a trading club love to have you guys be a part of the trading club just go to richpicksdaily.com join the club where we have members from all over the world that are talking stocks right now love to have you be a part of that your boy Rich from Rich TV Live what do you think about the big news vicinity motor corp vicinity motor corp for the vicinity lightning EV world electric vehicle buses folks we brought it to you first and the story is just getting started your boys out but just before you leave make sure you smash that like comment down below share the video everywhere subscribe if you're live if you're not winning you're not watching it's your boy Rich from Rich TV Live in our mold


You don't run to the tape. You run through the tape. They have the tape at the finish line. You run through it. Another is when you hit it, you make sure you're still going full speed. You don't ease up. If you ease up, you're going to lose, especially in a short race. So Ramadan, we want to run through the tape. We want the last of Ramadan to be our strongest days. We want to continue Qiyam. We want to continue with the Qur'an. If you completed your khatam individually, so you finished, try to do a khatam in the last three days of Ramadan. A khatam? None? That's good advice? Yeah, try to do a khatam. Don't say, Alhamdulillah, I did a khatam. I did two khatams. Alright, you have three days left, insha'Allah. Try to do another one in those three days. We mentioned, maybe not here. No, situn khatam in Ramadan is Shafi'ih. And Abu Hanifa, who? Abu Hanifa would similarly, 60 khatams of Qur'an. That's two a day. So three days, you have time for six khatams, insha'Allah. The point is, keep going strong. As he said, especially if you fall in short, you got off to a slow start in the month, so whoever falls short, let him complete it when the best of ways, actions are based on the last. He says, enjoy. Enjoy, now's the time for enjoyment. The hard work is over. 27 days, insha'Allah. Worked really, really hard. 26, insha'Allah. Now it's time to just enjoy. Just enjoy Ramadan. And what remains of the few remaining nights of day was Saudi Rouh. And so seek to send it off with righteous deeds that will bear witness for you in the presence of the all-knowing king. Insha'Allah. The last, the actions you do in the last days of Ramadan will bear witness for you with Allah, that you were serious about the month. You took advantage of every moment of the month. You followed the advice of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Seek good in every moment that you have on this earth, especially during Ramadan. And then he says, وَوَدِّعُوهُ عِنَّ فِرَاقِيْ بِأَزْكَ تَحْيَةٍ وَالْسَلَامِ Then wave goodbye to it as it departs with the rikshi of greetings and salutations. It was the way to wave goodbye to Ramadan of the purest of salutations and greetings. Wave goodbye to the prayer. Wave goodbye to the recitation of Quran. Wave goodbye to Orad and Afqar. Wave goodbye to having your best fast. It's 7.30 in the evening and your back is straight. And you're thanking Allah for his bounties.  So you're not looking forward to Iftar with relief. You're looking forward to Iftar relief on the one hand, but regretting that now the angels are going to cease seeking forgiveness for you because the fasting is ending. So this is how we bid Ramadan farewell. May Allah Ta'ala bless us. May the Ramadan's farewell be the very best of greetings. May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala bless us to be amongst the people who cherish this precious gift that is given to us. Man and Allah. He says that one of the poets says attack the people who love and you come and kiss them when they're gone. He says do you neglect or leave off visiting the one you love for your neighbor and then you seek them out after the distance between you and visiting is very quick. After that, we'll give them a greeting and greet the people who love them and then we'll be crying the week after the distance away from them and then you ask the empty houses where they've gone to. Haqta Su'Anahum Wa Hamthul Dooron Wa Ta'udi and to Qabduk and to Qabdukit you neglect it asking about them while they were present and then you hope the houses the abandoned houses can have six of them in Makhaya. So condemn yourself, don't condemn the, the conveyances that have taken them with a Wa-Mut, a Kam-A-Den, that takes a Dek-A-Dek-A-Dek.  So, this is a love poem, but the love word is Ramadan. So, don't talk about how great Ramadan is after it's gone. At this present, you didn't show your love for it. Show your love now for the beloved. And how do we show our love again? We show our love through our worship. We show our love through our Quran, through our Qiyam, through our Dua. Allah, the Prophet, said, If you meet the night that might be the night of power, then you should say as you were saying when I walked in here, Allah, you are embodied, pardoning, you love to pardon, pardoning. To ask Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, that Allah gives us a longing for these tight days that when Ramadan ends, our hearts are filled with tears that the departure of our beloved. And that we thank Allah for the great threat from the point of Ramadan and Ramadan. As he instructs us, you complete the people, 29 or 30 days, and you are ready to keep them from you. And that you extol the presence of Allah for what he has guided you to. And some people say this is the takbir of Eid. So, completing the period of Ramadan and the takbir of Eid out of thankfulness and appreciation Allah has guided us to in order that you will give thanks. And the thankfulness is the eating and the drinking and the gifts and the blessing we enjoy for Eid. And then the thankfulness is to continue fasting the six days of Shawwad. Because if you love something, you love to get back to it. So if you really love Ramadan, then you will start fasting right away. And some scholars say this is shukr. So as Ramadan, you complete the period of Eid and then it is Eid. And then it is fastening again in Shawwad. So may Allah bless us to be part of that Tarteeb. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And may Allah bless our master Muhammad and his family. And may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon the messengers. Our master Muhammad and his family. And may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. Allah has made this gathering a special gathering for us. And after that, we will be separated from the innocent. In the month of Ramadan, O Merciful, we will be separated from the Muslims. We will be separated from the Muslims. In Sam. In Syria, O Allah. In Palestine, O Allah. In Iraq, O Allah. In Afghanistan, O Allah. In Pakistan, O Allah. In Kashmir, O Allah. In India, O Allah. In Bengal, O Allah. In Egypt, O Allah. In Sudan, O Allah. In LA, O Allah. In Hapam, O Allah. In enrichment, O Allah. In Kenya, O Allah. In Libya, O Allah. In Tunisia, O Allah. In Algeria, O Allah. In Morocco, O Allah. In Mauritania, O Allah. In Señagel, O Allah. In Gambia, O Allah. In Nigeria, O Allah. In Turkey, O Allah. In Bosnia, O Allah. Allah is in this country, O Allah. Allah has helped us in this country. Allah has helped us in this country. Allah has helped us in this country. Allah is the one who wants to be good for this Ummah, the Muhammadan. So, trust in all good. And the one who wants to be evil for them and the Muslims, then love is the most kind, the most righteous. And make them admonish them. Allah is the one who is against Islam. Allah is the one who is against the Muslims in Palestine. Allah is the one who cut off the hands of the Mu'amir. Allah has made us merciful, O Ahmad, the Merciful. Allah has helped us in this country. You are our Lord, so help us to the people of the disbelievers. Allahumma Allahumma J'ana Jami'an min utaqa'i shahri Ramadhan Allahumma Allahumma Unna Nasalka Ridaka Wal Jannah Allahumma Unna Nasalka Ridaka Wal Jannah Allahumma Unna Nasalka Ridaka Wal Jannah We'll return back to you with your shock and the Fire. Ya Aziz, ya Jabbar, Ya Aziz, ya Jabbar.   O Rahman, O Rahim, how do you fulfill the title of the dolumine? O Rahman, O Rahim, how do you fulfill the title of the dolumine?