VOA – CONNECT EPISODE 96 AIR DATE 11 15 2019 TRANSCRIPT OPEN ((VO/NAT)) ((Banner)) Access to the Basics ((SOT)) ((Sean Howard-Bey, Automotive Mechanic)) That makes me happy or that makes me proud knowing that I am helping a family so they can get to their destinations in a safely manner with these vehicles ((Animation Transition)) ((SOT)) ((Janet Shelbourne, Business Teacher, Cody- Kilgore High School)) Without a grocery store, families were making other choices. They were going to other areas for school. ((Animation Transition)) ((SOT)) ((Dana Marlowe, I Support the Girls)) 35 states or whatever still have tampon taxes, making it that much more out of reach for essential items that most people who are menstruating need every single month for 5,6 days a month, multiple products per day. ((Open Animation)) BLOCK A ((PKG)) STUDENT-RUN GROCERY STORE ((Banner: Access - Groceries)) ((Reporter/Camera: Deepak Dobhal)) ((Map: Cody, Nebraska)) ((NATS)) ((Bryan Sexon, Rancher)) We'd have to go to Valentine for ice cream. So, we'd have to go 40 miles [64 km]. ((NATS)) ((Bryan Sexon, Rancher)) It’s nice to not have to drive 40 miles [64 km] to get some sort of groceries or supplies. If you are, you know, before you had to stock up. Just depended on who you are. Some people went to town every couple of weeks, some once a month. We went to Gordon once a month. It’s 90 miles [145 km] to get groceries. Lot of folks don't realize how rural it is. So, the folks that live south but have kids that come to school here, they can have their kids pick something up and take home if they needed or whatever. So, that it's a nice addition. ((NATS)) ((Janet Shelbourne, Business Teacher, Cody- Kilgore High School)) We hadn't had a grocery store in 15 years or so, in Cody. If your kids are going to school here in Cody and you come for a basketball game and you've already driven 40 miles to get here and you still can't get groceries, then you have to travel an additional. ((NATS)) ((Janet Shelbourne, Business Teacher, Cody- Kilgore High School)) Without a grocery store, families were making other choices. They were going to other areas for school. We have a lot of towns along Highway 20 here that there's a few buildings left. The churches are disappearing. The stores have all disappeared. The gas stations have disappeared. You've lost your schools. You've lost your banks. You've lost a lot of the main businesses. So that's the fear, you know. ((NATS)) ((Rocky Richards, Chairperson, Village Board)) There was just that little bit of a questionable, what are we going to do? What's going to happen if we don't get busy? My name is Rocky Richards and I have been Chair of the village board for three years. Some of those schools that haven't survived, have probably taken the town with them. And that's a sad, sad fact. ((NATS)) ((Rocky Richards, Chairperson, Village Board)) Cody-Kilgore was in a down cycle, not many students. We weren't short of students but we didn't have near as many as what we would have liked. One in-service superintendent had said, “You know, if we don't do something, in four years we might not be here. So, do you want to plan for that? Or do you want to plan to survive?” You know, you kind of hated to hear that comment coming from the superintendent, but at the same time it was kind of the kick in the seat of the pants we needed. ((NATS)) ((Janet Shelbourne, Business Teacher, Cody- Kilgore High School)) It was the brainchild of two teachers and they were just kind of joking and said, “We should build a grocery store.” That is something that would draw people to sending their children to Cody-Kilgore schools. It would draw people to want to come to Cody so it doesn't just eliminate itself off the map. ((NATS)) ((Bentley Jenkins, Recent Graduate, Cody-Kilgore High School)) This is our classroom. When we get off the van, we will load into here and if you're taking like marketing, management, accounting, business law, you'll stay in here. If you're taking work-based learning, you will go out to the floor and do whatever is needed. As you can see in here, it's a little more than just the classroom. It's kind of the storage area also. We have our grocery special orders….. ((Janet Shelbourne, Business Teacher, Cody- Kilgore High School)) It's a student run store. Students come down for classes. They also have work-based learning. They handle a lot of the day-to-day organizational things. So, we don't have payroll during the day. Their time is a huge contributing factor for the success of the store. ((Bentley Jenkins, Recent Graduate, Cody-Kilgore High School)) When we come to take classes here, we'll get off our van that the school will take us on and then we will come into the classroom, sit and Mrs. Shelbourne will come in, let us know what everybody's job is. Your job can be like one person can be running the register that hour. They can be learning how to count their change and check people out, doing the basics. Other people will like clean, stock the coolers, freezers, whatever they need to. ((NATS)) ((Janet Shelbourne, Business Teacher, Cody- Kilgore High School)) Prior to getting it up off the ground, people put in tons and tons of hours trying to figure out how this was going to work, where the funding was going to come from, applying for things, trying to make plans. ((NATS)) ((Rocky Richards, Chairperson, Village Board)) Once it looked like the store was going to become a reality and the community got behind it, people showed up. Ah, gobs of people showed up. Kids showed up. When they started building the frame, putting in the bales, stuccoing, painting, you could go past any day and see a wide variety of ages out here working on it. Cost of the building would have been way, way more if we'd had to pay for labor. ((NATS)) ((Rocky Richards, Chairperson, Village Board)) I think it’s helped stop the decline. You talk to other people and they're shopping here. So, they come for shopping. They might stop and get gas. They go across the street to the feed store, downtown to the bar and grill, the bank, maybe stop in at the school if they have kids there, get a haircut. You know they're coming to town and if they're coming to town, somebody might think that's a good place to put a new business in because it's not seen as a town that’s may be dying or fading away. It's seen as a town that has a little bit of vitality going on. ((NATS)) ((Janet Shelbourne, Business Teacher, Cody- Kilgore High School)) School enrollment has increased. We're at some of the highest levels that Cody-Kilgore has ever had. Younger people are coming to town and hoping to be able to raise their families here and attend school here. This has worked pretty well with integrating the education with the grocery store. ((NATS)) ((Rocky Richards, Chairperson, Village Board)) Our little motto is A Town Too Tough To Die. If it wasn't for the community people that wanted Cody to survive and had that attitude that we're too tough to die, we probably would have died. ((NATS)) TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up….. ((Banner)) I Support the Girls ((SOT)) ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) So, we’re on our way today to do a donation to the National Center for Children and Families, of bras and pads and tampons. And I’m just gonna go down and load up everything we have. BREAK ONE BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK B ((PKG)) I SUPPORT THE GIRLS ((Banner: Access – Feminine Products)) ((Reporter/Camera: Lisa Vohra)) ((Map: Silver Spring, Maryland)) ((NATS: Dana Marlowe)) They’ve changed their quantities, but this is fantastic. Great. This is really, really great. Is this the third time that your synagogue has collected? ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) So, I’m just a regular, full-time working mom of two kids in suburbia and over the course of a year, I had lost 35 pounds. My clothes didn’t fit right and one morning, my husband said to me, “Dana, your bras are not fitting in any direction. I really need you to kind of consider going out and buying some new bras that fit.” So, I went out, walked into my Soma and asked to get fitted for a bra. As I was getting fitted, I was speaking with the Soma sales associate and I asked her a simple question. I wanted to know what could I do with my perfectly good used bras that no longer fit me? And she told me four words that have totally changed the course of my life. She said, “HOMELESS WOMEN NEED BRAS. Full Stop.” So, I went home and went online and found a homeless shelter service provider in the Washington D.C. area and called them up and said, I just learned about this need. I have 16 perfectly good bras. Is this something that you want? And he said so quickly from the shelter, “Yes, when can you bring them here?” What else do you need? Because I don’t know what I don’t know. And he said, “Maxi pads and tampons.” Whoa! That was the first time in my life that I had ever thought what it must be like for a woman who is experiencing homelessness to have to also manage her period for 5,6,7 days a month, after month, after month. So, I put it out on my Facebook page. Here’s what I’m going to do. If you have any, you know, new or gently used bras of any kind you’d like to donate or any sealed maxi pads or tampons, let me know and I’ll come get them or you can send it to me, drop them off. I said I was going to give it for two weeks and that was in July of 2015. You can see we’re way past two weeks. ((NATS, MUSIC)) ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls) This fills up every day without fail. So, I’m just bringing in a variety of packages that have just shown up. They come from all over and they donate products and we can open up some. Oh wow, a check. This is amazing ‘cause this really helps tremendously, so thank you Rebecca. And she donated a couple of bras. ((NATS)) ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) So, we’re on our way today to do a donation to the National Center for Children and Families, of bras and pads and tampons. And I’m just going to go down and load up everything we have. ((NATS: Dana Marlowe on the phone with Rachel)) Rachel: This is Rachel. Dana: Oh, hey Rachel. This is Dana Marlowe with I Support the Girls. How are you? Rachel: Oh good. How are you? Dana: Good. I just wanna let you know that we just left. We just left my house a few minutes ago and we’re in the car on the way to NCCF and the car is totally full. I have over 17,000 products in the car and so.....yeah…..I’m so glad. ((NATS, MUSIC)) ((Locator: National Center for Children and Families, Bethesda, Maryland)) ((NATS: Dana Marlowe with man)) Man: Are they all bags that look like this? Dana: They are mostly all bags that look like garbage bags so if you have like a dolly or something? ((Popup Banner: The National Center for Children and Families helps vulnerable children, youth and families)) ((NATS, MUSIC)) ((NATS: Dana Marlowe with woman)) Woman: That’s amazing. Thank you. Dana: 35 states or whatever still have tampon taxes, making it that much more out of reach for essential items that most people who are menstruating need every single month for 5,6 days a month, multiple products per day. ((Leila Phillips, Volunteer - Donation Center, National Center for Children and Families)) We’ve never received a donation of bras and underwears here at the shelter. We don’t even have a specified bin for that item. ((Dahlia Levin, Director - External Affairs, National Center for Children and Families)) Being homeless is a huge crisis in your family. It’s like, you want to worry about your period then? ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) Right. Hence why we do what we do. ((Dahlia Levin, Director - External Affairs, National Center for Children and Families)) Yeah. ((NATS: Dana Marlowe with Jackson, So Others Might Eat)) Dana: This is my son Micah. Jackson: Micah, I am Jackson. Dana: This is Riley. Riley say hi to Jackson. Jackson: Riley, how you doing young man? Thank you guys. Dana: So we’re here to help unload today. Jackson: Okay, I’m ready when you are. Dana: Hold on. Micah can you grab those for me? Maxi pads falling down. ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) My kids help out regularly with Support the Girls, whether it’s going to the post office to collect boxes and then they’ve also joined me a couple of times when everything is packaged and ready to deliver to a domestic violence shelter, a homeless shelter. They’ve joined me in donating the products as well and getting to learn more about what these specific social service organizations do and what services they provide. ((Micah Blay, Dana Marlowe’s Son)) Today, we were bringing bras and maxi pads to this homeless shelter. ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) My boys are comfortable seeing and talking about bras and periods. ((Riley Blay, Dana Marlowe’s Son)) It’s normal for a woman to have her period. ((NATS)) ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) There are so many euphemisms that we’ve put on in society to not have to say the word menstruation. Everything from on the rag, crimson tide, that time of the month. Menstruation is really just a very normal body life cycle. ((NATS, MUSIC)) ((NATS: Dana Marlowe with Kwanda, Client, So Others Might Eat)) Dana: Hi, how are you? It’s getting warm out. Kwanda: Yeah. Dana: I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of incredible women and girls who receive our products. Dana: Riley, this is my friend Kwanda. Can you say hi? Kwanda: Hi Riley, how are you? How is life treating you? Dana: Women are so grateful to receive the bras and the tampons and pads and underwear. Kwanda: They last longer and you don’t have to go to the bathroom as frequent. It holds you better for women especially in the homeless community. ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) To date, we have around 50 I Support The Girls affiliates from I Support the Girls Detroit to I Support the girls Dallas, from I Support the Girls Phoenix to I Support the Girls in South Florida, and I Support the Girls in Australia and in Pakistan, and in all of these different cities who are running our variety of programs. ((NATS, MUSIC)) ((Dana Marlowe, I Support the Girls)) I Support the Girls love, love, love what you’re doing. These are mostly bras for tweens and teens. I hope they will make someone happy. From Jennifer….. ((NATS: Clients, So Others Might Eat)) Client: Silky blue, the baby blue bow, real nice. Client: I took the black one and a beige one. I needed black and beige. Every woman needs a black and beige bra. Keep it easy. They go with everything. ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) I hope that people can take away how basic some of these items are when it comes to dignity. When it comes to periods, that they don’t have to worry where they’re getting next month’s period supplies from because having proper menstrual hygiene products and having a bra that fits you and is supportive, does provide so much dignity for an individual. ((Kwanda, Client, So Others Might Eat)) It means a lot because your clothes fit better, you feel better and everything just goes pretty much better. ((Dana Marlowe, I support the Girls)) I hope that people understand how much of that self- worth and personal value can be interrelated with homelessness and dignity and bras and menstrual products. ((NATS, MUSIC)) TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up….. ((Banner)) Protest to Vote ((SOT)) ((Kate Clarke Lemay, Curator, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)) This is the very first time that any political party has ever staged a protest in front of the White House. BREAK TWO BUMP IN ((ANIM)) BLOCK C ((PKG)) FULL CIRCLE ((Banner: Access – The Job Market)) ((Reporter/Camera: June Soh)) ((Map: Halethorpe, Maryland)) ((NATS)) ((Sean Howard-Bey, Automotive Mechanic)) I’ve never had a real job. This is my first meaningful job. So it means so much to me. I am a certified automotive technician. ((Sean Howard-Bey, Automotive Mechanic)) I’ve got a promising future like now that I’ve got a career, I got financially stable and I am going to continue to excel in this field of automotive. I have been incarcerated since I was 15. I served 21 years. I was caught up in a drug trade. My offences were first- degree murder and first-degree assault. I was 37 when I got released. ((NATS)) ((Sean Howard-Bey, Automotive Mechanic)) The day I was released from prison this February, I felt anxious, I felt nervous, I felt happy and also I felt sad too. I learned that my father had passed away the night before. So, I had a whole bunch of feelings wrapped up in one. But the main thing that I held onto is that I got, I got to be, I got to be success. I got to, I got to do what was right. I got to, I got to not lose focus on my present moment. That motivated me to come out here and work hard and show people that we do have second chances. ((NATS)) ((Martin Schwartz, Founder, Full Circle Auto Repair and Training Center)) I founded the Full Circle Auto Repair and Training Center in 2015 in Halethorpe, Maryland just outside of Baltimore city. This program takes individuals who were previously incarcerated and we train them to be auto-mechanics and then find them jobs in the community and dealerships and local garages and help them build careers. ((NATS)) ((William Dempsey, Trainee, Full Circle Auto Repair and Training Center)) Another great thing about this program is that along with schooling and getting our certifications, they pay us. They pay us to learn because they know that we're coming home and it's hard, you know. We're here 8 hours, so we get paid 8 hours for being here. They prepare us for workforce some day we are going into. So, I am definitely appreciative of that. ((Stills Courtesy: AP)) ((Martin Schwartz, Founder, Full Circle Auto Repair and Training Center)) We have over two million people currently incarcerated in this country and more than six hundred thousand are released from prison every year. Close to 75 percent of individuals who are released from prison wind up going back within five to eight years. ((Stills Courtesy: AP)) The biggest reason for individuals going back to prison, there is actually several of them. For one thing, when they get out of prison, they get sent back to the neighborhood for the most part where they committed a crime. They don't have a job. They have to make a living somehow and they have very few skills. And in our country, there's, it's real difficult to get a job if you have a criminal background. So, we really set people up for going back to prison. ((NATS)) ((Sean Howard-Bey, Automotive Mechanic)) Full Circle is part of Vehicles for Change program where we receive donated vehicles. Fixing these cars, I become real passionate because I know these cars given to low-income families. That makes me happy or that makes me proud knowing that I am helping a family so they can get to their destinations in a safely manner with these vehicles. ((NATS)) ((Martin Schwartz, Founder, Full Circle Auto Repair and Training Center)) Since 2015 when we started the program, we've had a 120 interns come through our training program. We've had a 100 percent placement rate. So every single person who's graduated from this program has gotten a full-time job, where they can afford to take care of their families. They can buy a house. They can be active citizens in the community. ((NATS)) ((Sean Howard-Bey, Automotive Mechanic)) I am married to my childhood sweetheart. I met her when I was 12, she was 11. We’ve known each other for over 24 years. She has been a strong support in my success. Coming from where I come from, being incarcerated for over 21 years and coming home to a career, helping needy families, yes, I believe I am a success. ((NATS)) ((PKG)) SUFFRAGISTS EXHIBIT ((Banner: A Little History Access – The Vote)) ((Reporter: Julie Taboh)) ((Camera: Adam Greenbaum)) ((Adapted by: Martin Secrest)) ((Map: Washington, D.C.)) ((Music)) ((Popup Banner: After decades of struggle, US women gained the right to vote in 1920. The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery chronicled the American suffragist movement)) ((Kate Clarke Lemay, Curator, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)) Suffragists were really looking for any kind of way to get out the message that if women broke out of the domestic sphere, it was okay. So there is a cookbook that they produced which I think is kind of interesting. So like the ballot box, this exhibition really hopes to flesh out some of the context of the era by using the portraits to drive the narrative but then also by kind of filling in sort of the feeling of the era with these material cultural objects. ((NATS)) ((Kate Clarke Lemay, Curator, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)) The movement became very visual and employed this kind of visual literacy that people were developing from illustrated magazines on, from the 1890s on, and so these posters are about women's suffrage and equality and sort of the message being made very visual through a winged petasos hat or a double-sided axe and these are allegorical symbols really that date back to the Greek era, the ancient Greece. ((Kate Clarke Lemay, Curator, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)) The posters create kind of a different kind of understanding about women's freedom, women's citizenship rights that viewers would have had in a way that was different from reading a book or reading a hand bill or reading a text. ((Pop-Up Banner: US women gained the vote in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th amendment to the Constitution)) ((Kate Clarke Lemay, Curator, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)) The suffrage movement is one of the longest reform movements in American history. There is no question that it is among the most important stories in American history. CLOSING ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect ((PKG)) FREE PRESS MATTERS ((NATS)) ((Popup captions over B Roll)) We make a difference When we unmask terror When we explain the impossible When we confront an uncertain future When we give voice to the voiceless The difference is Freedom of the Press We are the Voice of America where A Free Press Matters BREAK BUMP IN ((ANIM)) ((PKG)) FREE PRESS MATTERS ((NATS)) ((Popup captions over B Roll)) Near the Turkish Embassy Washington, D.C. May 16, 2017 President Erdogan’s bodyguard attacks peaceful protesters “Those terrorists deserved to be beaten” “They should not be protesting our president” “They got what they asked for” While some people may turn away from the news We cover it reliably accurately objectively comprehensively wherever the news matters VOA A Free Press Matters SHOW ENDS