purveyors and farmers and we started on august 28th. against all odds, we had them start where the lunch program started. we have done it for a year and we see healthy kids and kids that care about the land and kids that are learning about the garden and we are starting a farm on our campus. it goes back to each one of us had a passion and realized that we had a purpose and that our voices were just as powerful as anybody else's and why not? for my daughter and i, our motto is dream and do. we teach that to every student we work with. if you know you can dream and realistically do something to change the world, you don't have a choice. >> thank you. >> so debra, you had an enormous right out of the box with symphony of the soil. it premiered at the smithsonian and critic pick and you are in

universities and education programs. can you talk about the state of our soil. what did you learn from this film or what did you bring through in the film and what's happening with soil. if you could also talk about the world congress of soil where you just spoke last week. >> one of the really interesting things i learned, i was telling people i was going to make a film on soil in interviews before i knew about soil. i had to learn about it. one of the things i learned is that the united states is really gifted with a very high percentage of really good soil. the two most fertile soils. 43% of the soils are excellent. that's why we are the country we are. we have these resources and what we would do in america is use up the soil and move west. use it up and move west. there was always so much. we could always -- there was always more. it's shaped our character because we don't like limits. when people say to americans you

have to accept limits, that's unamerican to accept limits. our soil and resources were unlimited. if we keep farming the way we are, we will be out of top soil in 30 years. we are poisoning the soil and the agricultural system is destructive to soil and the way that nature works is nature gives back. the leaf falls from the tree and the microorganisms break that down and return the nutrients to the soil that feed the plant that grows. there is a cycle in nature that has to do with giving back and feeding the soil. industrial agriculture takes and takes and takes and doesn't give back. the soil becomes more and more deplete and they use more chemicals and more fertilizer and it's a very unhealthy system that can kill the soil and deforms it. organic organic agriculture gives back. we mirrored this.

society now and people just -- a lot of people take and take and take and they don't have to give back. we need to change this system in america to actually bring out this other quality that we have which is this is a really difficult challenge and we have to be really smart and really courageous to face it. we might not be able to do it. then americans say we can do it. i think we need to shift the idea of what it is to be american. to be patriotic. it doesn't mean we can do whatever the hell we want. let's do the right things for the right reasons. this soil film is a wonderful film and we will be selling it afterwards. we are in business. it's sold at whole foods and i have shown it at farming festivals and communities use it. we sold 30 copies just to schools in iowa over the past several months. they show it with the belly of

the beast. they show it to farmers and the nrcs which are the soil scientists of our government, part of the department of agriculture. they bought copies for their centers around the country to show farmers to help do things like cover crops. cover crops and turn those back into the soil and it returns nutrients and nitrogen so you don't have to use as much synthetic nitrogen, if any. i'm happy about that. i lovemaking films and i'm passionate about this change. i think a lot of the problems people have with health as these women have been saying, we are not growing food in the right way. even without the toxins, we are not returning nutrients to the soil. a lot of food is not nutrient-dense. it's just junk. i was in korea a couple of weeks

ago showing them at the world congress of soil science. it's the big thing for the planet and 2400 soil scientists who are all cute in their plaid shirts and khaki pants and totally wonderful people. they were there and so i was there and the film was shown as the cultural centerpiece of the congress which was an honor. so what made me feel good because film is collaborative and you have brag about it, i was putting up a poster outside the big auditorium and the morning before, i'm putting up the post and this woman walks by and said are you debra? i'm debra too and i'm from brazil and i teach soil science and i use your film in our classes. it's great. i said oh, thank you, so much. we were talking and this other german woman came by and said are you debra.

i'm from germany or europe somewhere. i use your film in classes and used all these soil scientists and said we all use it. right on. it's being shown at whole foods. it's like the next level. my philosophy is smarten up. don't dumb down. smarten up. give people information in a way they can take it in and understand it and they feel empowered. they get it and say i get that, therefore i'm going to eat organic or not put round up in my garden or show this at thanksgiving next year so we can be on the same page. soil science is cutting edge and if we change the way we do agriculture, not only is it healthy for our bodies and planet, but we can put carbon back into the soil and it helps with global warming. there reasons to be soil conscious and move away from

being soil blind to soil conscious. we are creatures of the soil and treat it as if it's part of us which it is. >> thank you. >> speaking of soil, the perfect segue because one of the things that you and moms all across this country who have educated themselves and know what's going on, they see it in their families and children, the number one thing or one of the number one things hurting our soil is chemicals and what's going into the soil. you are specifically around anti-gmo. can you talk about the passion that you have around that and the moms around the country that are here with you. >> first i will clarify that gmos are engined to with stand pesticides. it either is a pesticide and the pesticide is inside the food or

engineered to with stand pesticides. there was a 73% increase in round up, the number one herbicide used in the world. the active chemical ingredient, talk about taking, taking, taking, it takes from the soil. it draws out or holes and makes unavailable the vital nut rients of any living thing it touches. therefore causing vitamin deficiency and mineral deficiency in any living thing it touches. a plant pathologist said it gives the plant aids. it kills the immune system and therefore the normally harmless bacteria in the soil kills the weed. what is it doing to our children? that's our question. it is being used to the tune of 132 million pounds a year in the united states. 500 million pounds around the world.

it has been explosive in the use. they don't just use it on the soil before the crop is planted and they don't just use it on gmos, but they spray it as a drying agent on our rice, our wheat, our sugar, our dried 53s and beans. i'm sorry, but it's on your garbanzo beans and hummus. it's on your tea and stevia. the levels allowed by the epa are far above what is shown to destroy gut bacteria in chickens. it's a tenth of a part. scientifically proven. we allow on our food three parts per millions on sweet potatoes and 40 parts per million on the canola oils that they cook with in the restaurants. and 400 parts per million on the grains that the animals eat that we consume. and the soil is getting inundated with the agent.

we are extremely concerned about the health risk to our children and what we are seeing across the board is one out of two children have a chronic illness and all kinds of health issues. >> that goes to the point of a very highly respected researcher at mit who came out with some very alarming statistics and said at today's rate by 2025, in two children will be autistic. she is able to absolutely map the use and autism. she has a chart that shows on one exactly the use of that. >> it's not just scientists. we have testimonials from hundreds of moms. we had to reach on facebook 400,000 a week. we have thousands of people that come to our website and hundreds

of testimonials about how their kids get better off gmos. as i understand fre rhode island found out about gmos when her son was 11. they went organic and within two weeks her father said do you have him on a new drug. she said no. we just went organic. this fall he entered high school and not one of his teachers could tell he was severely autist autistic. not one. we have mothers of children with asthma and allergies and autoimmune issues across the board. the stigmatism in his eye went away. he doesn't need glasses. the doctor said it must have been a form of inflammation. it was gmos. she knows. we moms know this is the issue and what's happening with our children. >> thank you. judy, please talk about what you

are doing in the schools. you have so much range on universities and schools, but now you are doing something different and you said this feels like the most important work of your life right now and what you are engaged in. can you talk about that and why you think that's so? >> just sitting and listening to you allows me to know more of what we are doing. if you think about moms can take care of their children when they are home and attempt to take care of their children when they are not home. they are in school a big chunk of their lives. 16 years at least. they are being fed gmo food, the worst food they can be fed. everyone thinks that is okay. part of what we are trying to do is mobilizing on the campuses and encourage kids to fight the fight. we drecreated a non-gmo pantry. to show the restaurants the differences they can make just by eliminating corn, soy, canola

and transitioning it to non-gmo. that's simple and they are eliminating 90% of the impacts we are having. part of what we have to do as suddenly citizens and especially moms, we have to fight the fight in our schools and can't keep hearing we can't afford to do this and this doesn't work because we are killing our kids at the same time. we are killing off the next generation and impairing their ability to be able to have children and i think that if each of us is responsible and we work in the spheres that we can whether in the local schools or the local community and stopping round up from being sprayed in the common areas in the parks and everywhere else, we are reducing the impacts our kids are feeling. for us and for me personally if we change the way we are feeding our children and did this this year for 150 kids. the most under served kids in our population. the kids eating the worst food

three meals a day. i wanted to start there. we can make a difference. what's our responsibility to take care of these kids. i think it has been interesting because our career as it teens turning green, they say we are all under served. when it am cans to the issues, nobody is taking care of it. there some of us that are worse off than others, but i feel like the opportunity to know that you can effect change and my opportunity to stand in front of people and say you can do this in your schools and within budget and you can do it with the usda guidelines. it's an important step for all of us. we can go back to the leader

asks say stop. the more of this kind of information with the most vital piece of our lives and talking about round up and the exposures and the autism rates. who will take care of all of these kids and who is going to school them? eventually the externalities and what we are paying at the end of the day, we may not be spending the money now, but we will so spend it later and it's getting worse. for me, food is the core issue and the seminal issue of our lives and we owe it back. that's what i try to do every day. >> i want to add to how important this is. there is 31 million gmo meals served each day in our schools. what judy is doing is just crucial to the entire integrity of our culture. the survival of our culture. we will be promoting the whole process with moms across america to our moms across the country.

we had 246 leaders in 44 states. we want to get that out in our back to school campaign. it's just crucial that they are empowered in our hometowns, all of us are empowered to do things like what you are doing and make it happen and make it real. and we can. >> and i have this dream of a mac with red dots with every school that has gone gmo-free. this is the first school. i know within the year we will start seeing dots all over this map. if we can see it and it's tangible and if does it and makes the next person brave and courageous, there will be a ripple effect and the world will change. moms. >> let's take on moms here for a second. i am involved with a mom's determined project and i am just astounded at the moms and their

power. i had people talking about how we are represented in the press and the media. first we are women, but then you are just a mom. what does she know? she's just a mom. i have been meeting with moms who are the mothers of autistic children who go to bed and can speak to mitochondrial disorder unlike anybody's business. this thing that the media portrayal of just moms or just women, we run 85% of the spending of the home spent by the woman. can we talk about moms and their power and women and their power and are we gaining it? are we at a stand still and are things blocking it? >> there is a huge movement of moms right now. i just want to say historically as well, moms have been the ones to determine the longevity of

the human race. that may be a bold statement, but i say this because fathers provided. they protected and would provide for the tribe or the community. mothers were the ones that decided what the tribe and the community ate. if they fed the tribe rotten meat or questionable berries, the entire lineage would perish. they trufed their instincts up until about 20 years ago. without labeling it. mothers have not known. this attributes to the decline in the population. we are 17th on the list. the bottom of 17th top most developed countries. we have rates across the board as we said one out of two have a form of chronic illness.

we are number one in the world. the usa for infant death. on day one, than 50% of the industrialized world combined. mothers are -- we have so many friends with miskearms and birth defects and this happening in the world. we are standing up and saying something about it. i believe that the world is starting to take notice. we are not going to stop. the love for our children will never end. >> two weeks ago you had how many thousands of women call the epa? we were fed up with this issue affecting our children and asked doctors to test. they didn't have testing, but i got after them and we found one lab that would do the first testing in america. we asked our mom friends to send in urine, water, and breast milk. we found the chemical in breast

milk at levels 760 to 1600 times higher than that allowed in the drinking water in europe. astronomical levels. these are higher than the levels that were shown to destroy gut bacteria in chickens and the chicken is about the same size as an infant. this is not okay. they did not get back to us for a month. we did a-day call the epa campaign to recall round up. when a product doesn't do what it said it's going to do and they said it would pass harmlessly through the urine regardless of toxicity. the epa did not respond to the campaign and by wednesday they said can be stop? 10,000 women have called. by friday they said we have to do our jobs. i said your job is to recall round up. they said we would refer to meet with principals in d.c.

we met with them and they made promises, but they are not following through. we will go back next week and stand outside the epa and meet with whoever we can on the way in and offer them free testing. we will continue to demand to recall round up. >> one thing that is in symphony of the soil. a doctor who researches pesticides and effect on people is that one of the thing that is it does is basically ties your hand behind your back so the other chemicals and pesticides in your food are more and more powerful. there is a really nasty synergy going on between round up and the other chemicals in the soil. round up, there was a level of round up they allowed on food and because of gmos which is basically you genetically engineer something so it can be

poison and not die. round up kills everything green. so it kills everything, but the thing that is genetically engineered to with standpoint. they had to up the amount they would allow on plants because they were spraying souch round up. >> for doesn't wash off or cook off. >> the reason why the product that monsanto brought out was round up. they were going off patent and they had to figure out a way to continue their monopoly. they created seats that you had by contract had to use round up on the seeds so it makes it easy to weed. you can weet 1,000 acres one

person on a tractor. they continued to buy round up rather than the jeieric brand. >> it is a known antibiotic. it is known to be an endocrine disruptor and as we mentioned, it's a keyilator. there many thing that is a lot of people don't know. >> i'm watching the young women i live and work with, this is the next face of young women. we are not talking about little children, but women that will be giving birth at some point and who and they want to make

different choices and between the moms and the army of students, the thousands of students on campuses all over the country, the noise has to be so loud. >> this is interesting too. i wanted to talk to you about being a filmmaker and the what that means. tome people have access to equipment to make films are we diluting the power or gaining power through film? >> film is a powerful medium and it's like writing was a couple hundred years ago. everybody could write and not everybody could make a living as a writer. i have been making films for a lot of years and i love the

craft of films. my films are highly crafted and wufl and i see film as an emotional medium and they impact people emotionally so they t transforms them and they want to make changes. what they are filming is so powerful, they boo people. i love taking soil and bringing them in a film that people like seeing. film is a powerful medium and i think i'm an older generation person so i like getting information by reading it. i don't necessarily want to watch a video interview. i like long form documentaries

which you can go deeply into things, but there a lot of short things on you tube. i don't even take the films seriously. short films, 10 or 12 minutes. it affects people in different ways, but the great thing is that if you have an audience that wants information, you can get it so immediately now. they can get it on their computer and watch it. i know my work, one of the things i like is the screens where they pay a fee and they show the film and bring the kmund sog so they can all discover this information is and they meet each other and

network. having the film seen is a way to bring people together so they know who else is interested in the issues. they can startichanging things there is a lot of different kinds of films and everyone who makes a film should get an award. it's a challenging thing to sit through. >> good luck, girls. >> let's talk to that pound about education. how you all are educating women and families and communities. >> the first thing that i suggest is to have a movie night. if you have a gmo movie night and five moms share with and those share with five, you have

educated over a thousand people in your community. if they switch to organic food, that's $13 million of food, maybe even local. movie night can make a huge difference. that's a wonderful way. if you haven't seen them, it's wonderful. unacceptable levels is fantastic. there is going to be a new movie coming out which will be about round up. to watch them use the mediums they are using one of the kid made a stop in a few hours. i am watching the power of youth

and the opportunity they have to not only change the world, but to change the minds of everybody they live with on a daily basis and talk to all of their friends and families and i think the opportunity to educate now is so quick. these guys can say whatever they want to whoever they want. we will sit and come up with the project that we want to do. it's out the door and rippling all over the world. everybody tells their friends. all of our collective opportunities and the power need to engage. stop, show up, we will talk to you. we have to use every tool we have and every arsenal we have and the world will look a lot different. >> the campaign managers, 60

percent per of people still don't use facebook regularly. we need to get out in person and connecting locally. that's a reason why we are promoting the parades. when you get in a fourth of july parade three people deep for three miles, that's 49,000 people. mom to mom. you are handing them a flyer that tells about gmos and get in for free about moms across america. you can get a banner for free and you join in and let people know. you will alter their life when you give a mom a flyer and their child has autism. you will alter their if their parent has alzheimer's. we encourage you to be the ones. i like to say, be the weird one who brings organic food to the picnic and brings integrity to the table and brings truth to

the conversation. be the light this this food fight. >> i would like to remind our audience of what we are listening to. our program tonight is food fights for the 21st century. women's voices driving change. judy shills, jen honeycutt, keb raccoons garcia. we will go to audience questions. if you wouldn't mind going to the back and coming around the hall way so we don't have you on camera. i'm going to ask the question that a lot of people had. you had a fairly famous husband who is an important part of your life as well. what did jerry think about organic foods and eating right? >> well, yeah. when i met him 40 years ago, they weren't really into organic food, but i was. i was pushing and health fanatic

and stuff. it's very hard to eat well back then especially if you are a vegetarian or trying to eat healthy food if you are on the road a lot. by the 90s, things got better. when you are a rock star, you can do whatever you want. he had a private chef and get whatever food he wanted and they had a grateful dead menu that was organic and super healthy and all that stuff, but if i say it again, jer we his eating was like a lot of aspects of his life. when he was good he was very, very bad and when he was bad, he was horrid. he probably should have been good more often and he still would be here. it's hard when you are working a lot and there was a lot of demands on you. it's much easier now to be able to find orgabbic healthy food.

before you go to the health food stores and see the apples that look like they are ten years old. whole foods is a big corporation. thank god for whole foods because you can choose what you want and if you eat in season, you eat simply, you can actually -- it's not that much more expensive. we have the best food in the world in the bay area. we can grow stuff in our gardens year around. not everybody has that ability, but we do. we need to celebrate it and support it. >> a quick aside, we spent a chunk of time going to all sorts of cities and states and towns. i live by the light of whole

foods, but they are not everywhere. we found the proliferation of farm to table restaurants. chefs change their worlds because of what they put on their menus. because they are buying from all these farms and demanding organic. suddenly farms are transitioning from conventional to organic. the more we see, the more we can that change is happening. >> we interviewed a restaurant owner in dallas who said he switched over and his sales increased $10,000 a week. the longevity of the oils is longer. people want pesticide-free non-gmo food. we will pay for it. when you get autism or cancer, you spend 1,000 to $10,000 a month more for you or our society as a whole.

diabetes and the chemical destroys the body's ability to produce tryptophan ander is serotonin. if it continues at the rate it's going, we will not have money left for anything else except diabetes. this is a health crisis that needs to be attended to now. the more of us that buy organic, the cheaper and more plentiful it will be and the people who can afford it, at least the pesticides won't be in that food automatic. >> we will take a question. >> i have two. one is, any of you ladies or anybody work in the church circle?

they would get the screening rights and screen it. they thought it was a bad idea. the previous pope called gmos an abomination. i agree with you that it is. i had my films shown at churches and i think it's important because it has to do with respect for life. >> i am not big on that, but i think it's an excellent avenue. the other question is, do you realize that america's economy is based on killing people slowly and that's what you are fighting. >> what he means by that is when people get sick, it's by the chemical companies who actually

not only make the chemicals, but the pharmaceuticals to make us feel better. there is a perfect circle. bayer and dow and many chemicals and the pharmaceuticals to make us feel better. that's not a profit circle we want to support. >> nutrition is the upstream medicine. kristi, debra, zen, judy, thank you so much for this wonderful presentation. it brings peers to my eyes. thank you and tell us as an audience what are some of the things that we can do to be activists in our own local community. >> you can watch in your operates and that's just around

the corner. you can have a movie night. number three, we have things like they gave us seeds and said please stop spraying round up. our bees, we have a 30 to 60% loss of bees. every third bite of food is created by bees. we have the seed pacts and go around neighbor to neighbor and say here's a free gift for you. do you know it's found in breast fi milk and water. i mean that. every person's voiz, every person's vote, every person's phone call. bigger than monsanto, we are up against the resignation and doubt of the american people.

too many of us think our letter won't make a difference. all you need to do is have a cultured food party. make some cultured food. it's fun. it really is. you might have you need to pick a passion and figure out what matters and what's going on around your kmund. pam was 62 years old when the prop started to happen. she strove around and mobilized the team that fote the fought to get prop 37 passed. every county in california. she was one woman, but she cared that much. if we look at the communities

and get involved in your kid's school and change the way they are being fed. start a community garden. think about what you care about and find your avenue for making the change. our feds could care less. our communities are and the leaders have to listen. they are close to home and they know you & if we take something on, every one of us, everybody sitting at the table and many of you in the audience are one person that fought the fight that we believed was worth fighting. for me that's the best answer. people say i want to not use round up, but it was the first one by patenting and the alternatives do that and my best friend growing up saw it and she lives in cincinnati and said we need a farmer's market here.

she started this farmer's market and it's amazing and a big success. they closed down the whole square and everybody comes and they have bands there. all these people are growing organically because they have the market and she teaches people how to start farmers markets. it was because she saw this film and said i want that too. when people are not as food conscious, think about the consequences of your food choices. if you eat this rather than that, what are the consequences. this is pesticide laden and comes from god knows where. this is local organic and healthy and yummy and feels good helping farmers. when people are conscious of it and realize even the smallest thing they do and deciding where they will have lunch or the milk they will buy, that ripples

through the food system and that is why the organic is the fastest growing and why so many farmers are going organic. that's what they are choosing. it drives the industry crazy because no one is buying their propaganda anymore. we should get them banned, but you can't wait for them to do it. you have to do it and they will follow. do it and they will say whoa, i guess we have to go this way. even people who may eat junkie food, see if you feel better. try it, try it. they can feel good about themselves and they want to do more. it goes on and on and they become activists and take it on. >> it's perfect because it's

about pick that thing that is so important that has to do with food. for me i'm working on a project called the moms determined project and a film called moms determined. i interviewed 25 managers of autistic children. we were locked in the rooms and it was the most amazing experience. people see the teaser and ask me you must have an autistic child. i say no. there is autism in your family. i say now. there isn't. my journey started unlocking the canaries in the coal mine, the children who are screaming with medical illness that is coming from food and tox ups and chemicals and assaults in the children that i was so moved that story had to be told. this led me to open my eyes. that was very powerful for me. these moms will say to me, you

don't have any connection to autism yet you are involved here? i will forever be grateful and love you for this because these voices are not being heard and they are powerful. they are powerful and teaching people and educating like in autism one. these things are happening everywhere. people looking at long-term chronic illness are looking for answers. looking at autism for answers. it's all connected. that was the most powerful thing. even for me was taking on something that is not me or in my world. that is not affecting me, but the impact is enormous. >> this is a follow-up to both the last two tweers and i like the idea to reaching out to churchinglies and faith-based groups. i admire you all for everything you are doing.

the fact is we lot of prop 37 and lot of 522 in washington more recently. these are the two blue states. the question is how do we get that critical mass to get more people to understand this message. we are up against millions of monsanto and the grocery manufacturers who passed the labeling initiative there. we might start with safeway and every grocery store that is a member and say do you remember this group? we are not shopping here. >> i have been dealing with this issue for 15 years now, one of the things that the prop granda is, we need gmos to feed the world. all the liberals say if we need it to feed the world, i want to feed the world so i want gmos.

case closed. the labeling will increase. they say labeling will increase the cost of food which is nonsense. i think we should label it because if it will save the world and feed the world, then the people who believe you can seek those out and eat them. what are you afraid of? the people have more illness and we can start tracing it. they don't want it to be raced. we have to bust these lane ral sacred cows and we need it to feed the world and you are an elitist snob who can afford to

feed these places. bull. we need to stop subsidizing corn and subsidizing food that makes us sick and if we will subsidize anything, we need to get the programs that you are doing in the schools. we need to be more pointed with people and not let them put a guilt trip on us. the tight is turning and we have to keep at it because they are scared and there is an influential person and i won't say his name and i heard him speak and he said when i first started dealing with the organic food arena, he talked to monsanmonsan monsan monsanto, they were so arrogant and now they are worried.

i think that's only because they are getting pressure from every possible side. they have said they have a woman problem. the bloggers say their kids get better off gmo food. we are gathering medical records. that's part of the issue. we are not giving up. to the superior, they are voting on it on thursday. we are not giving up. we are going forward to get and we have to get gmos labeled. 92% of the people strongly feel that gmos should be labeled. there is no giving up. >> i think if you look back historically, there a lot of fights that have been fought long and hard and think that i

totally agree. we have a lot of younger people now that are able to help fight these fights on their smart phones and really get the word out and they are all of voting age. i think for us part of the reason that we aim our efforts at college campuses is they are the next global leaders and if we can teach them well and support things that have to change in our world, good for us. >> as we know, the great thing about food is you can do something about it. you can eat this food rather than that food where as these other problems like energy or nuclear or other things, what can we do about that? we can do something about food. i think it's a popular movement and once you know the right thing to do, you can't not know. you can't go back. once you understand that organic and healthy food is the way, you can't pretend it doesn't matter. people only get more and more insistent on what they really want.

>> next question. >> i just had a question about organic. i was thinking with the resolving doors and the fda and monsanto and all that, i with the revolving doors and the fda and monsanto, i feel like it's becoming more watered down, how do we prevent them from, how they just amount they allow on the plapts, what will stop them from allowing more harsh chemicals in the plants that we're involving. >> the national standards board. they decide what will be in organic foods or not, and they have been allowing more and more things historically. and just other types of things. organic food is not genetically

modified and it is not toxic chemicals. our involvement in this cause will make the difference. the calls to the national organic standard board. you can show up and say whatever you want. you can show up your school board, you have three minutes and they have to let you talk. you can show up the city councils and say i want organic food in my hospitals, schools, and care centers. it takes people saying these are the standards that we want for organic food and it must be protected. >> there is organic consumer association, i know you work with them, center for food safety is another one. i get their e-mails every day. if there is an issue coming up about weakening the organic standards, i always sign those petitions. it is something. and then i know what's going on and they have representatives

that go. i think in the last meeting she was arrested because she was protesting something. >> yes. she was arrested, alexis, get out there. i think it is really good to support these organizations that are working on this full time. that's really what it comes down to. they really, we need to use courts, public pressure, and supporting places like whole foods, or the good earth, we need teeth, organic has teeth now because it's big money. so i'm for that. i want them to have teeth. and i'm going to support those organizations saying you're not doing that. so i think it is individuals and it's great to align ourselves with organizations that have some chops they can bring to the table.

>> unfortunately we have only time for one more question. i would like to tell everyone listening at home this is the commonwealth commerce of california. our panelists are here with us. and i'm going to turn it over to our last question for the evening. >> thank you. thank you ladies for all of your activism for all of us. the question i have you pertains to coexistence. oregon is trying to map out where all of the fields are, but the industry is pushing back and they're saying they want coexistence. >> of course not. it's absurd, you can't have coexistence.

the gmo pollen or the gmo seeds will float across. i have something i'm very proud of, i was able to question tom vilsack at a conference i was at a couple years ago, i said you allowed gmo alphafa. he says we all have to get along, we -- i have two sons, and i love them both equally, which is organic and industrial. >> i said with all due respect, one of your sons is a bully, and he said we can all, you know, we can get along and live together, we just need to work it out. >> i said gmos can contaminate organic but organic can't contaminate gmos. but i know a person that i met with from a seed company that

met with mon tanto like 156 years ago. they were promoting coexistence. they say there is no such thing, you will control your way into contaminating every field, and the guy smiled and said i know. he told me that story and it was totally private, not recorded, and i just thought oh, man. that is their strategy, promote this false ideal of coexistence that anyone but a moron would know is unnatural and impossible to do, and gradually have gmo creep, and then it's game over. very dangerous. coexistence, that whole idea should be completely busted. do you understand how plants grow, how seeds are. really, literally, only a stupid person would believe that.

maybe i don't know how it works or i would -- no. >> animals eat the seed, and they very easily deposit it somewhere in fertilizer enter else. there is no way you can coexist. >> and it blows. >> yeah, so in addition to that, dr. lauren payne had a homeland security man visit him after 9/11 talking about food safety. you can see this video on our website. he said gmo crops, these are the most dangerous things of all. he was confuse p. >> and he said when a plague or a pest hits a mono crop, it wipes the whole thing out, and he said can i quote you on this why do we have this in the united states? he said we need to have our enemies so we can control the

food supply. >> he said why do we need to have it and he said we need to prove it's safe. >> those countries don't want it. >> no, they're clueing in, china buys 50% of the gmo soy and corn. they don't have it in their food supply, just as oils and they just feed it to their animals, but they're wising up to this and they're starting to cancel shipments. they know it contaminates. thank you. well thank you very much.

on closing tonight, i would like to ask for your twitter comment, if we were going to tweet right now, what it, just in a short sentence or few sentences what you really want to leave an entire world audience with tonight that is most important for you to get across. what is the most important thing you need to leave here tonight? >> i would say, because i turned into a soil freak, i would say healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people, healthy planet. that's it. >> i would say that -- sorry i'm losing my one thought. it's that we can make -- every single one of us can make a difference. you pick one thing, start with just one thing, somewhere, and just start. just start. you don't have to know how to do it, just do it and make a difference. >> i would follow that i would just say dream it, envision it, and do it. >> thank you.

>> so i would like to ask our moderator for your closing remarks as well. >> find a mom who is a neighbor, your mom, you're going to be a mom, find that mom and help her, educator, and let her help you. find that mom, these moms are absolutely taking it on. and so find those moms because they're nourishing all of us. and mom, in the greater sense of the world, right? planet, the earth, mom, whatever mom is for you today, find that mom and help her. i would like to thank all of our panelists here. our program was "food fights for the 21st century." women making a change. i'm kevin o'malley, thank you for being here tonight. with this i would like to close this program of the commonwealth club of california celebrating over 125 years of enlightened public discussion. [ cheers and applause ]

tonight on c-span 3, a look at journalism and national security. officials debate the need for government secrecy versus the right to a free press. coverage examines the fallout from the edward snowden surveillance leaks and the views on the obama administration's efforts to stop those leaks. that's tonight here on c-span 3. c-span's campaign coverage continue this is evening with debates across all three networks. on c-span, a senate race in west

virginia with the secretary of state natalie it tenant. they face-off in a a race for the open seat of retiring senator jay rockefeller. on c-span, in virginia's senate debate between mark warner and his republican challenger the former rnc chair ed gillespie. five candidates battling for an open seat including businessman charlie baker. you can watch live campaign 2014 coverage tonight at 7:00 eastern here on the c-span networks. we'll also bring you tonight's north carolina senate debate bring kay hagan and state representative thom tillis. that's on c-span at 9:00 eastern. here's a look at sosm of the recent television ads being released by the candidates in the race.

>> i'm kay hagan and you've seen a lot about me lately. out-of-state special interests are spending millions distorting my record. i approved this message because i am tough enough to keep taking the punches. but you deserve to hear what i'm really about. fighting to create jobs and build an economy that works for everyone. standing up for our troops and veterans. and protecting medicare and social security. so the next time you see those false attack ads, ask yourself, whose side are they on? >> my first job, a paper route. at 15 i was a short order cook. instead of college i went to work. got my degree two decades later. 25 years in business, partner at ibm. my story is not special. in america, it happens all the time. but the train wreck in washington puts all that at risk. i'm thom tillis. i approve this message. washington has it wrong but americans can make it right.

>> tell us your name. >> i'm anna. education was my way out. but i worry it won't be for my kids. under thom tillis' leadership they've cut textbook funding so much that i can't help my son with his homework. i think it's clear that thom tillis wants only a certain class of people to have opportunities. i'm a middle-class mom. his agenda is tax cuts for the wealthy. and that's not working for my family. >> i'm kay hagan and i approved this message. >> seen those ads attacking thom tillis? they're false. tillis fired the staffers. know who's paying for those sleazy ads? it's harry reid. reid is trying to fool republican voters meddling in our primary to get a vote for kay hagan. the press says the democrats fear tillis the most. he brought a conservative revolution to raleigh. that's why we need him in raleigh. don't be fooled by harry reid. >> i'm thom tillis and i approve

this message. >> you can watch tonight's debate starting at 9:00 eastern on c-span. next a group of health care professionals discussed their work in developing countries on issues ranging from reproductive health services, hiv/aids prevention and diagnosing infectious diseases. the event is about an hour long and begins with introductory remarks by barbara bush, daughter of former president george w. bush as well as the co-founder of the group global health corp. >> thank you. and i am so excited to welcome everyone here. as josh said i work with an organization called global health corp and what we do is bring new talented to the field of global health. and we work with amazing young

leaders who every day we need to remind to them that as leaders they need to bring their voices to the issues that they care about. which is why i love the aspen new voices fellowship because it's specifically ensuring that we have diverse thinkers raising their voices to effect social change. so tonight i am really excited that we will all have the opportunity to listen to ten great stories. and meet the ten great innovators who will bring them to life for us. as we all know storytelling is a powerful tool. and any great storyteller is really a great teacher. which is something that i knew growing up. i had a mother who was both a teacher and a librarian. and as you can imagine, sometimes the fun seemed like it would never stop with a mother who was a librarian. but my mother knew the powers

that stories had to open the world to my sister and me. and i think my mother also realized that stories could open our world to her. every day when we got home from school instead of my mother saying how was your day, she would say, tell me a story. and we would just talk away. and that's the way that we learned to communicate in our family. and now that i work in the field of global health, my world is dominated by numbers. we look at databases, and spreadsheets, we read percentages of stock outs and i think the biggest lesson that i've seen in global health is that for us numbers don't inspire people to act. stories do. and if you work in global health, you have to remember every single day that statistics aren't just a random number. they are actually representing the people and the families that we are trying to serve and those people's stories who desperately

want to be heard. and so, with that, i am really excited to turn the microphone over to two people that have been enormous supporters of aspen new voices fellowship. that is john and courtney. i know that tonight many of us will never have the opportunity to visit some of these places, but we can bear witness to the courage they brought to their work, and glimpse the moments they experience every day. i wanted to end with a quote they read this week as courtney and i were reading. i think it is a perfect quote for tonight. that is "engrave this upon your heart, there isn't anyone you couldn't love once you heard their story." >> good evening, everyone. it is fantastic to see so many people here to share in these stories that these voices are going to bring to the stage. we're partners in life and in work. we work with the aspen institute and with ted and several other entities to help people tell their story.

you can sit right where you are and watch people share their lives. when courtney and i were reflecting back on the year that we had previously, toward the end of 2013, both of us, without reservation, said meeting the new voices fellows in johannesburg for they're training was the most amazing thing. these are extraordinary individuals. they all have very unique and humanizing stories. >> here is a little about the structure of the event. we wanted to keep it fast, surprising, something that would be a real fresh shift from the kind of panel experience you've had today. so this will be very unlike anything else that happened today. we'll have three minute stories. three minutes and each fellow is

answering the question why do you do what you do through a story. why do you do what you do through a story. and importantly, one image. so you're going to see one image up here and hear one three minute story. what i really want to emphasize is all of these fellows, and you're not hearing from all of them, there are even more if you can believe it. all of them are policy experts, essentially. they could stand up here and do the data thing, and do the policy thing, and give you a systemic analysis and all of them are deep experts in their fields. so if any of you are media looking for experts, funders looking for really amazing organizations, all of them have them. tonight you will not hear that side of them for a very specific reason. we wanted to bring that story element. i wanted to say that very clearly. there's a lot more where that came from. i want you to just be there with them.

they're often sharing very vulnerable things. the best thing you can do as an audience is receive that gift and return it with your warmth and attention. turn off your cell phones, it means being present here and receiving the gift that you are about to receive. the best couple years of my life has been working with this crew of people. people who are warm and kind, making a shift in the world. i'm going to welcome our first speaker. she is the country director from ingender health. she loves homecooked meals but hates cooking. [ applause ] >> thank you. it was back in 1989 after five

years of going through intensive medical education at the university medical faculty that i became one of the few medical interns. wearing my gown and hanging my stethoscope around my neck like most senior doctors do, i felt so proud of myself. i felt so enthusiastic. it seems as if my addition to the pool of medical doctors would change the landscape of health and disease. and when i was first assigned as an intern to the gynecological world, i met with a senior gynecologist and the residents, and we went to the room labelled

abortion. as we entered the world, i saw rowed of beds, and on each side was a girl fighting for her life. a girl that had under gone through abortion, and arriving at the hospital losing so much blood and having serious infections. the fragile bodies of these girls laying on the beds, ivs in their arms, masks on their mouths, fighting for her life. parents and relatives in the back crying and chanting prayers.

these tragic -- this tragic situation changed me deeply at my core. for the first time in my life i felt guilty. i felt guilty because of the shattered life i had enjoyed. and i was oblivious to the untold sufferings. my community, my peers were undergoing. i felt angry at the same time. because these were a terrible situation. because i came to realize that

what is driving this is the under lying injustices and as a rule -- vulnerabilities. when i was born, it was such a joyful occasion in my family. but for so many girls it was the beginning of discrimination because girls are unfairly discriminated. when i was six years of age i was in grade one having lots of fun, playing high jump with my friends. who are girls at that age. in the rural communities, girls are taking care of other siblings. when i was age 15, i was already deep into my studies and in high school. many girls in my own community are forced to drop out of school and to get married to a man they have never seen before.

and their first sexual experience is a coerced experience. and these girls have to travel several kilometers on foot to fetch water and firewood. and they work from dawn to dusk. and when i was 23 years old, i was already an intern. and looking for what could make a good life. why girls, as i told you, are

already in the end of their life. too young to die. and the loss of so much talent. i chose to marry my husband and went to marry him. i chose when to get pregnant. and decided the number of children i wanted to have. i chose and decided the type of contraceptives i wanted to use. and i strongly believe that these choices, this critical decisions, should be made available to all girls and women. and that is why i work in women's health and that is why i'm committed to represent the choices of those girls in the gynecology world, and i'm committed to do it until the time when sexual and reproductive health, quality services are available to each girl and to each woman and their

rights is protected, respects, and fulfilled. i thank you. [ applause ] >> wow, thank you so much. our next fellow is a doctor who is a research associate with the university of michigan school of public health. you can see him wearing michigan apparel every single minute of the day. right now it's closest to his ankles, he is sporting some michigan socks. most other times it's more at eye level. he says i blink three times when i feel a sense of danger, and i strongly believe that it keeps me and my family safe. >> i remember this as if it was

yesterday. i walked about a mile to fetch drinking water. at the time i was asked what i would be when i grew up. without thinking, i said i would be a medical doctor. and i knew that i was a kid from a poor neighborhood, and that dream was real to me. my dad taught me to believe in myself, and i believed they could conquer any obstacle for my dream to make the world a better place. as i travelled 12 hours on a bus, within weeks it became

real. my dream died and it became real. headaches, fevers, but i went to class. at any cost i want today be in medical school. but i died. i was in a coma for two weeks. when i came back to life, i lost my hearing to complications of meningitis. meningitis is common in northern nigeria. this climate zone extends from the shores of senegal to the east, going over west africa. in this region every year thousands of young adults get ill with meningitis. 10% of them die.

i'm one of the few that survived. and for that anyone, i was lucky. i had never been to the north of my country, but when i travelled, it was unusual and the climate changed. i wondered if it extended to the south of our country, is that why i got meningitis? now i dream. i dream again of things to stop this from happening. because i have returned to medical school, i became a physician, and i'm now a researcher. in reality it still goes on. this year i will speak.

nigeria is battling the worst outbreak of meningitis this year. like i said, i dream. i now walk at the intersection because i always wonder what is the connection between climate change and human health. and my work is now very fulfilling. that's why i dream. i dream of a day when tapping our resources does not hurt human health. i dream of a day when everyone has access to health. in my country, poverty, lack of education, lack of -- and we know that extremism has impeded good health care. but i still dream. and i know that this dream will come true. thank you. [ applause ]

>> next up, the executive director of psi haiti. i like that she says, i like to sing in the shower but make up songs with the statistics that i have to remember before making a presentation or speech. thankfully she was just belting out whatever song she wanted for this. because there are no statistics involved. [ applause ] . >> i always knew i wanted to change the world. i wanted to change my country. haiti. here i am doing it every single

day in and out. i was working with youth. i was working with women. and hiv prevention and family planning. i was going all over around the country talking to them, reaching them, providing services and activities. i would actually change their lives and have an impact and help them change their behaviors. the more i started working, the more i started having responsibilities, the more i became frustrated. because with responsibility i started to understand the bureaucracy around our work. i started to understand the donors and their priorities and priorities that did not always meet the priorities of the people. i started to see programs that had a huge impact on the population and these programs closing and not able to continue because of lack of funding. and worst of all, i started to

see my people, the ones we wanted to help, sitting around and waiting for ngos, waiting for the international communities to come and help them. i was mad. my optimism was diminishing. i was actually asking myself, is this the life i want to have. do i want to continue doing this work. is it worth it? then, on january 12, 2010, the unbelievable happened in my country. i was at home with my husband and my children. and the ground started to shake beneath us. we had no idea what was going on. we were not prepared for this. we had not talked about that. i was scared. we were -- it was unbelievable. the four of us were fine, but what about my friends. what about my family. what about my city? at that time, all we could hear were the screams. all you could see was the smoke coming from the city. i felt powerless. here i was, wanting to change my country, and i couldn't do anything. my government was on the floor.

i felt i was shaken to my core. the next morning, at sun rise, we woke up go see what was going on, to go find my family, to go see the city. as i drove, i was speechless. there are no words to describe what i was seeing. the city was destroyed. there was so much fear, so much pain, so much suffering. we had no idea how we would stand up, rise and be able to continue as a country. then, in the middle of all this, i saw something unbelievable, i saw something unexpected. i saw courage in people's eyes. i saw a man pick up rocks to clear rubble of a house where a stranger was stranded. i saw a baker open up his store to give bread to people who have been there all night long. i saw people with their own

personal problems be there to help others. i want haitians wanting to be there for each other and be a solution instead of having to wait for the international community to come do the work. i saw that light in their eyes. i saw that possibility, that possibility that together we could come as one to be able to help each other. in the middle of the chaos, i was asking, did i want to take my children and leave the country, leave the disaster, because there was no way this could get better. there was no way haiti could stand up again. my answer was no. because i saw that light in their eyes. that light that shows me that we as a people can come together and make this country together. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, anick. our next fellow and next speaker is mary anika sando.

dr. mary sando. she is a health specialist with unicef. and if you're impressed by that, you will be more impressed to know that she loves to sing and she can do a mean imitation of celine dion. mary? [ applause ] >> the happiest day of my life was in 2009 and 2010. when i gave birth to my two children at a hospital. but as much as i felt the joy and dignity of having survived two safe deliveries, i could not forget that five years earlier, i was not the woman opt stretcher, but the woman in a white coat trying to save the life after woman on a white stretcher. but i failed.

we all failed. anna was walking into the labor room when i was walking as an intern in that hospital. she was in a very weak state. her eyes were barely open. she was very pale. her gown was stained with blood. so my team and i quickly gathered around her, taking her vitals and blood, for we knew she needed emergency blood transfusion. but in the span of like 30 minutes, anna began having difficulty in breathing. we did everything we could to save her. but all our efforts were in with vein. i remember looking at anna lying in a pool of blood and i felt very -- from us not being able to save her.

she was only 26 years old. even though i didn't know her, i knew she must have had a whole life ahead of her. how could she have just died like that? so later on, i had the courage and go out of the labor room to meet her husband. and i still recall that very painful moment of having had to inform him of the unfortunate passing of his wife of just one year. it was so difficult because their baby girl died just a few hours earlier in child birth. so later on as i gathered the medical records to certify anna's death, i realized that she was anemic from the time she was pregnant, from the begin together end. and her anemia made it very

difficult for her to survive following the severe bleeding she suffered after her birth, after the birth of her child. and so, despite all our efforts, anna became one among many tanzanian women who suffer due to severe bleeding after birth, that must succumb. seeing anna and so many women after that die because of maternal complications, was and continues to be, very heart breaking. and so, even today, 24 women die each day in my country because of maternal complications. and we know now that more than 90% of these deaths can be

prevented using very simple interventions, such as making sure women get to clinic early and any danger signs are identified and managed. but also using simple medication such as injecting women immediately after delivery to prevent them from the possibility of bleeding like anna suffering. but also simple medications, that would be able to prevent and manage women who may get complications following high blood pressure induced by their pregnancy. controlling infections after birth. and also improving emergency of care. so we know these interventions work. they have been proven to work. so as a doctor, and a mother myself, i chose to make a

difference, because it was the life of all these women and the death of one that inspire me do my work. today, anna would have been ten years older. and her daughter would have been ten years. so i do my work for them. thank you. [ applause ] >> that one really hit me. i gave birth seven months ago, and i was severely anemic throughout my pregnancy. so it just feels so recent, so relevant. and mary's work is so important. thank you, mary. next up we have a bit of a shift. this fella is a doctor, but not like the other doctors you've just heard. he is co-founder of biosense technologies. and he is just a fountain of ideas. he came up to me a couple of minutes before we started, and he said, i have an idea. i thought, uh-oh, it is about the presentation and we are getting ready to go on, and he said, there should be a reef and it could happen between me and this other fellow.

this other fellow. and i thought, this is myshkin, he has these ideas. you are lucky to hear from this infectious energetic human being. he was named after a character in a novel. and he is very glad nobody in primary school was into russian literature. here is myshkin. >> myshkin is -- [ inaudible ] [ inaudible ] so i'm one of those guys who just loves technology. you know, the latest gadget. i have to look at it, how it works. i'm one of those guys.

so in -- no, the people like me, i create marketing and marketing people, marketers, as incarnation of evil. and that is my picture. say the word. scare. big inventions. big ideas. so in 2006, i was very happy to get a chance to work for nokia in india. that was like a big thing for me. and nokia was really big in india at the time. 7 out of 10 phones were a nokia phone. so i had like hundreds of ideas buzzing. we can do this. the phone can have this. and this button here and have this and that and this and that.

and he sort of poured it out to my boss who listened patiently. and thought yeah, okay. then he said, myshkin, this time, the mobile phone business is not about mobile phones. i didn't quite get it. i was a young kid who liked technology and all that. slowly i started to understand. but it hit home to me once. i was in a shopping mall in south delhi, negotiating a contract, and i went out of his office. i was walking through the mall. and a nice big mall. very plush. i could see different brands. see big holdings.

i could see people walking fast. getting into the shops. glass. it was wonderful. and finally, i started getting it. everything moving in slow motion. like the matrix. i could see how it worked. i could see that it was not about technology. it was about the phones and washing machines. it was not about any of that at all. i could see that, patterns and kids running around and parents are looking in and they could see what was happening. and i could see their eyes light up. and i realized that they are not buying what is in the box. they are buying a new life. they are buying an idea, a hope. that their life will be better. different. that's what marketing has done to them. and this is not necessarily a bad thing. in india, this is changing the face of india. so i walk out of the mall -- i still love technology, but something inside me change. i started thinking, what if we could use this idea, this hope, this marketing. and apply it to other stuff.

sanitation, water, energy. what if we do that. so a few years later, i happened to be working with a team of doctors. we had a big idea. a big technology idea. that we could use mobile phones and electronic devices to take scans where scans do not exist. so i eventually built a platform on android, that could do imaging for urine and blood strips. it could diagnose diabetes and other complications at less than 10 cents per test. we found the company. we took it to -- my doctor friends were like, let's get funding and suddenly, i realize that's the mall scene. we will push this technology to people, let's build it together. so we essentially allowed local enterprise, we worked with local enterprises, we worked with people. so i realized it was not a big save the world idea, it was a small part after user story. so with this "matrix" scene, i

get it -- i get young people with big ideas. myshkin, there is this thing to build. i just need $1 million to prove it. i put on my best keanu reeves face and say, no. let me show you. thanks. [ applause ] >> thank you, keanu. wonderful talk. thank you so much. our next fellow and speaker is an amazing person. he is the founder of -- co-founder of amani global

works. the proud parent of four children. and he is also a coral director. but jacques also made a lasting mark in my heart when from literally the other side of the world he recited almost verbatim an article that courtney and i had written focused on dignify and design. since that time, every time we interact, jacques and i talk about the word dignity and what it means us to. it is with no greater pleasure than right now, that i get to introduce, my very special friend, jacques. >> when we hear about -- in the news, it is all about genocide. women being raped. wars. and what about this tiny island?

where i am from. of 250,000 people. that is building health care system, and driven by forgotten modernized people we call pygmies. nine years ago, my wife, a nurse, and i couldn't stand by while many people were dying from primitive diseases. we couldn't stand by while girl be married just to be taken away from the family and given to men so they could be fed. we couldn't stand by. we couldn't just sit in new york and enjoy good life. we decided to go back. and the best way we thought to change and bring our contribution to this community

was by building a -- we believe that by building that would provide many jobs to people. we believe that if people have job, they could take care of their families. three years later while exploring possibilities and to build -- we stumbled into a tiny village. we just learned that two children have died. and i asked why they died. women, who by the way, told me she was invited in 1961 to my mom's wedding, told me, what do you mean? no one will look at us. no one will touch us. i couldn't believe that in 20th century, pygmies were still --

this still exist in the eyes of other people. in fact, pygmies believe they are not human. and other members of the community believe pygmies are not human. they are not seen, they are not heard. then i asked what they thought about this -- one said, we love the idea, but what if you built a dispensary for us. will we be treated like other human beings? like human being? i was shocked. it became clear to me that it is not what they want. it is not what they thought was good for them. it is what they believe is good for them. they made it clear.

the weaker the -- i talk to communities and made it clear that they were the only people who would have to be in their -- while they didn't have money, we decided that they had to use whatever they had. so we built the first clinic. and for the first time, the humans and nonhumans work together to build the first clinic. after we succeeded, we commit -- we commit to expand the clinic. i believe in a dignifying design. i believe that if we build in the community, a beautiful building that is part of the community, that give them hope and believe in themselves. but we didn't have much land because the powerful land owners around was planted sugarcane and

as some of us know, sugarcane plantation can be prime more mosquito that transmit malaria. so people leave, suffer from malaria. we did everything we could but could not take it away. we threaten to shut down clinic, we solved the problem. then one morning, i was waken up by a group of pygmies which said we just finished the job. and the clinic is safe. they are not seen. they are not heard. they can't be because they don't exist. they don't pay taxes. so who have been looked down, they brought this beautiful idea of building a clinic and i'm happy to note in august, a beautiful hut with running water, air condition on one kilometer radius. [ applause ] it is this determination. this courage.

this belief this they also deserve being part of the community that wakes me up every morning and goes to see them. and that why i do what i do. thank you. [ applause ] >> our next speaker is a very gentle soul. i had the pleasure of working with him on his writing over the last year and i've just been repeatedly touched by how gentle and insightful he is. he also likes to share really gross-out medical stories with me that freak me out. but most of the time, he's very gentle. he's a clinical direct over gunadarma university hospital.

and his interesting fact, you can tell by now, we asked all of them one interesting fact, broke my heart. it is that he loves walking in the rain. so here he is. >> so, do you know this? we humans are in a battle with life. so here is the story. i was called on a medical mission in 300 miles away where there is a holy school that accommodates deacons and search scholars. it is also home for poor. when my medical team arrived there, we were recognizing what was going on.

many people were sick and they were along the church corridor. it was not an epidemic. it was an epidemic of born -- one of the priests told us, this is all the result of body lice infestation. we just spray bondy lice. we try to kill them on daily basis. we spray holy water on them. but they continue killing us. how could this small creature could cause this much trouble, should be a question that -- this tiny hitch hikers live with humans for millennia. and in spite of all efforts to get rid of them, they went along the ride when humans conquered the globe. they migrate with humans.

when humans evolve and lost their fur and start with clothes and preventing lice infestation, lice lost their wings. they flattened and adopt their new environment. actually, lice tend to outsmart humans, their only host. nteracs live human i so this live human interaction interweave with the germs, they can transmit.

lice could cause itching and annoyance. but the germs they carry could cause -- that is what exactly happened in the church. an epidemic of a fever. the outbreak, louse born fever, is not known in any part of the world except in the high land and in parts of sudan. so with increasing migration, it is likely that the lice could reemerge and do be the next emerging infection. and it is becoming more conducive to lice but not for humans, as you know. so we should treat lice harder than ever. otherwise it will continue killing us. thank you. >> that man's smile and gleaming

teeth juxtapose with that and we will see. our next speaker is a managing director of fine doctors nigeria. we first met a couple of years >> that man's smile and gleaming teeth juxtaposed with that has got to be one of the oddest sights you will see today. thank you. our next fellow and speaker is ola -- dr. ola. she's the managing director of flying doctors nigeria. when we first met a couple of years ago, she tried convincing me that lots of doctors are also helicopter pilots. i didn't think so. as you might be able to notice

when she steps up on stage and she's much taller than i would ever be comfortable walking on, safe walking on, ola reports that she loves shopping. ola. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> meet mr. mustafa. he is 70 years old. he is a ceo of a multinational company and he is also a billionaire. now meet his girlfriend. she's 22 years old. she's broke as hell. and she's been dating mr. mustafa for the past six months. mr. mustafa, as you may have guessed is her sugar daddy. and the basis of their

relationship is mr. mustafa t e takes responsibility for giving her money and gifts in exchange for whatever he wants. you see, he deictates what she gets and he dictates what he wants and she simply obeys. now the weirdest thing about their relation is that mr. mustafa has a lot of experience in business and economics and markets and could very, very easily empower her to be a business person just like him. but instead, he keeps her on this sort of leash giving her just enough to keep her happy but never enough to prevent her from running back to him.

i believe that there's a similar d dynamic between the west and africa. every year there are policies and clinical protocols and best practices, almost copy and pasted directly and awkwardly into africa. they're often far too expensive, which makes them unsustainable and inappropriate. and there's very, very little thought given to the concept of reverse innovation. this is the ability of african prese entrepreneurs ourselves to develop solutions and not only go to solve our healthcare problems but healthcare problems across the globe. in lots of parts of africa we transact in shops and rural marketplaces using our mobile phone. so we have mobile wallets.

and i can go up to a person selling meat or veg or rice in the rural market in the middle of nowhere and pay her with my mobile phone. here in aspen, i can't even buy a handbag with mobile money. that means that in this mall area ai -- this small area we have managed to leapfrog over the west and start using technology that has not been adapted here before. i believe that if we can succeed in leapfrogging in the single area of mobile technology, then we can leapfrog in healthcare as well. i am the founder and ceo of wft africa's first air ambulance service. every single year he would conduct hundreds of rescues across western and central africa with our planes and helicopters and team of doctors. now, our service runs much

cheaper and much leaner than our western counterparts. we have had to think outside the box a lot when it came to sourcing for medical equipment, when it came to keeping our operating costs low and we operate primarily in nigeria. so we have quite dangerous terrain to cover and to rescue people from. now, i really believe that african entrepreneurs in the next few years can join the leagues of general electric and metronic and oxylog to deliver the next generation of healthcare solutions and not just be recipients of aid but owners of trade. i often hear developmental community executives say things like -- i'm going to have to put

on my american accent. we're not the kind of organization that just gives them fish. we teach them how to fish. [ laughter ] [ applause ] but my question to that is, what if i don't like fish? what if i want steak? the truth is, that sugar daddy relationships like this one are unsustainable and rarely stand the test of time. but relationship between equals has a fighting chance. thank you. [ applause ] >> all right.

we know the kind of lady this one is. so next up we have jane atai, someone who i have profound respect for. we were on a panel earlier. i am continually touched by the direct service work that jane does and how she always centers those people which she is of course going to do again for you today. she's program adviser at jhpeigo and her interesting fact is that she loves cooking but has a hard time following western recipes because she can't find the ingredients in kenya. here she is, jane. [ applause ] >> so, i'm one person who hardly sleeps. i sleep very light. and i will be able to tell you what keeps me awake. i work in nairobi and in the advanced lands.

and in this community, about 60% of the population leaves and women and girls in this community have very scant information about health generally and especially family planning. so these are the women that i interact with every week and every day. and i keep thinking about them even in my sleep. and many of them are illiterate women. so i have to think how i can bring across the messages of health to them. in one of these meetings, i met kedra. she is a 26-year-old lady. but when you look at kedra you would think she's 40 because she's worn out. her health is very poor. when she sneaked into one of the young mother clubs, she came slowly and got in with her little baby who is actually 4 but when you look at the boy you

could think he's 2 years due to malnutriti malnutrition. it hit me that many women hear about health issues, family planning on radio and television. but they need to interact with other women in order to really have a firsthand information about how family planning works. for this reason, we have young mother clubs that have been set up where we meet weekly with these women to talk about issues of health, issues of childcare, issues of family planning, issues of marital relationships and we talk to them every week. and this message slowly comes down. but i found that there is a way that i can communicate with them. and these are my tools. i use sticks with these women. in these meetings we divide the women into four groups. some groups have seven children.

others five, three and two. for those women who have many children, soon they run out of the sticks. because they are not able to provide the food, the clothing, education for their children. and they soon realize, with many children i can't provide everything. so we ask, what are some of the coping mechanisms if you are not able to provide for the education? what do you do? these are real choices for these women. many of them will say, you know, we give the younger children food and the older children go without food. or we take the boys to school and the girls remain home. because we cannot take all the children to school. for those who have run out, they say, well, in my family, we were ten children and i decided to go into prostitution to be able to support our home. so finally

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