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What I've Learnt - Dr Alison Thompson OAM · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Waddock Allison founded Third Wave Volunteers as a first responder on September 11, 2001 in York, which has grown to over 30,000 first responders worldwide.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Allison has worked at the grassroots level in Sri Lanka, Haiti, Philippines, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Africa, and Nepal, not to mention the USA through hurricanes, Venezuela, the Bahamas, the Syrian and Venezuelan crisis, and numerous other disasters around the world.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: In 2005, Allison founded CTEC, the first tsunami early warning disaster centre in Sri Lanka, along with the Children's Learning Centre and Tsunami Museum.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: In 2008, Allison stepped up with Sean Penn, inspiring 200 Coachella concertgoers to join them on volunteering, cross-country camping trip, helping run a leukemia drive, AIDS and May Day marches, and cleaning up the environment.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Dirty Hands Caravan entered in New Orleans to assist in rebuilding the 9th ward three years after Katrina.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Alison then flew to Haiti along with Sean Penn and 10 doctors to help after the earthquake.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Together, they managed a 70,000-person RDP camp and field hospital where she was honored with the US Commander's Medal of Excellence Award.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she really is quite an extraordinary human being.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: She has worked tirelessly to help others, and the list goes on.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Traveling the globe, I mean, most recently, Alison worked on the front lines of COVID-19 with third wave first responders organising the delivery of 1.5 million N95 masks to first responders, underserved communities nationwide.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: She loves to inspire others to volunteer and lectures in universities.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So Alison, so thrilled to have such an angel on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Your story's incredible.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: You look like my sister.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to have a good conversation here.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really just the girl next door, the girl that lives next door, but maybe just down the road a little bit in a tent.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm really pretty much just like a lot of people out there.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I worked out the magic of how to do this.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So well, it's certainly and magic it is, I have to say.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, I'm very yes, we could um, I'd love to meet your sister.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So next time you're in Australia, we'll have to do a family catch-up.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So look, obviously it's multifaceted.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You you are working across so many incredible arenas.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about where this incredible empathy and willingness to do something in a crisis, where you really develop this and where this you because you have to have a very strong sense of compassion.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it all started with my parents who were missionaries and they would go out around Asia into different countries and they'd spread the message of love and everything.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I learned to be very comfortable in developing countries and in mass chaos.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: But then I taught um I developed my own kind of system in not pushing religion, but just really pushing the message of love to everyone, which I believe is all the religions together.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: We all should come together.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So September 11th, 2001, in New York City, uh, the World Trade Center, you know, Mark Twain said the two most important days of your life are the day you're born and then the day you find out why.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I found out my why September 11th, raced down there on rollerblades, a medical kit, ended up being under the North Tower, and then stayed in the streets and worked um ground zero for nine months and picking up, you know, body parts and all sorts of things.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then these professionals came along from FEMA and they said, Oh, you're doing good work, but it's time for you to leave because the professionals have to take over.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we'd look at them and we'd look down and we'd keep washing out another bunch of Feynman's eyes, and we just kept working.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: They kept coming back every day, and on the last day, they covered their badges, looked around and said, Please stay, we need everybody.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that became our motto for Third Wave Volunteers was everyone was needed because it wasn't just medical and people with all these fancy degrees.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: People needed to hand out water to everybody.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: People were the mums were at the highway giving hugs, the kids were sending cards to everybody.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody had their role to play.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how it all started.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we've pretty much been in every major natural and man-made disaster since.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we just grew from, you know, volunteers joined in and we grew and grew to thousands of volunteers.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it is really, I mean, it's almost like an epiphany you had, isn't it?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like the fact that you that story of you getting on rollerblades and and heading down to ground zero with a backpack full of things that you thought people might need.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: It really is as if you had an epiphany and that didn't you didn't seem to be concerned for your own safety.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your your response was quite an organic one.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I had a lot of friends in the building.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I lost 64 of my friends in that day.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I was rolling blades down there, and you know, us Aussies, we get out in the world and we travel and we have really pretty good lives.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I just sent this prayer to the higher power and I said, Look, if it's my time to go, I'm ready.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I really am ready.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and then nothing happened to me, and I just was, you know, the fear went, and that's that dirty four letters of fear, you know, that keep us back.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And even volunteers write to me and I'm like, oh, I just don't know how to do it.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to do it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: I said, get your return plane ticket.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: You get there, you don't like it, jump on a plane, come home and go do what you want to do.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, but people don't leave, they come and then they they they everything opens up and they realize, oh, I can do something, and they forget about their own little problems.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: So service to others, I believe, is a real happiness to the key to life.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I've found that, and I just want to share that with people.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and so you mentioned that you lost 64 of your friends, you know, in that horrible, horrible tragedy.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yet it you you went down there really, really helping anybody and everybody.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: But was part of your drive that you knew that there were people in the tower, or was it just a sense of I just have to do something?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, where was that bravery from?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know where that came from because it it just came.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew I had some skills, some medical skills.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: I knew all my friends were in the building because I was an investment banker years earlier.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I just knew I had to get there.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't quite know the World Trade Center had been attacked that way.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: They said a small plane had hit, but I'd be, I just knew something bigger was up.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted to head down to help my friends in the building, but they didn't, they didn't get out of there.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but the good message that day, it's pretty dark day, but you know, there was uh nearly 3,000 killed.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: But we really did, or the the rescue workers really did save 30 to 40,000 people, and then the humanity rose up from all around the world.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like on the third day, I had the Japanese firemen next to me on the pile, people had driven from California, a granny from Chicago serving tea.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: So everyone was just doing their bit.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's I haven't felt that since until now.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm working on the front lines of the Ukraine war the past um eight, nine months.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's when I felt it again, the whole world coming together to help in this way.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the only two times I've really felt it like that.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: But also out in the field, it feels like utopia.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many problems in the world, but when you're in a disaster, everybody comes together.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what religion, politics, race, whatever, everyone's helping everyone, and it's really nice.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: So when I come home, back to all the problems on the politics and the TV and the wars and everything, I just want to go.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I just want to be back out in the field again.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I just wish everyone could have that feeling of that unconditional love.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds like you um the third wave really is a global, human, human, global movement, really, isn't it?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the way that you've navigated that and attracted such a diverse group of people, but also as you say, I mean, maybe, I mean, I I refer to you and I know that you're referred to as an angel by many people that, you know, are mentioned in some of the reading I've been doing.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it would seem, do you think there's something, uh other than your parents being clearly missionaries and having that overarching upbringing where you give back, do you think there's something innate, you know, in that capacity?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's just because you talked about being an investment banker?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it couldn't be further from this sort of role.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I mean, one must be filling your cup a lot more, I would imagine.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my mom taught me about unconditional love.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: She was all about love.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And when a small at a young age, I met Mother Teresa as well.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, because my father was speaking at a big event where she was speaking.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I don't have a lot of these big skills, but when I arrive in areas, you know, I see there's a problem.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of us can see there's a problem.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then I surround myself with these experts to have some sort of solution and get it done.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's why with all the reforestation in Haiti, I'm not an expert arbiter or running a tsunami center, I'm not an expert oceanographer, but you you surround yourself by those people and there's always a solution.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think it it's from my mother, but also I don't know, just something inside of me, it's just I just, you know, we do see so much death and destruction, but there's so much hope and love as well.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the world doesn't exist without the love, otherwise, we still wouldn't be here if it was all the darkness.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I just feel that we can really bring this love to people, and I just keep that in mind and I keep present because you know, we do see a lot of bad, bad stuff, but I just keep in the moment, and that's that's what we all really have to do.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, from your perspective, do you think that your mother had a huge impact on you?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and as you've mentioned, and and what did you learn from her?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, she was accepting of everyone, and we were always living in the jungles or somewhere crazy out in the fields and running around with the natives and that.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just about loving everyone, and that's what she taught us, and that's what my father taught us, and he would do these great children's sketches.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: He had a TV, little TV show a long time ago, and it was just really just preaching the message of love.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and yeah, I know it, I know it came from her and other people in my life, and it's just um that's our number one mission, love in action.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in you, the Ukraine war, we're on the very front lines in the um recaptured um Ukraine villages, which the Russians have held for so long.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's sometimes there's nothing else we have to give them.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: We've given out the food and everything, so we just hug them and we just say we love you, and they don't understand anything, but they know the universal sign of love, and we just we just give them big hugs.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And some people try to pull away early, but other ones just just stay in our arms.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you hold them long enough, they just sink and they just start crying, and and that's enough to give them hugs or whatever, just to show that them some people around the world still love them, and um, and that's what that's that's the message during COVID.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty hard.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't hug anyone, so that because that's our main thing, but uh yeah, it just works.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: The power of physical touch and being present, and also you must have great faith in the power of humanity to love as well as hate, because clearly, for example, as you've outlined, the Ukraine war is just something that we can none of us can fully comprehend.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you carve that that way through peace?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, also, as you say, there there is a sense of people, it's simple things often like that.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you're a problem solver, practically at one level, but you're also a connector.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: You sound like somebody who knows how to give a lot of love.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And do you find that's sometimes the best medicine, as you've just outlined, with the Ukrainian situation?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just what about the logistics of how do you actually get in there and how do you navigate that?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a bit complicated.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I used to take at the very beginning, I take male, female doctors, nurses, and everything, but I learned only to take females.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: We have these little hats, these scrub hats we wear with hats on them, and just having the girls upbeat and happy.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I had the guys with us, they would put it, put them against the wall with machine guns to their heads because they didn't know if they were spies or what.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but us girls, we would always get through or into secret rooms and all sorts of things in Ukraine.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: They always accepted us.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So in the end, we just started taking the girls and we and we really we really enjoy that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we go in, we go in through um Turkey and then we go to Romania or Poland or Moldova.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Moldova's the quickest way in, but you can't take aid because that is one of the poorest countries in Europe, so they can be taken over by Russia in like one day because they're next door.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: So they can't take aid.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: So when we go in quick, we go through Moldova, otherwise through Romania.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's a long trip because you can't fly obviously into Ukraine.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you might drive 12, 15 hours or 20 hours from Poland in, and then you have to go through hundreds of checkpoints, um, have your passport ready.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And every time you go through these big barricaded areas with soldiers and everything, but we just learn how to do it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we did a lot of training, we trained thousands of soldiers in combat medics, which was saving lives, and just we just started to get to know everybody, and we just mention a name here or there, and we we just get around, and it's just all through the power of love.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we used to have a little cross on our shoulder on our hats, which was like a nurse's, yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, nurse medical symbol.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when we were doing the Syrian crisis, we didn't want to be a target for ISIS.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, with a I was about to say, yeah, because they thought that's when we switched to the heart.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: But uh they would have thought you were Christian, so you switched, but also the heart's so universal and has no overarching other than love lesson.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's so many spies around too when we work, you know, between Nikolev and Kherson.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many spies, and but everyone just seems to love the heart, even I don't know which whatever side you're on or whatever, but whenever we come across people, it just makes them smile.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the people Ukraine and the Russians are very stoic and like you try to smile at people in the streets and they snarl.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: They don't they just don't smile at you.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: But when we have our hats on, it seems to open up every door.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it will and so do do do you think it also protects you?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because how do you know who is a threat and who is not?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes when we arrive in a village when we know they've had, you know, 20, 30 Russian tanks that have just pulled out, you're never quite sure if there's one hiding in a tree.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes it's like feels like you're in a World War II movie, you know, when especially in the early days with the snow and the bleakness.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not quite sure if you know, like in the movies when they have a gun to the old couple's head and they're hiding in the attic.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you just you just have to be really careful.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a lot of we have a lot of security.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have like I was gonna say, so is that security something that's provided by your end?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or who how how how do they protect you?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just came to meet them through circumstances over the first few months, and um, and then they just agreed to give us protection.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: They're US troops, and there's a few Aussie troops, and a few, um, there's a lot of British troops over there.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So they um half of them go to the very front lines, they're soldiers, the others train, and they they're humanitarian, they stay humanitarians.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: So they they wanted stuff to do.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, come with us to the villages.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: They're right, okay.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: So they have a certain way of doing the cars, and we keep the engines on, and they, as we're giving it out, you don't see it in the photos of the videos when we're giving them all the food, but you've got 16 guys with machine guns faced in every direction, you know, to give protection.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we found we've just we just slip in and out and we found a way to do it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a mayor that leads to.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: He was 36.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he was captured by the Russians for three months and waterboarded and tortured, and now he's back out in a trading that prisoners, and now he's leading us out to the villages.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been good so far, but I'm not you know pushing my luck.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're very we are very careful.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, how many times have you gone into the Ukraine and and who is it that that I suppose makes that decision?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is it you?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a board?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a team?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I make the decision, and I've been in eight times.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And going back, I was supposed to go back this week, but I just got COVID for the first time, so I've been a bit weak.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to cancel this trip ago.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was like I've been around so many patients.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, nothing happened to me.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly the day before the presidential award, I you know, the day after, I got so sick I couldn't even get out of bed.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, so I'm going back in January.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be our ninth trip.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I make all the decisions and the planning, and I have so much con so many contacts on the ground now that when we're gone, we're still running our operations because we have these great girls, uh, Ukrainian girls on the ground, and all their boyfriends are like special ops and stuff.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: So they um we send them two to four thousand dollars a week and they go to the supermarket in Odessa and they fill it up with big vans full of food and everything, and it's enough food for about a month for about 250 people each week.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we just try to hit new villages.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So they go out and they go out and they send me receipts, so it's all accountable, and they're doing such a good job.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll go back and join them and we'll keep going.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: If only countries could operate like that, like as in what you've created, it's like I'm like, how is it that that you have created something so incredible and so functional, utilizing and and so resourceful?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Governments get in the way.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Governments and really big, big groups, you know, they take in hundreds of millions before they can walk out the door to do something because they've got heavy, heavy overhead.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I we've really learned that the disaster aid manuals don't work and it's all about grassroots.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you go in, there's organizations already set up in the ground in a disaster or whatever, and they may have lost everything, but there's rotary and lions club.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we all join together and I tap into the universities, get thousands of volunteers, you know.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just learned a different way of doing it and lots of mistakes along the way, but it works.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we've come to that stage where we actually disasters with all the climate stuff going on that you know, it used to be one big one a year around the world.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's just daily, daily, back to back.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's spiraling 5,000% up.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um, we need a disaster force.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know there's a space force that started over here in America, but we really need a disaster force that um can as huge as the National Guard that can really get in and start taking over these major hurricanes and floodings and volcanoes and everything.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And bushfires, I mean Australia, you know, with the bushfires and I mean the climate issues here are just massive.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: That was heartbreaking.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: We sent a lot of like money over and we sent volunteers over, but I it was the one I couldn't get over to because I was in a different disaster.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I was just crying.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't stand the animals being killed and all that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's terrible.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you triage where you're gonna be and for how long?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: You must have incredible organizational skills, is all I can think.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I have to get my eyes on the disaster.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I always go to them.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, I'm a field go, I like to be out in the field.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: I have to get my eyes on it, but as soon as I land in a disaster, I really know how long we're gonna be.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: If it's six months, I know if it's gonna be two months, I know if it's gonna be 10 years.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just know because I've done so many of them.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, but we have to get on the ground first.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we get in as soon as it happens, within 24 hours, start with search and rescue, and then we move on to solar and water filtration and all the other things we do.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I just have to get on the ground, and every disaster is completely different.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: But just hearing one woman cry because her baby's dead is the same as 24,000 crying, you know.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, that's how we do it.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I just have to have to get my eyes on it.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: We study it days before when we know it's coming, so for a hurricane or whatever, but but obviously that the earthquakes is a lot different.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, when I went to the 2004 tsunami, I thought there was 5,000 dead.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they said before I left the plane.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then I land and there's 300,000 dead.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it always goes up, you know.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: So um depends on you know how much damage there is or what the problem is or what the country is.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's just so many different things that go into logistics.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life, but I just have learned how to do it along the way.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And also, as you mentioned, you you you know who to call, like you're very good at finding who is the expert in that area.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever fear for your own safety?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, I really don't fear for my safety.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I told you before about a higher power, just release it to the universe.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know, I've I've never really felt scared.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even when there were two missiles that um we were teaching the Coast Guard, and I was with Naomi, um, she's a a lifeguard from Miami Beach.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: We were um we're just coming back from there in a car, and then two missiles were heading towards us in the air, and we looked in the back of the car and they're coming over our heads, and one landed about 500 feet to the left of our car.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, I didn't get scared, I just thought, wow, you know, I don't know.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I've been doing this so long and I've seen so much that, you know, um, but I'm not naive, you know.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I can die at any time, but um, so far things have been good.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually got hurt on the last Ukraine trip, you know.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you think that I got hurt doing something special, but actually the last day at the hotel in Moldova, I sat on a chair and it folded up and it trapped my hand and nobody can get it out.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I got injured sitting around the pool at a hotel leaving, leaving.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's so embarrassing.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that is actually surreal.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're in a war zone and you're actually that's how you injure yourself.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually it's almost yeah, it would be comical if it wasn't so serious.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And sense of humor is the most important thing I've learned out in the fields.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: A sense of humor.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: It like you everything goes wrong.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: You might plan eight things and you get one thing done, but it's that's what that's what we look for in a volunteer.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just you can just go with the flow and and a good sense of humor.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And women out in the field last a lot longer as well.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we go out sometimes for years at a location, and the men, you know, they get more physical and they run around and that, but they're the first to drop because it's all about mental.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have to be there with these people suffering.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: They've lost 28 members of their family or something in a tsunami, and you just you just have to be there for them.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so the men usually drop first and the women last longer.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most volunteers are actually white women between the age of 34 and uh 56 or something like that, and then it goes down African American, right down to the bottom of all the different types of people that volunteer, but we just accept everybody, you know, because everybody's an individual and everybody can do something.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's really fascinating though, because maybe there's something to be learnt about resilience just on a personal level, because so many people, you know, obviously you and I know people who have suffered extraordinary personal loss.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think being in such an incredibly you know monolithic crisis that there are certain sort of facilities that we in that we tap or that you tap and the volunteers what what can we learn from that?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well we're we're you know we have this male female and we have all this nurturing emotional hormones and everything so that baby survives and it's the same thing we're in a disaster we have so many injured people and people dying or whatever and we we have all those innate instincts in us to make sure these babies don't die or this person doesn't die and uh we we have that deep inside of us and you know of course I love men everything and that but it's it's time for the feminine energy to rise and you know take back a lot of what's going on in the world with the wars and the bombings and the rapes and the shootings and it's just out of control.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So females we need to rise.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm with you I am with you and also we're the nurturers and the creators and it's so interesting to me that that men use us as tools of war on many fronts as you mentioned the rapes and the terrible you know and and really women are often the ones that are the the the biggest cannon fodder on you know when it comes to this sort of to crises of many any level and yet we are the actual creators these men wouldn't exist if they weren't in somebody's womb I find it quite sort of surreal and the United the United Nations statistic is one in three women will be beaten and raped raped and beaten in her lifetime.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's over a billion women it's like you and me and another woman in a room and one of us you know I I think it's the way that they establish dominance over us because of intelligence or whatever all the different things that we magic that we have as women.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I still love you all men listening out oh yeah I love men too I don't worry I love men too but but this is not a yeah we're not man hating just saying no no no but what we are is honoring the wonderful um energy that us women have and I think that's that's something that's a synergy you and I certainly um resonate but also in a very practical sense I suppose what you're saying is we can tap into this innate nurturing capacity.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes and that is what when what you've observed in a state of crisis this is what a lot of the women can do whether it's hug someone fix something sort something and for you uh now I know you've worked with some pretty high profile people and you've won many awards of which I I've mentioned in the introduction tell me what it was like working with Sean Penn you've done quite a lot of work with him besides the fact that he's just you know incredible person and human from you know that that we we read about a lot tell me a little bit about what you've learned from him.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sean's very unique he um he's very intelligent he will see things happening a year ahead you know for example in Haiti when we had no morphine and we're amputating you know thousands and thousands of children's legs and arms and all the hell there was with little sores and whist of whiskey for the kids you know he talked to Fidel Castro and on a phone call and and um about the need for ketamine and morphine and that was sent over to us with a note of unconditional love for the people this is not politics or anything.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he has all these special moments I mean sometimes he'd be drinking rum out the back of all our tents with all the volunteers at night after a long day and he'd start calling Gorbachev or leaders of countries and then he'd start handing the phone around to these everyday volunteers like to talk to famous people or whatever.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: So he's he's a real legitimate humanitarian he really has worked hard in Haiti and other parts of the world and he's not the easiest person to get on with you know but we have our moments and uh but he does brilliant he does really good work for the world he's a real one a lot of sorry I got something in my eye there's a lot of um celebrities that fly in for the photo up for like half an hour and then everybody races out to meet them that someone goes and robs all their homes and creates much difficulties but then I've come 180 on that because um they go back and there's a story in 28,000 magazines about that celebrities visit.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So in the end people start donating more or realize that there is still need help needed in that country.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it really does help anyway.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: So Alison you were just mentioning about Sean Penn but also about celebrities in general and people that that that while he is a very genuine and present humanitarian that you've worked with quite extensively what it I suppose the challenge is is that he may have a vision to do things a certain way and you have a different vision.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is that when you buttheads a little bit yeah we we have different uh different visions but you know I took him to Haiti and I taught him how to do this and run refugee camps and to do the whole thing and when he first called me I was actually um coming out of the tsunami and I was in Hawaii training our tsunami warning officers and he calls me on the phone and I thought it was a friend I'm like all right who is this this is a joke who is this and he's like no it's Sean and that he goes I loved your documentary on the tsunami I want to take it to Khan I'm the president can I take it and I'm like I wasn't quite sure who was and then I'm like okay and I get back upstairs and and in the room I am Sam was playing so it was kind of funny um but he said look in Katrina he got in jumped on a boat and he rescued about 26 people just by himself on a boat and he realized yeah I can get in and help and there's something wrong in disasters there's not enough help in another life organization.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he was so inspired by that that when he saw my film he wanted everything to do with it and that's when we all went to Cannes together and he got Bono to walk the red carpet and we had this oh tell me that I want to hear about that it would have been incredible.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh but the thing is they go out at like midnight for dinner and then they come in at noon and I just come from a refugee camera it was really really hard but the funny thing is there's a guy Donnie one of our characters um ex-army engineer and a real blue collar guy from Newcastle great guy and he would um walk around and and he'd start talking to people in the street oh why don't you come to Sean's room to have a party yeah he's a good guy come on and he just started inviting everybody and and he would go on to boats with famous people and he got he wouldn't realize that they were famous and he'd he'd go up to uh a guy and he'd like hey don't I know you're from the Footy Club you look familiar and it was Woody Harrelson you know from from food but it was so funny and everyone was getting his his autograph and he'd walk around like a shepherd with a stick and we just had some really funny moments but it was strange going and Petra Nemkova the supermodel I didn't have any clothes and that so she let me wear one of her gowns because we were similar size even though she's 10 foot tall whatever um I just had to train you know so she helped walk the red carpet and it was just a great time we had it we had Natalie Portman we had all these celebs walking with us and um and Michael Moore he was sitting next to me at the premiere he he was crying his head off at the movie so it it went well and um but it was just just bizarre was a bizarre experience well it's an amazing it's an amazing story and documentary and also I suppose what it does show is the power of film and the the power because I know you've got the book as well the power of storytelling which is very much what this platform's about and I'm a writer as well and I I'm very I mean look at what that that suddenly put that on the world stage.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and these are real stories from the world and the thing is I'll go back to directing one day you know as a filmmaker a long time ago because I'm so tired of Superman 8 and Spider-Man 9 and 10 and we're all the indie stories they're not making it to the screen with these positive stories.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's just the same old stories being churned out well not in Australia you have great independent films down there and all the the films are coming over here but in America it's the same old stuff you know but there's interest stories we can learn.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well the documentary space I think starting to obviously I mean your your your documentary is an incredible insight it's almost like surreal you can't even believe what what's what you've seen and and and what's involved in what you do.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I suppose it does give there there are more documentaries coming out through streaming which I've noticed which I think is a good thing.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's starting to sort of get back into people's living rooms in a sense um but obviously documentary makes a great film feature film as well there's so many amazing documentaries which are I find much harder to make than a feature film when you follow a script and you you know you have your take take take with the documentary you've got 500 hours and you're trying to work out the story and the characters and but but every documentary that story is real and it makes a great film and I just wish someone would snap up all the best documentaries and make them into features because I'm just tired of the same old story.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh I'm with you I totally agree.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean fact is stranger than fiction yeah I mean that's really what you're you know you're talking about and I think the fact that you got I mean that Bono walked the red carpet that who's also a great humanitarian and that Sean Pence you know you didn't go seeking these things tell me I love yeah so we just had the premiere we had a standing ovation for half an hour and all this blah blah blah.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: So then we go to this pre this party after party and everyone was there and they waited for us to walk in and um Sean and Bono were in there and so we we walk in and then we walk through to the room and then at the same time Sean stood up and Bono stood up and there was an empty empty chair on both sides of them and they both go at the same time sit here who do you choose Bono or Sean?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Who did you choose?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to choose Bono because he flew all the way in for it but Sean had been you know taking our film to Khan and being through all this experience together and that's so I I had to choose Sean but I really wanted to choose the other world problem trying to like work out who do you choose when they both ask you to sit there I should have just sat on their laps but that was a bit that's a brilliant story.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And also it does show the impact that you're making on people who are very selective and very I mean they don't just back and support and step up for just anyone and there are a lot of people doing great work but I think that you have certainly created something quite incredible because you have created this global movement of volunteers and in that sense you've also probably changed their lives because as you said by giving you actually heal yourself in a way that's true.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh people come back from um volunteering and disasters and they say Alison I I don't I'm not fitting quite back into my world and and and all this stuff and I feel strange and I'm like that's amazing you're not a sheep anymore.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Your eyes have been open to what's really going on in the world.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: So just keep pushing that further and doing missions and you're not just the same as everyone you're unique and service to others is soul work you know it's the more you give give and you don't do it because of that the more that fills you up with really good stuff on the inside and that spills over to your husband or your boyfriend or your relationships it's your family it spills over to everything and um that's why I do it you know I love it so much.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And actually on that note how how does your family you know you're traveling extensively you're in very high danger and risk zones.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: How does your husband and your family navigate that and do they I didn't tell my mum I was in the Ukraine war until after I just got home.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: So she was fine with I didn't tell her all the bits and how close I was to the front and anything but my husband yes well I usually go off and I and then end up running a refugee camp and come back many years later.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: But now I just got married over the last five six years and I met him in Haiti in a refugee camp.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we balance it because I you know I love him and I love our relationship so I want it to work so instead of going off for years I'll go off for two weeks or three weeks and I'll come back for a week or two and then we spend time together and when I'm away he goes on business trips.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we just try to make it work.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know we have our dog Oliver so we balance him as well with our neighbors and friends and you know you can make it work.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's same as when when people have a baby you know they don't know what to do but then they just have to make it work.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we do that.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: But um but you know I I do live in refugee camps in tents in very rough situations but I love my jacuzzies and my my my medicures my pedicures my five star hotels and that so life's a balance of everything.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to balance that you know I haven't had a rest in a long time especially this year.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna go up to a ski resort for 10 days you know at Christmas and that so there's a balance um so so far it's working well my husband hasn't left me he's with me and we're still in love.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: So well I'm not surprised he hasn't left you I mean it's like you know what an extra I mean how could he even question what you've been doing today darling he loves it.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: So how does an Aussie girl find herself on the stage getting a presidential award in the heart of the US?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: I just work really hard and get my head down and try not to be a bother to anybody and I guess um they know people notice the work and we're pretty well known in America even though we're not so much known in Australia which I would love to be able to come and talk to everyone about the experiences.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then they selected me for um it was the Presidential Lifetime Service Award.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: We've been doing extraordinary and for me it's not trinkets and getting all these awards and stuff for me it's really um you know at my age it's really about these things really help our organization get lifted up and more volunteers and more donations and that so that's the main reason I go to accept these things um just to really help rise elevate yeah um tell me how was the experience for you and what was it like being in the in the company of some pretty incredible people I mean it was incredible you know I thought oh I don't get nervous but I got so nervous and the lady next to me started the Black Lives Voting Matter whole thing in America and she was receiving the award and she could see I was nervous because the the there's these two African American ladies next to me that were doing the hallelujahs and and the whole crowd rolled up and I was the last person to speak and I'm quiet and I wasn't like that.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I just look at her and she saw that and for the first time I actually did have a bit of fear and she looked at me and she goes I see you I see you so that kind of calmed me down and she's like you know she gave me the look and I got up there and I said what I had to say and it was all fine.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: But what did you say?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: What what was the nature of what you said in a snapshot?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh just about the message because we have real division here in America and the hatred is growing and the Nazi party is growing it's all over the world and um terrifying told them the example about the refugee and the volunteer about those hugs and about it was the most pure form of unconditional love because we we really didn't know each other when we when we helped people but it was just no race or wars or discrimination and that's the message about we all coming together because most of the people in that room were also African American and they've had so much hatred you know that's that's that's risen over here in the past years.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: So just a message to them that there are people out there that we were all together as one and so it ended up being good.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the next day I woke up with COVID and I was sick as a dog so I missed a lot of the events and I just had to slide.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was gonna die.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well I'm just really glad that you got to the actual award ceremony because that was pretty important.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you know you mentioned obviously there's a lot of hate in America um and it's become it's like an avalanche it's it's and certainly the anti-Semitism is is also you know as somebody who's Jewish myself I'm very very uh my radar's up very high is that something that you're seeing on the ground a lot I'm seeing it all over the world with the the Syrian crisis in Greece we had all these different camps that we were putting the Afghans and the Syrians in and the Greek Nazis were burning them down and then it's just growing everywhere but you really feel it here I helped bring down um the KKK group a few years ago in Miami.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's horrific it's the most the most racism I felt around the world and I've been everywhere has been right here in Miami in America.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Really that's really civil it's a civil war.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the Yankees you know the North against the South there's families that are torn apart here because half the family are big Trump supporters and the rest aren't or whatever.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's really it's really horrible.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I got it I can't even watch the news anymore but I need to keep updated but I just have to focus on love and what we do and love and bringing people together because it infected my heart during the Trump organization as well you know it's just a very hard time I knew him personally as well so from a long time ago playing tennis.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah so I just that's what I just have to focus on because it's it's it's changed America like people here don't even want to be here anymore because it's it's so we have to think actually yeah yeah um so do you see the Biden administration and the future in the US changing are people scared enough like I look at you know like the Kanye West incidents and and and that's been do you think there's a a trajectory where people are getting scared enough to actually take action I think you know when you when there's a hurricane when people scream and are angry and hurricanes they yell really loud when all the rest of the people are just happy and satisfied you don't hear them.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: So all we're healing is the bullies right now we're hearing the all that but everybody else is trying to rise up and fight back and that but it's hard when 74 million people voted for a person like this you know so it's a lot of people that still believe that this you know the election was stolen and all this all these that misinformation has since been disproved but they're you know but they believe it.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: So people believe you know this misinformation came from what we're dealing with in Ukraine from Portin and Russia.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's his magic tricks you know so hopefully love will rise above it love wins I keep saying we're killing Portin with love because the whole world is coming together and giving food and supplies and everything there's some dark days ahead and are you um for yourself how are you protecting yourself emotionally when you're um immersed in this pretty intense environment you have such a beautiful smile in the sense that you always you seem to be radiating love and and energy even though you're dealing with at the coal face of some of this incredibly toxic and destructive stuff.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: But as you say it's the people that you're helping that you that fills your cup.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: But what about for you personally are there times when you've thought I don't know if I can go back into that yeah after Puerto Rico disaster there was actually a lot of fake organizations that started fake or aid groups that were taking all the money and doing all these corrupt things so I just felt like wow I just feel like giving up because you know we work so hard but it's hard to raise money and then they give it to these big orgs that don't do anything in the disaster.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah it's been hard and and I stay present but the main thing is when when I'm going through all this stuff in my head I slip on my iPhone and I listen to the voice and and America's and Britain's got talent and I just listen to these great music and it fills me up and people laugh like that's the way you heal and I'm like yeah music you know I just play all this great music and I think that keeps me balanced but um I just have to focus on the good and I just I do that because I've I've seen it win over and over and over in just focus on the good and the healing and so for you you also have won an or you've you've been awarded an Order of Australia which is also a great honor.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: You see you're you're there in the States is that where you feel you can be the most effective is that why you're there well I live here and now that I have a husband and I have an actual house and everything.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah but I I'm based here but but and my work takes me all over the world.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you know usually I'm I'm gone like six seven months of the world to other countries um you know month here two months there three months this you know just so it's it this is really a base um a message is really for the world so I love that I get to travel but every time I get to travel to the places everything's destroyed but it's usually safe when everything's destroyed there's nothing else to you know to do.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I get to see everything destroyed but some places I really want to go back and see them all fixed up.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: When are you coming back to Australia soon?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just left there I was there about a month ago and my had to put my mum uh in a home and then my sister had stroke so I had to go and see them.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to race from there Ukraine to go and see them in Australia.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then the night I got back to Miami it was Hurricane Fiona hit in Puerto Rico which devastated Puerto Rico.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the next day I had to get on a plane there and then Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers catastrophe.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: So right now I'm having a break for a couple of days so well you've earned it you deserve it and we are so grateful to have such a wonderful Aussie trailblazing the globe and traversing the globe with your love your energy and your mission and next time you're in Australia you're gonna come visit me and we're gonna hear more.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to do that.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah because it's just it's just wonderful to hear all your incredible stories but also it's just a breath of fresh air even in the in the face of trauma and tragedy there's hope and you offer that.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you're just telling me a great story about coming out to Australia and you did something quite fun.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just have this friend in Australia Lisa Fox she's just an amazing human being and through her I met Donna Karen in New York and we would all hang out and so we got Richard Branson invited us with the black eyed piece to go from Sydney to Perth and Donna came and Lisa came and it was a crazy time they took all the seats out of the out of the plane and we just partied the whole way and karaoke but actually Donna stayed in in Melbourne in in Lisa's apartment and sometimes she's a little absent minded and she put the bath on and then she went for a walk and flooded her whole expensive got flooded things like that.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love it but that's the thing is that you know as as you mentioned back in the early part of the interview humor and also enjoying life as well like things like that are what keep you keep you going and keep you afloat and keep you smiling.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and and you just got to keep laughing because this world's becoming like there's some ridiculous things going on.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah so I've learned that and always check your boots for cockroaches before you put them on because I've been out in the field and come out of my tent and put my shoes on and found a mice or cockroach or a snake or a snake a spider.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: A snake I was going to say a snake's product that's really disturbing.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: There was actually a snake under my bed when I got back from Ukraine.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: It snuck into the house somehow and then in the middle of the night I saw the cat the dog chasing it and I'm like what's that and it was this long black snake and it'd been under my bed for a few days so you know stuff happens but you got to move on you've certainly got to move on you better check under your bed tonight.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah well thank you very much for having me today I've really enjoyed this I could talk forever I know we too I I could actually keep talking to my and my listeners will probably DM me saying can we hear more so we may have you back on the pod I have a feeling all right I'd love that I'd love that all right these are the little lights these are the little lights we take all over the world oh show me that they look great oh they're wonderful high yeah they're amazing they fold down flat and they recharge in the sun and then they last 14 hours straight so everywhere we go there's no electricity and it's pitch black the kids get these and they start laughing and singing we're safe we're safe we've got light so this is the magic light that we're lighting up the world it's solar um it's just and was that designed locally or in where my friend designed it and uh and you know I first saw this I get pitched everything in the world at living out in a tent in disasters and everything is too expensive and big it could only go in a church and that but this was something that every single person could have and um and then you know yes just a magical life oh well that that is a wonderful note to leave us with you really are lighting up the world yeah yeah thanks so much for listening the What I've learned podcast will now be coming to you weekly with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show so check out my What I've learned Instagram for updates.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile stay tuned kind and curious love dead