Rana Hussein: 'Do you know about sex?' Stranger than Fiction, 'Two firsts' - 2021

21 January 2021, Comedy Republic, Melbourne, Australia

One of the definitions of ‘new’ as an adjective is

produced, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time. This of course made me think about firsts. I’ve had many. So I thought I would share with you two significant firsts tonight.

Of course when you say ‘firsts’ there’s THAT first that comes to mind. For most people anyway. But growing up in a fairly conservative Indian, Muslim household THAT was never a topic of conversation. So you can imagine what a moment it was for me when at the age of 20, on the eve of my first arranged marriage, my mother sat me down to take me through the birds and the bees. So instead of a story about my first time, I thought I’d share with you the first time my hijab wearing, devout Muslim, Indian mother talked to me about sex. The conversation went something like this.

Ammi: Tumareko maloom hai? Do you know about sex?

Rana: Of course mum…

Ammi: You’re getting married tomorrow. I have had this talk with your sisters. Even your sister in law. And I've had the talk again after the wedding night when they come back confused and worried. One of them, I won’t tell you who had no idea what she was doing, and it was very hard for her. Difficult. She needed support. She kept coming back to me for months actually. She wanted the baby you see. I told her you’ve got to have some fun too. She worked it out eventually. So, don’t make that face. This is the time. Let’s go through it. Trust me, you’ll want to know.

Rana: Yeah but mum...I know already, I’m fiiiiine

Ammi: No one told me! You’re lucky you have a mum like me. I’m a doctor too you know…

Rana: Yes mum. I know. You’re a doctor, we have met before.

Ammi: Don’t be rude. Trust me. Please, let’s just go over it.

Rana: I’m 20 years old. I didn’t grow up in Hyderabad in whatever ancient time you did. I know about sex.

Actually I didn’t know about sex. Not really. Also, the idea of my very devout, Muslim mother, willing to give the birds and the bees talk felt titalating and loving at the same time.

Ammi: Now you know the man’s penis, goes into the vagina-

Rana: Yes. I know that.

Ammi: Do you know where your Vagina is?

Rana: Of course, seriously mum…

Ammi: Do you know where it is?

Rana: I mean, I know there’s the hole you pee out of and that’s not it….

Ammi: No. Ok I’m drawing you a diagram

Rana: No! Mum! I don’t need a diagram

She drew a diagram.

Rana: I mean, if you think it’ll help…

Ammi: Here, that’s your ishi (wee) hole. That’s your clitoris. Lots of women need that to be stimulated to help them along. You can ask him to touch that for you. It might help. If you keep going along here….that’s it! There! That’s the hole you want.

Rana: I...yep. Oh, ok.

Ammi: Look, it’s all in the position really. I think the best thing to do is… she begins drawing again.
You place your legs like that. He enters you like that. It should go in easy. As long as you’re relaxed. I know it’s not easy, but try your best to be as relaxed as possible. The more tense you are the more it will hurt. They’re all muscles you see. So if you make them tight, it’s just going to hurt more when he pushes through. You want his penis to slide in.

Rana: This is already quite painful thanks mum.

Ammi: Yeah, it’s just one of those things you have to get through really. No pain, no gain. It gets good. It’s all in the practice. Keep doing it and you’ll find it can be good.

Rana: Sorry, I don’t get that diagram, where are my legs-

At this point Ammi lies down on the bed and positions herself on her back with her legs spread and bent at the knees.

Rana: Oh mum! You don’t have to… Ammi is lying on her back and smiling.

Ammi: This is what I did

Rana: ...Oh yeah

Ammi: See how my legs are naturally spread, I’m making myself as wide as possible. I mean the only other way is if you’re on top, that’s good for the first time, because you’re in control. But I don’t think you should do that one. You’re not ready.

At this point my father walked in. Saw the two of us my mother spread eagle and said
Abbajaan: Ahhh, yes. Listen to her. She knows what she’s doing.

That was the birds and the bees by Mariam Hussain - as mortifying as that was I will say it’s not like I haven’t thought about those diagrams since… I wasn’t going to share this but today I called my partner and read out what I was going to read today to all of you…

Anyway it proved to be a successful chat really because years laters I fell pregnant which brings me to the other first I wanted to tell you about. I wanted to tell you about a first I had with my little girl. It was Day three of our life together as mother and daughter. I was amidst what is called the day three blues but should be called Day three hormone induced torrential flooding from the eyes. Day three after having a baby for me was like waking up on the other side of the looking glass entirely separated from the rest of the world. Dropped in a new jungle that I had to wade my way through, very much alone. On this day I was alone. My partner who I wouldn’t let out of my sight for two days had to in fact leave my side and so I was to be alone with my child for the first time. I had a C-section and was having trouble feeding and I was booked an appointment with the hospital’s in house lactation nurse.

If you haven’t seen a lactation nurse it’s basically a process of being coached on how to breastfeed your child. Something you assume is going to be some kind of magical, seamless process your body just can do the minute you become a mother. But in fact no - Some of us need some help. And on day three of being a mum I needed help. Already stressed that my body wasn’t doing what it should, that I couldn’t feed my baby, me and my painful C-section scar shuffled along the hospital corridor. My daughter was in her hospital crib and we arrived at the nurse’s office where two women were already sitting with their new babies and new mum boobs out in all their glory.

Now while Day three was truly an horrendous day. It was also the day I had decided to pull out the sweet little onesie I had bought in my pregnancy bliss a few months earlier. It was grey and little and had a tiny hood and I thought it was the cutest thing ever. I couldn’t wait for the day I got to dress my little baby girl in that onesie with the little hood.

“You’re late” said the nurse. “Sit here. Get your boobs out. Get your baby out.”

With that warm welcome I began to unwrap my little girl from her swaddle as carefully as new mothers do. At this point the nurse came over took one look at my daughter in her cute onesie with the hoodie on and said

“Urgh, that is just so unnecessary. She is a baby. She does NOT need to wear that. I understand you have a culture but she is a baby and she will overheat. You are a mother now and you have to think about that” she then tut tutted like the champion tut-tutter she was, rolled her eyes and turned her back to deal with one of the other new mothers who wasn't late and in her eyes wasn’t forcing religion on to their child at the age of three days old.

New. Introduced or discovered for the first time.

This was the first time my daughter experienced racism. This was the first time she and I experienced racism together. The first time I felt shamed for a choice I made as a mother. And while this was all very new, some of it was familiar too. With her assumptions about me, the bitterness with which she spoke to me and her unwillingness to see me or even pause for a response from me, also ignited a flipboard of muscle memory inside me. A lifetime of words spoken in the same vein, headlines splashed over newspapers, suspicious glances, utterances, assumptions directed at me. I knew it was my job to step up at that moment for my daughter. Defend her. Defend myself. Call it out. Be the change I wanted to see in the world. But I had nothing. I was tired. I was scared. I felt alone. This was the first time I felt like I truly failed as a mother. Because I sat down. Took my boobs out. Took my baby out.

Pat Caslin: 'No fifties!', Romance @ Shilling Speakers - 2022

9 February 2022, Dublin, Ireland

Dublin isn’t a big city (about a million people) so when there’s something going on, there’s generally a bit of buzz about, and you hear about it. If you want to be part of that buzz, all you need is to get some fifties in your pocket to have a good time. At home, you know where to find it. You know where the sellers hang around beforehand. You kind of have an idea of the shape of what they look like and whether they've got what you need. They nod you off to a quiet corner where there's not too many people hanging around, so they're not that visible.

I say “Can I see it?”. It was the line I wanted. I said where did you get this anyway? He said my pal couldn't come so that's why I have it. I knew fine well that he had a lot more than what he had shown me in his pocket but there you go. The deal was done in a minute or less.

In the States though it's different. We were staying in Carmel, California. There was a bit of buzz about and we wanted to be part of it, but I didn’t know how to get what I needed. I went down to the lobby of the hotel and started drinking coffee for the afternoon, trying to figure out the cut of different blokes. Which of them was going to have what I needed. I finally settled on one particular bloke that I felt kinda had the swagger and the shape that I was looking for. I approached him. I was right. “I can't get this for you”, he said “give me a minute”. He came back with a phone number. “Call this number, but you're not going to get it'll 5:00 AM tomorrow because that's when he does business”. I thanked him.

I called the number. The guy on the phone didn’t sound too savoury. He said “turn up at this address at 5:00 AM. Wait inside. Don’t be late. And, no fifties.”

The following morning, I ended up on what looked like a Wharf. One side an old stone-looking buildings. On the other rusted fishing boats. I go up to this great big door, push it open with a big creaky sound. It’s about ten to five with “don’t be late” and “no fifties” ringing in my ears.

I step inside. The door closes. The street lights gone. I'm standing there thinking “Oh my God what happens now?” There's no light in here. Two minutes in, my eyes haven't adjusted to the dark. There's still no sound, and yet I have this foreboding feeling that somebody is watching me from somewhere. I look at my watch. Five to five. Still no sound. No light. Pitch black.

I'm cold now because its summer and I only have a T shirt. Then I hear the echo of very purposeful footsteps coming towards me. A big blinding light goes on behind the guy that's now standing in front of me. All I hear is “show me the money. No fifties. ”

I pulled out the $200. It’s 10s and 20s. “there you go” I said meekly. He puts an envelope on my hands “it's in there”. With that, the light goes off and he’s gone.

It takes ten minutes in the car for my knees to stop shaking before I can drive.
When I get back to the hotel, Sue says “How did you get on?”

I say: “Get yourself out of that bed my darling, the action starts in a couple of hours and, fifties or no fifties, we are going to be part of it.

“I tell you – only that I love you madly - I wouldn’t go through that again. My legs were like jelly for about 10 minutes afterwards. It was just scary. But, you know, I’d do anything for you whether that’s getting you a halfway line ticket for the Ireland-England rugby match at Lansdowne Road, or tickets for today for the US Open Golf at Pebble Beach. We’re on.”

Pat Caslin: 'I tell my kids that the most important thing about going to college is going', 35th reunion of B.Comm class of '81, University of Dublin - 2016

19 September 2016, Dublin, Ireland

Good evening everybody. Thank you Olivia, who I'm claiming as my second cousin.
David said to me last week that he didn't want me to speak too long and to get out the red pen when I told him what I was going to say. So I told him I was going to put a governor on it by standing up.

It's great to see so many people. It really is fantastic. It is great to see all the people that have travelled. Celine has come from the Cayman Islands. Kevin and Brian, Kevin Treacy and Brian O'Reilly from New York. We have from London, Carol Dempsey, Gerard Carolan, Helen Kennedy, Pat Butler and I saw Patricia Murphy. Sorry I mean Pauline Murphy and Patricia Geraghty. Apologies Patricia. And loads of people have come from all around the country. It's fantastic to see a lot of people here.

When we came into Commerce in 1978, the points were 16, I think. To get in now, to get in now - there is commerce, and: so there’s economics and finance; there's business and law; there's international commerce and there's just regular old commerce.

But to get into Ec. and Fi. as the kids call it, you need 585 points; Business and Law is, 520; and International Commerce is 510. So, I reckon that there might have been one in our class they got into Ec and Fi; probably three or four, maybe 5 or 10 that did business and law and you know maybe in total 40 or 50. But you've got to think that that is to deny the effect of the bell curve which gathers everything into the middle and pushes it up, a sort of an academic equivalent of the Wonderbra.

Charlie Haughey was Taoiseach in 1978. The Apple fine could have repaid the entire of the Irish exchequer debt, in full.

Kerry won the all Ireland 5-11 to 9 points, the first of four in a row, and we talk now about Dublin being that dominant.

Hash was something you smoked in the corner of the bar. It had yet to become a key on your mobile phone. Instant wasn’t a word used in the context of communication other than perhaps asking your mother if she was making Bird’s Custard.

If you wanted to send a short message you put it on a piece of paper, folded it, wrote the name on it and passed it along the bench. And if you were feeling really bored, you might actually make a paper aeroplane and try your luck. Or chuck sugar cubes at John Teeling. And maybe tonight he will tell us which of his students actually got a share in his big idea. Or at least promised that they got a good grade.

Is was nearly faster to get on my motorbike and to go home then it was to dial 900896 on the phone because of the length of time it took for the dial to go back around. And it was more fun and I could drive it down Grafton street at the time.

By third year my mother no longer thought garlic bread was an hallucinogenic and that Blue Nun on was not a strange religious text sect. When she heard the accounting firms were doing the milk rounds she was delighted that someone sensible might employ us because she thought we were drinking too much anyway.

We worked. In the summers we went to the US, the UK, Germany, Holland to do all sorts of jobs. At the weekends we worked in bars and at Christmas those who got up early got into Hallmark Cards in Rathfarnham. The rest of us delivered the post.

Smoking was everywhere including upstairs on the bus. That’s gone as is the Rocky Horror Picture Show and double seats at the back of the Green Cinema.

Some things haven't changed. The 46A still comes in threes and fours. The Merrion Inn is still there as is Ashton's and Kiely’s and the Horse Show House.

And we didn't need Facebook to have our own little talent contest. Miss B. Comm 1981 isn't with us and I don't see the runner up. But when I did see him he was looking slimer and trimmer. Where is Mick Doorly?

Some of the people that were in our class didn't make it this far. You know, on a sincere note, we remember those that didn't make it. There were people that were with us at the time that didn't make it, and there were people who had huge meaning that came into our lives that didn’t make it either and we remember all of those people as we're here.

I said at the start it's great to see so many. It's great to see so many looking as well and it's great to look forward to a fantastic evening.

I tell my kids that the most important thing about going to college is going. What we did in lectures, what we did in the library - you remember the microfiche? The worlds data hadn't been indexed in 1978 - that got us the qualification that we came for, the B. Comm.

What we did outside that was growing up, was making friends, was learning to manage ourselves, learning to find our way, learning to make decisions and becoming independent. This with the real education that we got here.

We dated. There were five weddings in our class. Three them are here: Noel and Karina; Catriona and Jim; and Carol and Ken and John McKenna and Lorraine Donnellan and Terry McGuigan and Alan Monaghan as well.

We came away from here with fantastic friends that we had fun with as individuals and families; that we've left off for long periods and picked up seamlessly with whom our children who become friends and even our children have been taught by some of you. Barbara taught my daughter. She's here in second year. My son didn't get in here: the box he wanted to take wasn't on the CAO form: it said “go to UCD with my friends”.

I’m deeply honoured to be asked to do this. It’s fantastic to stand in front of a wonderful group of people that we shared so much with. I'm looking forward to this evening. I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone and maybe we might just raise a glass to the B. Comm class of 1981.

Justin: 'At this rate Carter's probably preferring his bris', son Carter's bar mitzvah - 2018

31 May 2018, Melbourne, Australia

Thank you all for coming. It means the world to us to have our family and friends here, to share this special occasion with us – or, how do you say, this simcha. I hope you are enjoying yourselves.

For some of you it’s your first bar mitzvah I believe, so I should explain that it is common to have flowers, music and catering at a bar mitzvah. It is less common to build an entire house for the event.

I do hope Carter appreciates it.

I’m not sure that Carter does appreciate it, and I’m not sure I really blame him for that.

Because for 6 months or so he has had to learn his parashah, he has had to learn so that he could stand up in shule this morning and sing it for you, in Hebrew, followed by a function with a lot of adults and not many kids.

And to make matters worse you have made very generous donations to the Royal Children’s Hospital, rather than to Rebel Sports or Xbox Fortnite or other things that some 13 year olds might prefer.

At this rate, Carter is probably preferring his bris. At least at his bris he got to drink wine and lounge around without his pants on. (Or was that me?)

But Carter is not like that. He has never been like that that.

Carter is the contented kid, with the calm demeanour, who is comfortable in his own skin.

He’s the warm and good natured kid, who makes friends easily and keeps them, just by being himself.

He is the quiet and empathetic kid, who is always more interested in what others have to say, and how others feel.

He’s the old fashioned kid, who tucks his footy jumper into his shorts, he plays hard and he would never ever backchat an umpire or opponent.

To look at Carter and his movie star eyebrows (according to his Mum) it might seem that he had it easy from the start. But that’s not the case, and Caroline and I are to blame for that…

At birth, we saddled him with a borderline boganic name.

We sandwiched him in between 2 beautiful sisters who would rather dance and sing than kick a torp or do something that a brother might find useful.

And Mum and I were both late developers, so, Carter, you may not hit puberty until university, but that’s OK.
None of this has held him back. He is, in sporting parlance, “very coachable”. When Carter encounters a problem he will think hard about how to overcome it and he will work at it until he achieves just that.
I used to thump him in table tennis. I took inordinate pride in it. He was a shocking sport about it. We hadn’t played for 6 months or so when he asked me to play again and I knew from the very first shot that it was on. The ball flew past my bat and he had that spring in his step. He beat me in straight sets. I asked him what the hell just happened. It turns out he had spent the last 6 months at the Marabels’ house – the Marabels’ house is a purpose-built facility in East Hawthorn where they make big, strong, athletic Jewish kids – and they had taken it upon themselves to train him up, Rocky style, set to music I imagine, until he had perfected table tennis. I know I will never beat him again. (And so we will never play again.)

Carter has never liked change very much. He was the baby who went to sleep school and refused to succumb to the nurses’ “foolproof” method for patting babies to sleep.

He was the kid at crèche who had to be prized away from Mum kicking and screaming each morning, breaking her heart in the process every day.

He was the kid at kindergarten who wore a Superman outfit for 6 months straight – at the time we worried that he would still be wearing it for his bar mitzvah.

And he is still the kid who would always rather stay at home, in his tiger onesie with the hole in the back, and hang out with his sisters Amelie and Daisy, whom he adores and who adore him even if they cleverly disguise it most of the time.

So it was a surprise to Caroline and I, to say the least, when Carter announced last year that he wanted to change schools for his secondary schooling. He was very happy at school and has many dear friends there but I think he identified that he needed a change and a challenge, and so that’s what he did. He really hasn’t skipped a beat this year.

We so proud of you Carter - and so proud of your sisters, Amelie and Daisy.

When the kids were born, and I distinctly remember this, Caroline and I said that the kids would be half Jewish and half Christian.

I’m still waiting for the Christian half of the deal to kick in…

This is entirely my fault. Having avoided conversion when Caroline and I become engaged and then married, my world has since become steeped in Jewish people, institutions and customs.

I consider it a privilege to be an active participant in the Jewish community, through the large and vibrant Cohen family, through our dear friends, and through St Kilda shule and Ajax footy club.

But that is not to say that it is my community or that it will ever be my community.

And for that, Carter, I envy you, with your access all areas pass, for all time.

Whenever I sat and listened to you practise for your bar mitzvah with Brett Kaye, the Chazzan, and whenever I have heard you sing in shule and receive a blessing, I have been struck by how in those moments you could trace your experience back in time, through centuries and even millennia – and how you have an unbroken lineage and connection with all those who have come before you, and all those who will come after you, in the Cohen family and in the wider Jewish community in Melbourne and across the world.

Treasure that connection. Be proud of it. Never take it for granted. And on this your bar mitzvah, celebrate it.

And then enjoy Easter and Christmas, with the rest of your family. (And you can choose what’s better!)
And one day I will take you to church and you can see for yourself how quiet and well behaved people can be during a religious service. You will be amazed.

Of course, Mum will worry that I am becoming all born-again Baptist, and that you might too, and we will wind her up about that, which is one of our favourite things to do.

Carter, as you become bar mitzvah I feel I should impart some words of advice to you. So here goes …
First, learn everything you can from the elders in your life – especially your 4 grandparents who all love you so much and have so much to offer you from their broad experiences and their different perspectives on life. Speak with them often about what is going on in your life and what is going on in theirs.

Second, challenge yourself. Operate outside your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to take a risk and try something new. You may find something you are passionate about and you may learn something new about yourself.

Third, and related to the second, don’t be too hard on yourself. It is the thing that drives you, but keep it in check. It’s good to do your best and succeed, but it’s also OK not to succeed - no-one who really matters will think any less of you for it.

Finally, get off devices. Not totally, but mostly. Whenever you can, choose a book, a ball, a conversation. You will feel more fulfilled if you do.

Carter, the truth is that you really don’t need much advice from me– you’ve got it pretty much worked out, and what you haven’t, you’re smart enough to work out for yourself.

We are so proud of you. Mazel tov

Richard Siegersma: 'Maybe a bit like a shining star that never goes out', Farewell to Dr Francis Macnab from St Michael's - 2016

19 December 2016, St Michael’s, Melbourne, Australia

To summarize 45 years of Ministry in one place by one man is daunting. And yet a delight.

Being a part of the St Michael’s community we have all seen, heard and felt things that would not otherwise have been part of our lives. Our spirits have been lifted and lives improved because we found a place where religion, psychology and spirituality could be wrapped up all together – intelligently, logically and meaningfully.

So how to reflect on this special time at St Michael’s? Maybe a snapshot with 4 words’ beginnings with V ….

Vision: who would have thought that today we would have the insights, environment and understandings we have received - if there was no vision. Dreams can come true and we all know this dream was realized. The path was set and the journey embarked on without fear or favour and the results speak for themselves. – so.. Vision,

Vital – The world needs St Michael’s, Melbourne needs St Michael’s, you need St Michael’s – I need St Michaels. It’s like a Vitamin pill… (a bonus V for you). An enhancer, an improver… providing us with a view of the world that is vital for our well-being and more importantly the impact we have on others and the wider world. …….Vital

Vibrant- There is energy at St Michael’s that people feel when they are part of the community or just a visitor. It’s more than the sensationally restored building or the uplifting music or the message… It’s the way the zest for life is being integrated into everything we do here. …… Vibrant

Volume – no this is not about the sound system … this is about the incredible amount of material that has been accumulated over these years - and not in just one area. Who would ever have predicted that so many books would have been written, music scores composed, poems presented, sanctuaries designed, tapestries and sculptures commissioned, new hymns provided and over 2000 addresses given. Truly a remarkable output from one man. _ ….. Volume

So Thank You Dr Macnab. Your Ministry at St Michael’s is revolutionary and ground breaking. It will continue to influence the future generations who choose to make St Michael’s their spiritual home and far beyond.

Maybe a bit like a shining star… that never goes out.

And you all know what 4 V’s make when you put them together … a Star. Dr Macnab - you are our Star!

Natalia Markham: 'Solving World Hunger'., World Speech Day - 2019

Natalia Markham is a first year student at Daytona State College. She delivered the following for World Speech Day

15 Mach 2019, Daytona State College, Daytona Beach, Florida, USA

In east Africa children like 9-month-old, Akusi, are wasting away. When baby Akusi wasn’t thriving. Her mother, Lomukuny, knew why. “When I was pregnant, I had nothing to eat,” she explained. Lomukuny became malnourished and unwell. “You are hungry, and then you get sick,” she says.

Unfortunately, Akusi started life with two strikes against her — born to a malnourished mother and without a father to care for her. Because the region was exploding with malnutrition, supply could not keep up with demand.

Akusi was named for the wind that was blowing at the time of her birth. Now she faces a storm that will not abate until the world comes together to respond. To this day, Akusi holds on by a strand to survive.

This story was shared by worldvision.org. This story did not have a happy ending. But it does have an ending we can change. World hunger can be stopped one small step at a time. World hunger is happening around us. As world citizens working on making a positive impact, we should ask, who is it affecting? Where is it occurring? What can be done to battle against it? What does it mean to be hungry?

As told by, mercycorps.org, “Being hungry means more than just missing a meal. It’s a debilitating crisis that has more than 820 million people in its grip.” It goes on to say, “Families who struggle with chronic hunger and malnutrition consistently go without the nutrients their minds and bodies need, which then prevents them from being able to work, go to school, or improve their lives.”

It’s a domino effect for the worse. People suffering from chronic hunger are plagued with recurring illnesses, developmental disabilities and low productivity. They are often forced to use all their limited physical and financial resources just to put food on the table. It would be difficult to go on like that. But people who are hungry fight for their health daily.

But what caused such widespread hunger to exist in the first place? Wfp.org produced studies suggesting, “ It’s not just weather and harvest patterns that lead to hunger: War and conflict are also among the leading destroyers of food security. In South Sudan, civil war has led to mass displacement and abandoned fields. The resulting crop failure, combined with a soaring inflation rate that puts imported food out of reach, has left 3.5 million people hungry. Similarly, Yemen’s ongoing conflict has led to nearly 18 million people facing hunger — over 65% of the population.” In addition to that, The highest number of malnourished people, 520 million, lives in Asia and the Pacific, in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines.

Among those who are hungry, climate change plays a significant role. When weather conditions are poor it is difficult to impossible to harvest good crops. Other issues like, gender inequality force women and children into a lower status of importance. In regards to food, they are not getting it first.

Next, it may come as a surprise but, a third of the food produced around the world is never consumed. Gogonline.org says. Last but not least, policy stops people from getting what they need. It all sounds terrible and overwhelming, but there are ways to help. How can we help? When we come together, we have more power.

What does a world without hunger look like? It looks like everyone having the nutritious meals they need to flourish. Churches, charities, food banks, and non-profit organizations cannot get there alone. Government programs and policies play an important role too. School feeding programs can help prevent hunger, increase school enrollment, reduce absenteeism and improve learning outcome. People would be able to work not only to put food on their table but to be able to have money left-over to live comfortably as well.

What are the benefits of our efforts to solve world hunger? More people would be able to enjoy a longer life. Good nutrition can allow so many people to be able to live and love for many more years than they would otherwise. Mother Theresa once said an inspiring quote that holds true for each of us. It says, “if you can’t feed a hundred, then feed just one.”

There are people out there struggling each day to survive because of hunger. It’s debilitating, it’s heartbreaking, and ultimately, it’s life threatening. It’s not just something that is talked about on the news or said as a push to clear your plate, it’s real and it’s affecting a vast number of people. It doesn’t take a huge donation or a lifetime commitment to help solve this problem. It takes small steps.

Moving forward, we as world citizens could help others to have an ending that is far from tragic.

Works Cited: https://www.worldvision.org/blog/cost-hunger-story-needs-change’ June 27, 2017 This website tells a story about a baby that was born into an environment in which she would face hunger. It discusses baby Akusi’s background and how she is now. http://gogonline.org/magazine/5-shocking-hunger-facts/ March 19, 2019 This website shares surprising facts about hunger. It focuses in on 5 specific facts. Each fact comes with an image. https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-global-hunger October 1, 2018 This website shares interesting facts about world hunger. It explains causes of hunger in detail. http://www.bread.org/how-end-hunger October 1, 2017 This website discusses ways to help stop hunger. It talks about programs, community support and numerous ways to take action. https://www.riseagainsthunger.org/understanding-hunger/world-hunger-facts/ January 27, 2017 This website discusses resources that can be used to help stop world hunger. It shows that we can help provide relief, even in small ways.

for Zamaphemba Mbhele: 'My mother, my hero', by daughter Anele, birthday speech - 2019

5 April 2019, Zamaphemba, South Africa

My mother is my hero.This woman I'm talking about carried me nine months without even thinking to abort or dump me.She created a bond between me and her by breastfeeding me.She always hides her weaknesses for my sake.She taught me to change my weaknesses to my strengths as well as my threats to my opportunities.This women I'm talking about is a survivor.She raised me up all by herself. I am taking this opportunity to thank her.I am not bragging about her but all I'm saying is that if you still have your mother respect her,cheer her up and make her proud because there are other children who want the opportunity to make their mothers happy but because they're gone there's nothing they can do.I salute single mothers!

John Markham: 'The majority of Americans are not prepared for a disaster', Lake County Florida Emergency Preparedness, Eagle Scout Project - 2012

27 November 2012, Lake County, Florida, USA

Lindy Burns: 'Well, finally, after 28 years of broadcasting, it’s come to this', ABC Evenings goodbye - 2018

These were the remarks as prepared for delivery. Lindy ran short on time and did some on the run editing for length. Final show audio here. From 2.51.00

“Thank you”

Well, finally, after 28 years of broadcasting, it’s come to this – there are a few people I’d like to thank.

Brian Burke, Murray Finlay and John Clarke (not the much missed funny one) put me on air in the first place. It was 1990, I had no idea what I was doing but they had faith.

Craig Hamilton was the co-host of my first radio show – a Saturday morning sports program. We remain friends to this day and he’s still responsible for my most hilarious on-air moment. I’ll tell you all off air.

Mike McCluskey and Linda Bracken gave me my first show – a three-month stint doing Drive in Newcastle. This was despite the then state director saying don’t do that, I don’t rate her, she won’t last a year.

Jeannette McMahon was my producer for the bulk of my years in Newcastle – the funniest, cleverest, most distracted producer I ever worked with. When I left Newcastle to work in Melbourne, I never thanked her on air. I do that now.

To the listeners of ABC Newcastle, I know I said in 2005 that I’d only be gone a year but I hope you forgive me for taking 13 to finally come home.

Michael Mason and Sue Howard (ABC senior radio managers at the time) convinced me that I should take the plunge and ply my wares in Melbourne. For a time, I hated both of them for making me do that but now I am simply grateful. They gave me my career.

I am reticent to name specific producers because I have learnt something from all of them but some have a special place in my heart - Dave “the Scotsman” Cook (who gave me licence to cover news and current affairs “like a real person”), Erin Mathews (who despite having run off to TV, came and helped pull together these last four shows in her usual organised and creative manner), Sally Rope (who could talk me into doing any story and often did) and of course, most recently Amber Tripp, aka The Gatekeeper (who has put up with me for the last 6 years without once ever losing her temper.)

The rest of the ABC Melbourne & Victoria crew are quite simply, remarkable. Funny, supportive, creative and clever, I’ve never worked with better people.

To all the guests and regulars over the years who have given up their time and talent, I am simply in awe of you. You are the people who have made me look and sound good.

To anyone who has ever called or texted or came to an outside broadcast like this, thank you. You are why we are here. You are why we do what we do. And the fact that some of it has managed to resonate with you over the years is just fabulous.

To you Damian Rabbitt, thank you for you company over the past few days and for keeping us all sane and to you David Astle, I couldn’t think of a better person to hand the torch onto.

Finally, and here’s where it might get tricky for me emotionally, to three people who are still with us and one who isn’t. To my Dad for not laughing when I said that I wanted to change careers and do something with radio, thank you. To my brother Andrew, a person who struggled with a stutter so badly when he was a kid that the thought of public speaking still fills him with horror, thank you for thinking I’m some kind of superwoman. To my extraordinary husband, the inimitable Pete Ritchie, I am nothing without you and I love the fact that you decided to play basketball tonight instead of coming to my final ever show. That’s how we roll. And finally, to my much missed mother who told me when I was in despair that people in Victoria would ever warm to me, said “stick it out darling. You are such a precious person. They will eventually work that out.” And god love her, she was right.

Venus Rinth: 'What The Thunder Said' by T.S. Eliot - 2018

3 November 2018, Doha, Qatar

What the Thunder Said, by T.S. Eliot.

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon - O swallow swallow

Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih

Justine Sless: 'It felt like it was time to come out as a Jew', Newstead Short Story Tattoo - 2017

7 October, Butterlands Butter Factory., Newstead, Victoria, Australia

Jews, Jews, Jews.

Jews drink, four cups of wine, then pour a fifth for Elijah. Elijah’s cup is poured, but not drunk, every year during Seder, the celebration of Passover.

The cup is raised and the lament begins. L a shana habahh b’ Yerusalem.

Next year in Jerusalem. The statement reminds us that wehave survived again, and to commemorateanother feast awaits us. The statement  next Year in Jerusalem also serves as a reminder that no matter what, politics aside, there is always a safe place to go should things nasty again.

Say the word 'Jew' often enough in a range of places and you either laugh or cry.

Personally, I can’t say it enough, but I only started saying the word Jew on repeat recently, because I come late in life to a lot of things.

Like comedy I started when I was 38. The catalyst was my husband giving me a look when I went into labour with my second child that could only mean one thing: He was too pissed, so I would have to drive myself to hospital.

I took to comedy like others take to the drink. And when I would stumble out into the night searching for a stage in another dimly lit bar in Melbourne,  my husband’s words echoing in my ears as he gestured to the television, the couch and the kitchen sink: ‘Is this not enough for you any more?’ And it wasn’t, dry stoicism morphed into wry wit as I grappled with the beguiling beast that is comedy and my desire to fill that chasm of need with the laughter of strangers.

I came late to education. Having failed year 12 twice, I steered clear of classrooms till I was 30, thenI got a bachelor of Community Development which equipped me to quickly arrange a wide variety of chairs and tables into welcoming circles, the intellectual acumen to distinguish between a working party a subcommittee and steering group and a wardrobe filled with non-threatening footwear.

And at 50, I’ve just started my Masters by research in creative writing on gender and comedy – women in comedy – please don’t get me started.

And I came very late in life to coming out as a Jew.

8 years ago my mother was over here on her annual visit from UK.

She puts a piece of paper on the dining table and says I have something to show you. It’s a hand-written family tree. My mother looks at me and she says:

‘My father suicided when I was 12.'

My mother went to a Swiss finishing school; they came from wealthy families; they dealt in furs and diamonds.

They fled Germany and went to England, everything stolen from them.

My mother baked honey cakes when I was little.

My father loved me, he called me 'meine Liebchen'.

He was always running, though. He would hold my hand and make me run too. He said that if we didn’t keep running then the Gestapo would catch us.

He was born in Obernkerken.

His name was Ludwig, his brother was Fritz.

Next to their names are their uncle’s names 'Julius and Siegfried’

Below that is the date 1942 and beneath that two words

Died Auschwitz.

I looked at her and she looked at me and I said, ‘Well that explains a lot.’

I grew up in North East England, a lot of things had closed down: the ship building, the steel works and most of the coal mines. So when I asked my mum anything about her past and she shut down, too, it kind of went with the landscape and I never pushed the issue.

As kids, we knew that we were Jewish, but we didn’t celebrate it. It was just something that sat in that bucket, the bucket of shame, like not having a car, or a phone or not being smart at school or always having head lice – shameful. You just didn’t talk about it.

So, I saw this family tree and something in me shifted. Like the time I sneezed a bit of carrot onto a woman’s hand - I was working in a fruit and vegetable shop at the time. I looked at her she looked at me and I said we’ll not charge you for that there bit of carrot on your hand.

 A tree dating back to 1853 with branches burned off and we were still here..And it felt like it was time to come out as a Jew. My knee jerk reaction to everything in life to date had been to find the funny and this was the mother of all opportunities to do just that.

So, I created the inaugural Melbourne Jewish comedy festival because Jews and comedy, who knew that would work right?

But here’s the thing: there are 58,000 Jews living in Melbourne, and six of them live in a little shtetel called Preston. I am one of those six Jews. I’m what is known as a fabled Jew of the North. I am so far outside of the bagel belt I can’t even see the poppy seeds around the edges.

Coming out as a Jew is one thing. Getting some Jews in a room to be funny under the banner of the newly formed Melbourne Jewish Comedy Festival as a completely unknown Jew in Melbourne is another thing all together.

But some things you just can’t push against, they are primal, they remind you that there is something bigger than you and your red lipstick wearing sarcasm. It’s a life force that made me realise that something came before me and there will be something after me and my glittering shing moment on earth is to add something and that thing is laughter. And I couldn’t fight against it – it was primal - Like when I had my first child when I was 30 and it was beyond me – because lord knows having children is an absolute pain in the butt, right? The urge to have them means the continuity of the human race; and they are born cute so you don’t reject them. But of course you spend the first few months covered in sate pooh and having let downs, During the kindergarten years and most of the primary years, you stink and have very greasy skin because of all the fundraising sausage sizzles you must run. And then they become teenagers: I gaffered up the bedroom window, nailed it and glue gunned it, but my teenager still escaped. And one night when I had picked her up from who knows where at who knows what time, she stated all the things she wanted::a t-shirt from jjays, a new phone and an overseas holiday, because it was an absolute embarrassment that we only went to Wilson’s Prom over the summer. My response was,‘Enough with the lists already.’

'Mum, she said in response – you should just begrateful that I’m still talking to you.'

Seeing the two words, “Died Auschwitz” on the family tree. And creating the festival was like that: primal, the continuation of the species, a compulsion and a statement that we are still here.

Don’t get me wrong I didn’t go as far as going Kosher, but I began to go from being a bit Jewish to being a bit Jewy. Even my kids were like suggested that I  should change your name to 'Jewstine Shlep.’

I became like the old Jew in the joke on the desert island.

His name is Heyme, he has been on the dessert island for years  when he is finally rescued

The old Jewish guy, Heyme, takes the sailors who rescue him around the island where he has been all these years.

He shows them the temple he’s built. It’s incredible, adorned with shells and seaweed.

The sailors are amazed.

Heymie takes them to the other side of the island. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘here is the other temple I built.' It is equally exquisite with architectural magnificence particularly in the bima area. The sailors are dumfounded. ‘Tthese are amazing,’ they say, ‘but why two temples?’ ‘This one –’ Heymie points to the first one on the other side of the island – ‘this is the one I go to. The other –’ he nods towards it – ‘that one I wouldn’t be seen dead in.’

I became that Jew, we have a perfectly good comedy festival in Melbourne, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Melbourne Jewish Comedy Festival, that is the one I go to.The other one – pah! – I wouldn’t be seen dead in it.

Being a Jew became a point of pride and a huge learning curve: Melbourne is the second largest population of holocaust survivors outside of Israel, and there are so many Jewish institutions: Jewish News, Jewish Film Festival, Bagel Appreciation Society, and a radio station. I had a radio show called the Morning Kvetch but that was nowhere near enough, we had to make it the whole day. The lines were jammed with people wanting to complain: about the weather, about their sons, about their grandchildren sitting in hipster cafes all day on milk crates. We should have just taken all the other shows off air and called the station Kvetch 87.8 FM.

I get so Jew’d up, in fact, I even decide, at 50, to go to Israel for the first time, taking with me a comedy show called ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’. And there I am wondering around a Tel Aviv night having done a gig in a bar, and I’m lost. So I ask a woman for directions back to my hotel. We get talking and I tell her I’m the creative director of Melbourne Jewish comedy festival. She gives me a withering glance.‘Oh,’ she says,‘We’re all Jewish here.’

After Israel, I take the comedy show to Krakow, because someone had to do it.

It’s a very strange thing to stand at the tourist booth in Krakow and have the choice of a day trip to Schindler’s factory, white water rafting,or a day trip to Auschwitz. Nine thousand people visit Auswitch every day. There’s no business-like Shoah business, it would seem. I took the tour bus, I laid the stone in remberance of my family who had perished there. Then I got lost in the car park trying to find the tour bus..

Doing comedy in Krakow was the most ironic thing I could do. Slightly mad, deeply meaningful and a very tough gig. The show I had performed in Melbourne in front of back slapping mates yelling ‘Mazeltov!’ at the end was greeted in Krakow with such earnest expressions that my face ached from laughing at their non-reaction to my comedy show. The 50-minute show got truncated to 23 minutes, and at the end when I asked by way of breaking the earnest ice, ‘Any questions?’ a guy stood up, wanting clarification on a line I glibly throw away ‘I’m one of seven sisters from five different marriages’. ‘Of those sisters,’ the guy had asked me, ‘can you just clarify of the seven sisters can you tell us are they all Halachically Jewish?’

Tough crowd, right? Not as tough as the gigs I get in Melbourne, the Jewish gigs I get asked to do – invited to events on the basis of being Jewish, to events, to gigs – and I’ve not even had a bat mitzvah.

When I came out I had no idea that there were so many ways to be Jewish. There’s orthodox, liberal, reform and everything in between. And there are the rabbis. Whatever you do just don’t shake a rabbi’s hand – its forbidden.

The tagline for the festival is a celebration of culture through comedy and, indeed, that’s what Jews do – we do comedy, we are known for it. That and the holy days every week to celebrate the fact that we didn’t die. We eat unleavened breadat Passover (we didn’t die); we light candles and eat greasy foods during Channukah (we didn’t die); We eat dairy foods and mainly cheesecake during another celebration – again  - because we didn’t die.

The odd thing about this, though, is that Jews aren’t known on the Melbourne cultural calendar for their food – for literature, for philanthorpy, for comedy, sure – but it amazes me that there aren’t chicken soup bars on every corner with blintz and bagel bars or festivals of unleavened bread, maybe there’s an opportunity there, we run out of jokes we can open up a kosher caravan.

I’m a Jew, I say it, all the time. I can see the stifled yawn of friends – ‘Bless, she’s a Jew, but she only just came out’. You can tell by my hair. I say I’m a Jewish woman of curls.

But if I you think I’m a late starter, I took my mum who is 74 to Germany for the first time in July this year. There was me, my kids and my mum, three generations of Jews. We stood at the door of her family homes, the summer house and the city house. I wanted to knock on the doors of these houses and say, ‘I think you’ll find that these houses don’t belong to you.’ But repatriation is not that easy and the Holocaust, no matter how you look at it, just isn’t funny.

But survival – now there’s a punchline.

Keila Banks: 'Undefinable Me', OSCON, Open Source Convention - 2015

21 July 2015,. Portland, Oregon, USA

How would you define someone like me? Or some one like you, too? You don’t. And that’s why I like to call myself ‘undefinable.'

What you see on the outside looking at me and what I see on the outside looking at you, is not what you really are. Join me in being an undefinable you.

Tom Sitter: 'Oh there's a Valentine's stuck at the bottom of the box, imagine that?', The Moth - 2017

13 February 2013,  The Moth StorySLAM, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

'Love Hurts' was the  theme of this High Noon Saloon in Madison. This is one of the most popular stories in The Moth's history. Tom's was the winning story that night.

Hi. This may come as a shock to many of you, but, I was not always this handsome. No really. In 1933 I was ten years old. I'll give you a chance to figure out the math there. I was a new kid St. Mathew's school in Milwaukee, south side, and I was in the 3rd grade probably for about a third of the year. No, anyways. It was St. Valentine's day at the school, and it was a Catholic school, and the nuns had ... see we were allowed to bring valentines ...  in those days the depth of the Depression, I was able to buy a five pack of valentines for two cents. So I had to choose my gals very carefully.

The one gal of course that was everybody's choice was the beautiful Betty Jane Hayes, just gorgeous. Even the nuns were in awe of her, she was just crazy.

The second, of course, was the sultry Patricia Gilbert, and she was very nice but John Gordon had her cornered. So, anyways, I thought, "Well, I'll risk it."

So the third one was ... Thomasina Welch ...these are actually names, by the way, I hope they're not here. Thomasina Welch, was a flaming red head gal who during recess loved to play the games with the boys. All the girls were by themselves during recess, the boys had Thomasina Welch, and we used to play a game that was called 'Break the Camel’s Back.' What you'd do is you would line up and you'd grab a pole, and the person behind you does, and then what happened is you'd take a running jump and you'd jump on top and try to get the guy to collapse, that was breaking the camel’s back. And Thomasina Welch was part of that. That was thrilling.

My fourth choice was Delores Behowski. Now Delores was not plain, she was sort of pretty but the main attraction for most of us was that she was an early ... maturer ... of majestic proportions.

And ... I don't remember what the fifth one was, but anyway, we had to go up and we had this big box that the nun Sister Mary Judanna, very sweet lady, very devout ... not your stereotypical nun, this was a very sweet nun.

Anyway ... They had the box up there and you had to drop your valentines in there, and near the end of the day she would take them out and she would call out your name, and you had to come up and get your valentine. Well, Betty Jane Hayes, to nobody's surprise got ... first of all the class was about forty, and I think that-pretty much evenly divided boys and girls - and Betty Jane got more than twenty, which means that there were some girls that really gave her valentines as well.

And Patricia Gilbert came in very close second, and then at the end of the time for some reason ...  I don't know to this day why for some reason she would do this ... she said "Now who got the least amount?" This was Ricky Parkinson, who had adenoidal problems, and always carried a sodden handkerchief in her hand.

So anyways, then we started with the boys, and to nobody's surprise the boy that got the most was Billy Behot, that starred ... Who later become a really great football player, played for Creighton. He was tall and handsome, blonde, good looking guy. Donald Levelle was a close second. Levelle was kinda sly, he was my idol. I liked his style. Then later down the line, I don't remember who was third and fourth, but finally she said, "Now let's see who got the least." And somebody says, "Jimmy Sweeney." And Jimmy Sweeney got up and she says, "How many did you get Jim?" And he says, "Two." So it should have stopped right there but, Jimmy Sweeney - damn his soul - said, "Sister, Tom Sitter didn't get any."

Crowd: Awwww.

That's precisely. Anyway, now there's nothing worse than pity. You could hate me, you could detest me, you can ignore me, isolate me, but don't pity me. So anyways ... So after that mantle of pity was lifted, kind of forgotten about, during the end of the day Sister Judanna says, "Oh my goodness, what have we here?" She reached in the box. "Oh there's a valentines stuck at the bottom of the box, imagine that. Well well, let's see who its for. Oh it's for Tommy Sitter. Get up here Tommy."

So I had to go up, open it up, and it was signed, in very fine Spenserian script, "A friend." So twice, the mantle of pity descended upon me, a wet sodden blanket, and I was ready to deny, I was ready to kill, oh I was just so angry. So anyway, I knew that at that point, I mean like Catholics I believed sincerely that if you punched a priest or nun you'd go straight to hell, I mean it was a straight shot. Do not pass Go, do not collect a hundred dollars, do not even think about stopping at purgatory, you're going straight to hell. And at that time I thought about punching Sister Judanna, and I'm glad I didn't cause she's pretty strong. She'd have whipped me.

But then I thought about big mouth Jimmy Sweeney. Then I used to have dreams ... Did you ever wish that you could choose your own dream at night? I used to have this daydream about someday I'm gonna meet Jimmy ... Now Jimmy, if he's still alive today, he's gonna he's 92, 93 like I am, and he could be in a wheelchair but ... I'd like to find him and go down there and I'd like to take him out for a nice walk in his wheelchair, maybe go down a hill ... And then inexplicably my hands would slip and he would careen down the hill, which ended at a busy intersection, and into traffic. Anyway, if anybody knows where Jimmy Sweeney is, let me know.

Mohammed Qahtani: 'Words are power, words could be your power', Power of Words, Toastmasters International - 2015

2015, Los Vegas, Nevada, USA

[Pretending to light up a cigarette] What? Or you all think smoking kills? Let me tell you something. Do you know that the amount of people dying from diabetes are 3 times as many people dying from smoking? Yet, if I put a snicker bar, nobody would say anything. Do you know that the leading cause of lung cancer is not actually a cigarette, it’s your DNA? You could smoke for years and nothing would ever happen to you. This whole war against smoking is just to restrict the farming of tobacco.

Mr. Contest Chair, fellow Toastmasters and guests, I use these arguments — even though I just made them up — with a group of my friends and the results: five of them believed what I said, two of them started smoking. Words, when said and articulated in the right way, can change someone’s mind. They can alter someone’s belief. You have the power to bring someone from the slums of life and make a successful person out of them, or destroy someone’s happiness using only your words.

Does that seem a bit too good to be true? A simple choice of ‘word’ can make a difference between someone accepting or denying your message. You can have a very beautiful thing to say, but say it in the wrong words and [sssshhh] it’s gone. I have a son who is four, and he had this bad habit of writing on the walls with crayons. And one evening I walked into his room and he’s going at it, just writing and drawing and so on. And I said, “Hey, hey, hey! Are you stupid? Don’t you ever do that again?” And guess what happened. He did it again.

Nobody likes to be threatened. Nobody likes to be intimidated. His pride will not allow it. He did it again just to spite me. A week later, I walked into his room and again, he’s going at it and this time, he was even looking at me, just. I came down, I said “Sweetie, come here. Don’t do that, you’re a big boy now.” And he never did it again, because his pride wants him to be ‘the big boy’.

Have you ever wondered why nobody cares about ‘global warming’? Even though it’s a very serious issue, it could kill all of us, because when you go home and you flip on the TV and you see a scientist trying to talk about global warming, it goes something like this. [Imitating] “Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see from the graphs, that the statistics here – for 2014, it shows the water level is rising. This table shows that the mono-dioxide level and the third ozone layer, is at an alarming position.”

The message never gets across, but most importantly, if you are a person who is a role model – if you’re a person who has been admired, anything you say could be believed, anything you utter could be taken as truth. My friend Nasser, he loved his father, idealized his father, he would do anything to make him happy, but his father was the kind of person who was not easy to impress and year after year Nasser tried and his father’s like ‘no’. First year in college, Nasser had got straight A’s and he thought to himself this is it, this is what will finally make my dad proud. He picked up the phone, he called his dad, “Dad, I got straight A’s. Are you proud? Please tell me you are proud father.” “Yeah, listen son, I’ll have to call you back, I’m busy.”

‘I’m busy’, was the single sentence that broke the Camel’s back. And he started drinking, doing drugs, hanging out with the wrong crowd. Nasser why? Why are you throwing your life away? If the one person in the world that I care about the most doesn’t care then, then why should I. And one evening I got the phone call, Nasser is in the emergency room, drug overdose. I rushed to that hospital. I saw him on that bed and I saw that machine go beep, beeep, beeeeeeeep. And I saw doctors try to bring him back to life. Clear, [ssphhh] clear [sssphhh], clear [sssphhh] — it’s clear that a single word could have saved his life.

Words have power, words are power, words could be your power. You can change a life, inspire your nation and make up this world a beautiful place. Isn’t that what we all want it? Isn’t that why we are all in this hall? Your mouth can spit venom or it can mend a broken soul.

Ladies and gentlemen, let that be our goal. Contest Chair. Contest Chair: All right, then shortly, we’ll hear from our winner at this year. Please welcome to the stage first place in our Championship Mohammed Qahtani. And just one moment, we’ll hear from Mohammed. All right, let’s hear from the first place winner Mohammed. Mohammed Qahtani: I did not know, it’s this big. Ladies and gentlemen, when we did the semifinals and I won — they asked me to say something. And I said, honestly, I didn’t prepare anything because I did not expect to win.

And I’m coming here today and again, I did not expect to win. But I want you to think about what are your challenges and what are the things that you think is impossible, because this was impossible. Not just for me, but for almost everybody who knows me. And yet here it is, I don’t want to say it again, but if I can do this, think about that thing that you thought you could never do. Or you just gave up on because, maybe it’s way up ahead and I cannot do it. And when you do, I want you to remember that Mohammed Qahtani got this. I sure — and also you can do the same. Thank you.

Jess McGuire: 'I’m the founder, graduate, and now Head Goddess of the Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy', Nailed it! - 2017

3 July 2017, Toff in Town, Melbourne, Australia

Jess McGuire's original title for this talk was "Being A Woman In Your Thirties Can Be Hard, But These Tips And Tricks Will Help Unleash Your Inner Power Goddess This BOFY!!!!" Nailed it was a Wheeler Centre event, devised by James Colley showcasing writers and comedians, and asking them to argue polemics different from their own.

For most women I know, the end of the financial year can mean only one thing - time to take a long, hard look at your lifestyle choices and see what changes (preferably tax deductible!) you can make to ensure you’re living your best life from now until June 30th next year. It really all comes down to what I like to call the three Fs - fitness, fertility, and finances. And as luck would have it, ‘Advice On FFF’ is one of my five skills on LinkedIn, endorsed by over a dozen people at time of writing.

You might be wondering, much like the lady who accosted me in the bathrooms shortly before I came on stage, hey, what qualifies THIS woman to give me life advice? Haha, great question Sally *glares*. I’m the founder, graduate, and now Head Goddess of the Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy, a virtual un-university that combines affirming Skype sessions with challenging multiple choice personality tests in order to help the upper middle class find their passion - and attempt to make a living from it! I’m proud to say that in the 2016 edition of Mamamia’s 100 Most Powerful Aussie Mumtrepreneurs list, you can find 15 Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy graduates, which I think we can all agree is a yummy result!

As an emotionally qualified business and life coach, I think it’s important to connect with as many people as possible, and while normally I prefer that to be via $300 half hour Skype sessions, here we are. So without further ado, here are some insights and viewpoints many women might not have considered before to improve their life, but once you hear them, you’ll never look back.

Firstly, let’s talk about physical health. Ladies, your body is a temple, and you need to treat it as such. No, not one of those monkey riddled Balinese temples where they charge people to enter and it’s essential to carry a large stick to protect yourself from a rabies bite, but just a super nice temple like the one in the Wonder Woman movie - the Temple of Themyscira. Clean, airy, peaceful, fortified, minimalist, hair free, and toned beyond belief thanks to alternating days of cardio and pilates. I can’t tell if I’m still in trapped in that temple metaphor or not, but let’s continue.

It doesn’t matter what size you are, EVERYONE is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! But as a rule of thumb - if you can’t fit into anything at Lorna Jane, which runs up to a full figured size 16, it might be worth hitting a few extra seshes at the gym - mostly cardio, be a bit wary when it comes to weights as you don’t want to do anything that will bulk you up too much and cause you to lose your precious feminine energy.

As far as diet is concerned, here’s a little tip that’ll keep you slim: when you’re feeling like you’re carrying a little too much extra weight, why not sign up to an online rations challenge and pressure all your family and friends into sponsoring you? Not only will adopting the diet of a Syrian refugee ensure you don’t end up overindulging, but you’ll be raising HEAPS of awareness and it’ll serve as great content for your personal brand on the major social media channels!

Remember though: just because you keep your rig tight, that doesn’t mean every woman has the time, money, or even just enough self love to truly care about herself and maintain a healthy weight range. Be sensitive about this. If you know in advance you’re going to spend time with a larger person, I recommend going the extra mile and arranging special sturdy chairs, or maybe even sticking a post it note over the little metal plate in your building’s lift that could potentially display an offensive weight limit - perhaps scrawled with the message “This lift, like my heart, doesn’t really care about your weight”… It’s no use keeping this kindness a secret though - how else will your chunky buddy know how much you care? Before they come over, it’s a great idea to let your super morbidly obese friends know how much you support them by writing out a list of all the things you’ve done to cater for their body choice, so they know you’re in their corner! It’ll make them feel great!

Now, one of the biggest challenges facing many of the students I have at the Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy is the issue of fertility. Many of our female enrollments are in their late twenties and early thirties, and while they’re looking to nail the lucrative mumtrepreneur market once they graduate, there’s just one problem: no kids yet.

One thing I like to suggest is looking into foster care - it’s a great way for someone starting a small mumtreprenaur business to gain some extra income via the regular government payments, and you can use this quick start to parenthood as a way of connecting to potential clients online. No more just quietly ‘liking’ a post you see where some parent has shared an adorable anecdote about their little Arlo, now you’ll have some stories to share too!

But if you’re happy to play the long game, then perhaps it’s worth mentioning that a recent scientific study in Switzerland noted a huge increase in successful pregnancies amongst women aged 35 - 40 years old… if the father of the child was significantly younger. There’s never been a better time to cougar, and here’s a hot tip for anyone financially stable enough to go it alone in the parenting stakes but still keen to trawl for free seed to keep initial costs down: I have one word for you. Schoolies! Get yourself a tasteful Air BNB on the Gold Coast during the last two weeks in November and then hit the bars! Be sure to double check ID before taking anyone home - a fun little saying I like to remember when I’m knocking back Skinny Bitch cocktails at the bar is ‘Overage is the ONLY age’ - but once you do, you’re never more likely to find a male partner keen on avoiding both commitment and condom use than when hooking up with an eighteen year old recent high school graduate buzzing from the six pack of Bundy and rum cans he sank down before leaving the hostel.

If you’ve already got kids then - sorry for mentioning trawling nightclubs, I know it’s probably been a while! If you’re like most mums I know, you’re probably constantly under the pump and find it hard to get some all important me time when you need it most. Here’s a great tip I actually read from Gwyneth Paltrow’s newsletter GOOP, in an edition where she asked some ordinary working mums like venture capitalist Juliet de Baubigny and incredibly wealthy fashion designer Stella McCartney about how they handled work\life balance, and found time to honour their inner goddess: if you find it hard to get space and time to exercise before work and get in the right frame of mind to start your day, why not ask the nanny to come 45 minutes earlier than normal, and treat yourself to an extra yoga class before work? Smart!

And now, some financial advice. I’m not ashamed to admit that at one point I was $200,000 in debt due to my thirst for travel, five star living, and good old Colombian marching dust, until a few years ago I realised I was going to have to make some pretty swift changes to how I viewed money if I wanted the universe to start providing!!!!

One way I found was the quickest way to save on paying those annoying regular bills that really add up before too long like water, electricity, and gas is to simply to stop opening your mail. You may have heard the saying “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" That same science applies to debt!

If an envelope arrives marked Energy Australia but no one opens the envelope, is there actually a bill inside? Or just some pamphlets full of stock photos justifying a new usage rate rise? Who knows!!! After a couple of months you’ll find the bills just fade away from your mind, allowing you to spend your newly available extra cash on more important things that make you feel good, and the mental space you might have taken up with thoughts of budgets and impending disconnections have instead been filled with more positive affirmations and life goals. Sure, after about six months go past the electricity is likely to be switched off, but in my questionably qualified experience, if you’ve been redirecting those funds towards empowering things such as remedial massage, exotic facials, or perhaps an online un-university course at Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy that will result in you finally getting your crocheted cupcake holder business up and running - well then, surely the universe will have seen you’re ready for better things and a veritable money storm will already be heading your way!!!

I know as soon as I stopped opening my mail and and instead opened myself to all the possibilities the universe had to offer when it came to making money, I began finding extra income all over the place - unwatched handbags, my elderly mother’s savings account, and through the purchase of the domain name joyfulbizonlinelifecoachingandetsymanagementacademy.com and the associated PayPal account!!! Yes, it seems the very same energy that had demanded I ignore angry creditors had become the energy that guided my hand to both metaphorical and literal wads of cash in all sorts of exciting locations!!!! The fact is - and no one knows exactly why - but money and success just tends to follow fun, carefree people who don’t pay their bills. Don't bother doing the sums and trying to figure out how this works, it's not computable. Just know it WORKS. And if you’re interested in finding out more, why not take my online money management course which you can sign up for at joyfulbizonlinelifecoachingandetsymanagementacademy.com/paypal?

Another financial tip: once you’ve got that extra income rolling in, you may also like to start buying things of intrinsic value as a way to enjoy having money while also gaining liquid items (an industry term for things that can be reduced to liquid with enough heat or boiling). Silver cutlery is a good start, as are NBA collector cards which, I was assured as a 12 year old, only accumulate in value (I consider my 1992-93 season Michael Jordan card to be my superannuation nest egg!). But don’t restrict yourself by just considering investing in inanimate objects - small pedigree dogs like Chihuahuas and Bichon Frises are also a great investment as they are a statement item that the universe can't ignore, and if you get hard up at any point you can always sell them on Gumtree - in fact, it's not a bad idea to mark them up and sell them on before they hit five years of age, just because that's usually the age in-bred dogs start to go south.

As for home ownership, while some like to make out that the real estate market is almost impossible to navigate these days, I know of one particularly savvy 23 year old who owns not one, not two, but THREE investment properties - and all it took to enter the property market aged just 19 years old was pluck, a little elbow grease, having the strength to say no to brunches at cafes with friends, and a small $150,000 gift to get started from his mum and dad. If your mum and dad aren’t inclined to provide you with money for a deposit, and let’s face it, not all parents love their children, then you can always angle to become executor of their will and once a desirable outcome is in order… *conspiratorial wink* Well, you’ll think of something.

As we step out into the sparkling new terrain that is the 2017/2018 financial year, I hope my wisdom and insights help inspire a whole new group of women to become powerful female life warrior goddesses, and also maybe sign up to my online un-university Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy. Thank you.

This was written for the first ever Melbourne edition of Nailed It!, an event which sees writers/comedians/journalists presenting shit think pieces in front of a live audience. Thanks to The Toff In Town for hosting, the Wheeler Centre and James Colley for organising, and the delightful audience who left the house on a freezing Monday night in Melbourne’s winter to listen to a bullshit filled diatribe read by yours truly plus a heap of talented writers and performers such as First Dog On The Moon, Dee Fidge, Lucy Valentine, and Nayuka Gorrie.

Cal Wilson: 'My grandmother had a stare that could pin you to the spot like a nail gun', Show and Tell for Grown Ups - 2016

Cal Wilson is a Melbourne based comedian who hailed from New Zealand. She participated in a Show and Tell for Grown Ups night at the Toff in Town organised and conceived by author Tony Wilson, who MC'd the event. In this story she shows and tells her grandmother's cookie jar. Heartfelt and moving, about family dynamics. It appears on the speakola.com website - for all speeches great and small.

11 July 2016, Toff in Town, Melbourne, Australia

Hello. This is my grandmother's cookie jar. It is not terribly attractive, and it's not something that I would choose to buy new, but it is very precious to me. When I look at, it fixes me in a time and a place. That is on the counter of her tiny kitchen in her tiny flat in Christchurch in the late 70s, early 80s. I was fascinated by this cookie jar. Firstly, because it had "cookies" written on it. We didn't have cookies in New Zealand, so it seemed impossibly exotic. Secondly, because in the 45 years that I have known of this jar's existence, it has never held cookies or biscuits. It has never held a comestible at all. I didn't know what it had inside it at my grandmother's house because her biscuits were homemade, and they always came swathed in baking paper, and enshrined in Tupperware.

She was an amazing baker, my grandmother. She would come to visit us, and it was called, "Gran's coming to fill the tins." She would come over with her shortbread, and her caramel slice, and her tan square, and her pink square, and her forcer biscuits and her ladybird biscuits, and these are all terms that I don't know if any other family had. But she was an incredible baker, and I always wanted to know what was inside the cookie jar, but I was too scared to ask, because my grandmother was a formidable woman. Right up until just about the day that she died, I was terrified of her.

She was pretty amazing, she was pretty funny, she was very articulate, she was a great storyteller, and my family all used to joke that we didn't have conversations, we had tag-team monologue. We used to say that we'd learn to do it tag-team, so that one person would talk and talk and talk and talk and talk until they'd run out of breath, and then the next person would jump in and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk until they'd run out of breath, and I said that my grandmother had developed a technique of circular breathing, so no else would get a word in.

But she was an amazing woman, she was a widow for 30 years, she was an incredible sewer, she was a great knitter. She lived on her own, she supplemented her pension by working in a market garden and she worked at the Gryphons Biscuit Factory. We were never allowed to buy my favourite animal biscuits because she'd seen what they did in the factory. Animal biscuits are not made from real animals. They're just in the shape of animals or amorphous blobs. But as children, we loved them. But we were forbidden because she'd seen them fall on the floor and be swept up and put in packets. She was an incredible woman. I lived in fear of incurring her wrath, which is why I never asked what was in the jar, because I didn't want to get pinned with a stare. My grandmother had a stare that could pin you to the spot like a nail gun. When you got in trouble, it was never a raised voice or anything like that, it was just this withering glare that was like you could cut a new door in the wall with the hate from her glare.

I was absolutely terrified of her. She was the sort of grandmother... I had two grandmothers, clearly, because I have two parents. Weirdly to me as a child, they both had the same first name and I thought it was such an incredible coincidence that two women called "Gran" had ended up in the same family. My mother's mother, Gran Fraser was all about greeting you at the door first, and kind of shoving your parents aside and giving you a cuddle and presents and things like that. Whereas Gran Wilson, my dad's mum, was "children should be seen and not heard," and that was quite convenient because I was always under the bed when she came over, 'cause I was just scared I was gonna get in trouble. She had very high standards in all things, especially hygiene. She grew up on a farm and she hated animals, and she had a thing where if a cat had the temerity to sit on her fence she would hose it off. The conversations would usually be like "I've just gotta go and hose a cat off the fence." She was quite dedicated to the removal of cats from fences, and she was very insistent on hygiene.

When she died, we remember discussing as a family what we should put on her headstone, and I suggested "Now go and wash your hands." Because that was one of her things. I was so afraid of I remember being made to have a sleepover at her house, doesn't that sound terrible? You should be like "Yay, we're going to Gran's!" But I was terrified, because I knew we would have meatloaf, and it was very good meatloaf apparently but I do not like meatloaf. But I had to eat it. But I was having my lunch in the garden, and I accidentally flipped the plate into the lawn and I freaked out because she would know that I had been mucking around with my lunch and so I remember eating the grass-covered food quickly so that she wouldn't discover what I had done but mostly I was terrified because I'd got potato in her lawn. It was a very good lawn.

She had very high standards in all things. She had such high standards that until I was a teenager I was quite convinced that she was somehow part of the royal family. That side of the family, they spoke a bit posh, they sounded English even though we had not been to England, well, we come originally, but not for a long time. Whenever you told her that you'd achieved something she'd say... If I said "I've got an A!" She'd go "Well, no grandchild of mine would get a B." You're like "Alright! Okay! Woo! Glad I got an A, won't tell you about the B." Or she would tell me that one of my other cousins had achieved that earlier, and I had two other cousins who were the same age as me and I found out years later as an adult she would sort of play us off against each other.

None of us realised, but she would tell me that I was too loud, I was too messy, I was too clumsy, I was told off for being too short, which I'm not entirely sure what I could have done about that, I think I wasn't eating enough, probably because It was covered in grass. But I was terrified of her. The thing that we found so hard was that to adults she was this hilarious, witty, sharp, fiery woman who could hold court and was just a... Friends would come and meet her, and "What a character your grandmother is!" And when she eventually moved into a retirement village, she was the cover girl on the brochure for the retirement village. It was Doris giving a bit of [pose]. And she was beautiful, she was a beautiful elderly woman. She had this beautiful pure white hair and it was always beautifully set.

But I seemed to be the only person aware of how mean she was to me as a kid, and I'd tell my parents, they'd be like "Aw, that's just Gran. That's just Gran!" I was like "Yeah, and I'm just me, and it's not working out very well!" As I grew older, I became less terrified of her, but I also didn't want to spend time with her, because whenever I would spend time with her, I knew that there would be something that I would be pulled up on. Even to the point where I was 26 and I was living in Auckland and I came home to visit her, and I'd dyed my hair platinum blonde, and I thought I looked fantastic. I looked a bit like the girl version of Tin-Tin. Platinum blonde hair, and I get out of the car, and I go inside to greet her, and the first thing that she said to me was "Ah! They told me your hair was the same colour as mine! But it's not, it's dirty white."

The other thing that I recall her saying to me very clearly was after my career had started to take off and I was doing a bit of stand-up comedy and I was getting work on TV. She said to me on the phone one day, "I think it's so wonderful, the way your parents can still be proud of you." We can laugh about it now. Eventually as an adult my family started to realise that she was quite hard on me, and they started to become more protective of me. Then when I was 30, she was very old, and she was reaching the end of her life. She'd been very ill, and I went to visit her in hospital. It was a moment of Hollywood closure. It was really strange, it was like if I was gonna write it in a book you'd kind of go "Well, that's a bit trite." So I'd been to see her, and she burst into tears and he held my hand and she said "I'm so sorry that I never told you I was proud of you." She said, "I haven't been a good grandmother," and I started crying, of course.

I said "Of course, you've been a wonderful grandmother. I love you so much." I went home and I was like "Fuck!", like "Fucking hell!" It was crazy. I said to my mother, "Gran said that she was sorry that she never said she was proud of me," and I was expecting my mum to be really moved by it. She said "Well, she could have said that years ago." I was like "It's a good point, Barbara, it's a good point." But it was still an amazing moment for me, and I'm so glad that we got to have that conversation while she was still alive. We're not gonna have that conversation after she's dead, I'm not into that psychic shit. It's not gonna happen. So I'm glad that we had that moment.

 At her funeral, it was very sad. I was quite sort of spaced out at her funeral, because obviously I had very mixed feelings about things. Then a friend of my father's got up and spoke. And he talked about how when he'd gone to university, my grandmother had taken him under her wing and she'd given him wonderful advice, and been a beautiful friend to him, and had stayed his friend for the rest of his life. I just remember weeping and feeling so grateful that she had that relationship with someone, even though it wasn't me. But I was like "She could be that to someone else, and someone else has loved her wholeheartedly in a way that I couldn't quite manage."

I found out eventually what was in the cookie jar, and it was just receipts and rubber bands and bread tags and stuff. All the detritus that you can't find a home for. When my dad asked me what I wanted from Gran's things, it was like "All I want is the cookie jar," because that's just... When I see it, I picture that it's Gran's flat, and amongst the kind of mixed feelings about her, that was the heart of her house for me was the kitchen where she cooked for us and she made us food. Now it sits on our sideboard and I keep business cards and coins and keys and other detritus in it. I'm so aware as I'm standing here it feels like I'm holding an urn. A pretty shit urn, but I love having it, and I love having it in my everyday life. It's been very lovely for me to think about this cookie jar and to realise and remember that I really did love my grandmother, and that she loved me.

And that is my show and tell.

Related speeches, Damian Callinan at same event, loquat jam.

Quinn Denniss: 'Hypocrisy is the word for people who say one thing, but do another', Public Speaking Competition - 2017

13 June 2017, Mayfield, New South Wales, Australia

This year I wanted to write a speech about the rampant hypocrisy that us kids, no I, am forced to endure on a daily basis.

In the classroom, on the field and even in my own home.

For the uninitiated, hyprocrisy is the word for people who say one thing, but do another.

You know:

-      Like when your Pop tells you to never smoke because it’s a filthy, dirty drug addiction, as he puts out his third cigarette for the morning

-      Or when people wear t-shirts or carry signs that say “ save the environment “ while they drink water out of plastic bottles and then they don’t even throw them in the recycling

-      Or best of all, when grown ups yell at you to STOP YELLING!!

My Mama says that her Nan was an honest hypocrite, because she used to tell the kids “ Do as I say, not as I do”

My Uncle says that he admires people who “Walk the talk “ – which just means they do what they say other people should do.

That got me thinking about what is my “TALK” and do it “WALK” it?

And I remembered a time when I didn’t.

My friend and I were throwing a ball against this wall and a bunch of ‘popular’ kids came over and this one kid started pushing my friend into the wall.

The other kids laughed, so this bully kept pushing and teasing and shoving and pulling until my friend started crying. Then they just ran off, laughing.

The whole time this was happening, I just stood there. I watched his face as it changed from happy, to surprised, to shock, to fear and then to embarrassment.

I stood, frozen, but my mind was racing.

-      what would happen to me if I stepped in?

-      could I get hurt if I pushed the bully away?

-      would the other kids step in and hurt me?

The whole time I was thinking about me! And worst of all, I was ashamed to realise that I was also worried about what those popular kids, what those bullies, would think of me if I stepped in.

After they had run off, I finally asked “ Are you okay. Should I get someone?” Tears in his eyes he just said “ Why didn’t you help me?” And walked off.

As much as the punching and shoving had hurt, what hurt him worse, what actually humiliated him, was me……… me, his friend, the outspoken defender of the underdog, the spotter of everyone else’s hypocrisy.

I didn’t walk my talk. I didn’t talk at all.

And not only did I lose his respect, I lost a friend.

It made me realise something else to.

That you don’t get friends or respect because of what you say.

You get it, or lose it, because of what you do.

So, like I said at the start. I wanted to do a speech about everyone else’s hypocrisy, but, what a hypocrite that would make me.

Venus Rinith: 'Great moments are born of great opportunity", kindergarten graduation speech - 2013

15 March 2013, Doha, Qatar

Venus Rinith: 'Who is my role model?', P2 Speaking Award - 2016

11 November 2016, first delivered at Gavels Club, Doha, Qatar

Tejas Rinith: 'Laughter is the best medicine for life', P3 Speaking Compeition, Gavels Club - 2016

26 November 2016, first performed Gavels Club, Doha, Qatar