 Hello. Hello. Hi, Shave. How are you? Just on time, we were just getting our technological to make sure that we are on Facebook. But I believe we are now live. So it's great to be here for the third and final webinar on the findings of our research. I have to share it with the community. So first of all, I want to say thank you to everybody who was here on Sunday. Just want to make sure everybody can hear me okay. So maybe, Shave, can you just confirm that you can hear me okay before I keep waffling on? Can everybody hear me okay? Or maybe somebody just type a quick yes in the chat box. Yes. I can hear you, Martin. Perfect. Yes, that's good. Thank you, Henry. So as I said, it's great to be here. And this is our third webinar on sharing some of the findings of our research on the Mauritian diaspora in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. So some of you may have died in for earlier sessions. And welcome back if you have. But if you're here for a new session, we look forward to hearing your thoughts, your concerns, your aims, and everything you want to learn about from the researcher and more. We're delighted, most importantly today, to be joined by two people who have been incredibly helpful and very gracious with their time and energies to help us with the research. One from Canada, Shave, and one from the UK, Yashoda. And they've been incredibly gracious, as I said, with their time and most importantly their collections. So I'm really excited to hear their reflections on the research. So if you dialed in over the last couple of sessions, or maybe checked it out on Facebook, you would have heard enough of my accent. So I won't talk too much longer. But just again, to give you some house rules, hopefully everybody's mic should be muted when somebody else is speaking. But if there's any issues with that, please just make sure that your mic is muted. We are being streamed on Facebook. So make sure that if you want to engage via Facebook, comment, like, share, get involved, ask questions via Facebook, and we're very happy to answer. We have colleagues from IOM looking at that and feeding questions back to us. And of course, here on Zoom, if you're joining directly on the webinar, please use the chat box to have a conversation with each other, with us most importantly as well. And please use the Q&A function for any questions that you may have from the presentations. But it will be remiss of me not to begin with a very warm thank you to everybody that's helped with the research, but most importantly to IOM as well, who have been the heartbeat of the project. So I hand over to Tanya for some welcoming remarks and we'll get going from there. So Tanya, the floor is very much yours. Hi, Martin, and hi, everyone. So thank you for joining us this afternoon for our last session. So just before we jump into the most interesting part of this event, which are the recommendations, I just wanted to give a quick overview about the project. So I think some of you might already know about our consultations we held last year as most of you were more part of it. So from October to December 2020, we held a series of consultations with the diaspora from three pilot countries, which are Australia, Canada, and the UK. With the objective to help us better understand the diaspora and to strengthen the relationship between Mauritius and the diaspora. So now that we have finalized these consultations, we're very pleased to hold these three sessions with you all from all around the world. And to hear from you about your priorities, we really better support these initiatives and programs. Before we start, I would like to sincerely thank members of the advisory group in the free pilot countries for all their effort and contribution. Despite the pandemic, they made this project a success. So I want to welcome today, as Mauritius said, two of our advisory group members from the UK and Canada, Mr. Siusi Chen and Ms. Yashoda Ashambi. So I wish also to extend my thanks to Emira and Mauritius who have conducted this research and who has been leading these sessions. So just before we start with the recommendations, I would like just to quickly go over the agenda. So Emira and Mauritius will go over the recommendations and we will have the opportunity to have Shiv and Yashoda sharing their reflections on the project. Then we can proceed to the most important part of the session, which is your feedbacks for Q&A and discussed about the prioritization. So don't hesitate throughout the session to share your questions and we'll take those during the Q&A section. So I think Martin has already went over the house rules and they're also in the chat box. So I won't go over this again. So I will hand over to Martin and Emira. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Perfect. Thank you, Tanya. And just as I look behind Shiv's shoulder and his camera, I see a picture of Mauritius and I'm getting quite jealous when I see the landscape and wanting to visit quite soon. But look, just to echo what Tanya has said and you'll see also sharing of a link in the chat box for one-to-one conversations with us just beyond this session as well. What we've learned and what we've heard, for example, from the first two sessions is that there's a lot of interest from the diaspora and keen to ask more questions and engage. So you'll see a calendar link where you can actually book one-to-one conversations as well because we're also quite aware that it could be quite a lot to digest in one webinar and discussion. So that option is there and we look forward to hearing from you in due course on that front. So I'll hand over to the real brains of the operation and my chief colleague and chief diaspora troublemaker in chief, as I say. So Ms. Emira Jetty, to go over the presentation of the findings of the report. Emira, the floor is yours. And after that, we then will bridge into Shiv and Yashoda and we can have the wider conversation from there. So Emira, the floor is yours. Hello, everyone. Good day to all. And I suppose it's a good day as it's springtime in most of our countries. Thank you all, as Martin said, for joining us on a Sunday for taking your time to be part of this webinar. We are definitely very thankful to everyone for sharing their time throughout this project, as well as now in the final stages as well as in the future, as there will be a lot of follow up to it. On that note, I would invite everyone to please engage as much as you can, whether you're following us through Facebook, on the live stream, as well as through this platform. So we are monitoring comments, suggestions, questions on each of these platforms. Everyone who is on Zoom, please submit your questions, concerns, comments at the Q&A box that we have here. And as Tanya said, when we get to the most important session of today of questions and answers, we hope it's very interactive. So do feel free to ask as many questions as you have. I won't take more time. I'll go to the PowerPoint presentations now. So I'll share my screen. Just let me know if everything is okay on that. Maybe Martin, you can do that. So I'm sharing it now. Perfect, perfect. So the idea of the presentation today was to give you an overview of some of the preliminary findings of the research, research that wouldn't have been able and successful without the time that was given to us by diaspora members all over their networks that were shared with us, their thoughts, their concerns. So we're immensely thankful of that. And as far as the advisory group members and the sheave and your shoulder that we have here today, we're very thankful of their time. Advisory group members have been critical to the success of this project and we'll talk more about that in the future slides. The first slide that we have here before you, as to why now for diaspora engagement, you will see the cover page of the economist and the title, the magic of diasporas. Indeed, this was a old cover page. So it's probably a decade old and the diaspora has been a topic that has been conversed about for a long time now. However, diaspora engagement is in fact emerging as a key development policy of choice for governments recently as well. And especially now you will see that the governments have definitely understood the importance of engaging with diaspora to the development of their countries, economic and social. In that context, if you look at data, there's about over 100 countries around the world that have built some sort of a framework for engagement of their people abroad, due to them understanding the importance of it. And in that context, we believe that Mauritius should definitely be part of this conversation. And more so should even lead this conversation, considering the strength of its diaspora abroad and the strong voice that the diaspora Mauritians have abroad and to the development of their home countries. So these strong voices and concerns, although critical should be very important and they are very important to the development of the country. They show passion and interest and care for their home countries. In the next slide, there is a notion of diaspora capital, which we have discussed and considered from the very beginning of this project. So it was important for us to understand what is Mauritian diaspora capital. When we say diaspora capital, we are referring to resources available to a country, region, city, location or organization that are made up of people, network, finance, ideas, attitudes and concerns for their place of origin, ancestry or affinity. When I say that it means the diaspora capital goes way beyond just remittances, way beyond just investing back home. The resources that the diaspora capital can provide go range from networks, immense networks that can affect the branding of the home country positively, as well as various attitudes and ideas, for instance, work ethic. This can be transferred to the home country by diaspora. Skills transfer is another strong resource of diaspora and we'll go more about that later on, but we have understood this while talking to all the Mauritians abroad as well as doing a lot of research on it. Next, throughout this project and the very beginning, we have looked into some questions, data questions, design questions and operational questions, which we have attempted to answer throughout this project. The first questions that we found answers to and that we were looking at were who are the diaspora? So it's extremely important for us to understand the Mauritian diaspora, to define the Mauritian diaspora in order to know what activities should be involved in the diaspora engagement. Where are the diaspora? So for this particular project, it was a pilot project and the key countries of focus for it were Australia, Canada and the UK. And we have worked with Mauritian diaspora in all of these countries to understand more about where exactly they are and for how long they have been abroad and away from Mauritius and what do they consider as diaspora for them? What are they doing is another very important question. So in order to understand what activities are of importance for diaspora, we need to know what are they doing at the moment? And then we go to the design questions, which actually were answered a lot throughout the listening part of this project. So this was a beginning of listening to the diaspora for us. And we say beginning because we strongly believe that that is something that needs to continue throughout and in the future, listening of the diaspora and listening to the diaspora to understand their needs, their aims, their concerns, their hopes for the Mauritian diaspora. Something that was brought up to us throughout these research interviews is the first point that you see here. It was important to Mauritian diaspora to understand that diaspora, not only diaspora needs to support Mauritius, but also Mauritius needs to support his diaspora. So it needs to be a very mutual based relationship on benefits and trust for both. It's a win-win in the sense of that Mauritius ought to be involving not only the diaspora members that are successful abroad, but also the vulnerable members of its diaspora. This is extremely important in the context of, for instance, the pandemic, but as well as throughout the engagement with diaspora, it's important to give and to receive. Next, we found answers to not only the current aims and concerns and the needs of Mauritian diaspora, but also the interests of diaspora for their future relationship with Mauritius. This is crucial and these answers informed heavily are recommended actions, which we will be presenting today. Next, we have the operational questions that we considered and those tie back directly to the design questions. We try to understand what policies, programs, projects, can we shape in the short and midterm? And what is the role of each stakeholder in this work? And when we say each stakeholder, that goes beyond simply the government and the diaspora. It involves the private sector. It involves media, academia, and all other non-governmental organizations, which ought to play a very strong point in diaspora engagement. Another point of Mauritian diaspora is that you are very lucky to have a very engaging diaspora and a diaspora that has a passion for homeland. And the next thing is to understand how to build a better culture of diaspora engagement in Mauritius and what are the mechanisms to do so? What are the mechanisms that the diaspora as well as all stakeholders prefer? The next slide gives an overview of the methodology that we use for this project. And I will try to be as brief as possible. But as a first step for us, since the project started early last year, it was important to consider the effects of the pandemic and that we won't be able to do any field research. So we have actually relied on diaspora digital outreach as well as digital outreach with Mauritian stakeholders in Mauritius. This was done throughout various interviews, various group discussions, meetings online. And also it was crucial for us to ensure that there was local ownership for this project. We have done so by creating the three Mauritian diaspora survey advisory groups. These were created across the key countries. So we had one in Australia, another one in Canada, and in the UK consisting of about up to eight members, which have had a role of optimism with diaspora engagement or were leading associations abroad. These advisory groups were critical to the development of this project as well as to the success of it. And as Martin said, we are immensely thankful for their time and the contribution that they provided to this project. And we hope to see that sort of engagement and that continuation of collaboration in the future as well. In order to get to these creation of the advisory groups and throughout, we have been mapping different diaspora organizations abroad. So those that were more formal as well as those that were informal and that were leaning towards the digital networks as well as those groups that we saw of alumni or various types of networks abroad. We have engaged with all of these diaspora members individually or as representatives of groups. We have received survey responses. We have undertaken various research interviews, as well as we held quite a bit of webinars with diaspora members. It is important to note that this research was an independent research and we have tried to put that across throughout all of our conversations with diaspora in order for diaspora to understand that all the information that was shared with us was confidential and was used for the sole purposes of informing the recommendations that you will see here today. So all the concerns of the sensitive information that was shared with us was used only for that purpose and was anonymous. The next slide provides some reflections before we go to the recommendations and the recommended actions. Some reflections in terms of what we saw when we analyzed the data from Mauritian diaspora. So the first point was that the Mauritian diaspora is gendered and generational and this is extremely important when developing diaspora engagement and when actually coming up with recommendations because we ought to understand that mainstreaming gender in diaspora engagement is very important to Mauritian diaspora given their values. And also the development of their home country of Mauritias is important to consider the mainstream of gender there. So diversity as well as inclusivity in terms of that diaspora is also generational. And when I say generational, that means that it involves various people in terms of their age, in terms of their interests. So the second and third generations, those that have not been born in Mauritias but have a strong connection to Mauritias. And so that's the sort of the youngsters that we have spoken to but also the image of these youngsters in the eyes of Mauritians that have actually been in abroad Mauritias for a long time was that they were very interested in the culture of Mauritias. So they found that they are Mauritians and that they want to be involved in the cuisine of Mauritias and the dancing and the music that was extremely important to them. And so the relationship that they had with Mauritias was different than the relationship that those that were actually born in Mauritias had it with Mauritias. So it's important to actually understand all these differences and to have a notion of inclusivity when building diaspora engagement. There was a lot of concern, for instance, that we've noted throughout these research interviews where that were heading organizations abroad were wondering how the success of these organizations will come to be considering that they do not have many younger members and how the relationship with Mauritias will evolve in the future. The next reflection that we considered of Mauritians diaspora was that it was very connected and committed to Mauritias. So these, this is a very important notion because the diaspora that we have spoken to was definitely interesting in contributing back. And they were interested in being engaged and they considered themselves engaged with Mauritias. Nevertheless, there was this strong capacity and propensity to the Mauritians diaspora. We've also noted that there were some issues that were mentioned by Mauritian diaspora in terms of not being fragmented and not being as connected to each other. So we have spoken to a lot of them and across various countries and we did not see that many of them were speaking to each other in terms of organizations in a country with another country as well as within the same country. So it was important to understand that there's a need for this structural engagement amongst Mauritians diaspora to be brought as well as that engagement to be evolved with Mauritias back home. So unlocking that potential is key to developing a diaspora engagement. We have had also some very difficult conversation in terms of the concerns that were brought to us. So some discontent and discord from the Mauritian diaspora in terms of transitioning through and facing the reality. But we see that as a great potential in terms of understanding that the Mauritian diaspora cares about the future of the country and that's why it raises their voice. And there's a strong need for a diaspora engagement platform to build a trust and a relationship that is transparent and has a win-win component to it in the future. And this definitely takes a lot of time to think about how this can happen right away. So all the recommendations that you will see in the next slide and the recommended action need to have this in mind in terms of the vision. The last point and the point of the ethics of care is again something that I've mentioned earlier. So the mutuality of purpose to give and to get. So to have a strong eye out for the vulnerable groups and to have a mutual beneficial relationship with diaspora in lots of countries that we have worked in. This took a while for various countries to understand. So initially they have spoken to diaspora abroad asking for them to help to come back and invest to evolve the economies of their home countries. Nevertheless the diaspora has come back and we want to be involved. But we also want to actually benefit from this relationship. So we want to be part of the development of the country. We want to be shown respect and care. So this is something that needs to be translated into the diaspora engagement platform that is built with Mauritians abroad. The next slide as I mentioned earlier explains the recommendations trends that we have developed for this set of recommended actions and they are cyclic so to speak where you see the looking out and looking in in terms of the inward needs that need to happen for a successful diaspora engagement but also outward what needs to happen for a successful diaspora engagement. And for instance the first trend the institutional leadership development that needs to happen for Mauritius institutions in Mauritius. So for the government to actually enhance its capacities actually talks to the inward part of it and then trend two is diaspora social and cultural capital program which is exactly the outward so basically the diaspora involvement in terms of structural and collaboration that needs to happen for a successful diaspora engagement. Also the social and cultural part of it is crucial for diaspora engagement according to a lot of data that we received from surveys as well as from the research interviews culture was noted as the main area of interest for diaspora members followed by heritage and welfare. And then we have trend three. We have diaspora for a human capital program. This is also extremely important considering that a lot of the members of diaspora noted the skills transfer is something that they will be interested to actually contribute with to Mauritius. So when asked of how they would like to contribute back homes skills transfer is something that a lot of them answered in terms of that they will be interested to contribute to this. So we have this recommended actions that we will note later on. And then we have trend four which is of course diaspora economic and capital program and we will see a lot of recommended actions here as well. We now move to the kind of final slide for this particular presentation. And I'm sure there will be a lot of questions about this slide in particular because we have a brief overview. So we have the first trend, which is the leadership and institutional development strand and the first recommended action for it is the establishment of a diaspora cell, as well as the establishment of an inter institutional steering group on diaspora engagement. This is one of those recommended actions that have has already been approved and adapted in the making. It is crucial to give diaspora engagement an institutional home. It is crucial to showcase the importance of diaspora engagement to the government of Mauritius. As we we need to consider that diaspora engagement crosses many different portfolios within the government, but also it includes private sector media academia and it's important to build that collaboration across the sectors through for instance a inter institutional steering group that involves all of these stakeholders. The next recommended action within this trend is the diaspora engagement training program for government of Mauritius. So the training program we believe would help in the development of the capacities of the government of Mauritius in Mauritius, but also abroad in its diplomatic missions. This is something that of course is very important to be able to develop and implement a successful diaspora engagement and there's quite a bit of best practices on what this can entail globally and examples of training programs that have been very useful and important to development of a successful diaspora engagement. The third recommended action is the development of a national diaspora strategy or the first diaspora strategy for Mauritius and this thankfully was also adopted by the government of Mauritius and is crucial to address some of the policy and legislative barriers that are substantial and that currently exists to engagement unfortunately. For instance something that was brought up quite a bit throughout our research interviews with diaspora has been the voting rights and other points that can be addressed and tackled through this diaspora strategy. I think we can now move to the second strength which is the diaspora social capital program. You will see quite a bit of recommended actions that we have placed here but there's definitely room for more. Also the titles for instance the Mauritius means campaign are just placeholder titles so this is something that ought to be developed further and we would be happy to see more locally owned title for instance. So the first recommended action the Mauritius means campaign is really a public and cultural diplomacy campaign so that Mauritians can engage more with councils and diplomats and abroad and to help the development and further strengthening of diaspora networks abroad. As we said earlier so there's a need for a cooperation amongst networks abroad as well as their strengthening as well as celebrating the Mauritiusness together with the diplomatic missions abroad. Second we have the recommended action of Mauritian diaspora leadership network. This is again extremely important as it is important to build tailored networks so various tailored networks for instance of diaspora women who work on the empowerment of women and within the economical development back home as well as within diaspora communities to youth leadership networks to various professions that would have similar interest in collaborating with Mauritius back home as well as amongst each other. And then we have the recommended action of the Mauritian diaspora summit which brings all of this together in a way for exchanging various interests for collaborating and seeing opportunities of learning from each other and of helping each other strengthening the Mauritian cooperation. And due to the pandemic of course this is something that would take time to organize and hopefully at one point we can organize a big summit. Nevertheless it is something crucial in order for everyone to come together. And then we have strength which is actually the diaspora human capital program. So we have some examples of recommended actions here considering that Mauritians networks of academia have already done a lot of initiatives and have already come together many times. Another recommended action that came from this trend was to develop a Mauritian diaspora fellows program so fellowships that would be more brought to actually come back for a certain period of time to Mauritians and contribute or do that remotely. It was key to understand that there is a lot of interest for Mauritians abroad to contribute back home with their professional background so with the skills that they have and would like to bring forward to their home country. The next recommended action is Mauritian mentor's initiative is in line with the diaspora fellows recommended action above. So something that we considered is to develop a platform online to provide remote mentorship from Mauritian diaspora to youngsters of Mauritians whether they're abroad or in Mauritias but also there was a lot of examples from research interviews where we understood that many professionals, researchers and in different fields would love to provide help to youngsters to actually enter markets abroad or help them get internships abroad as well as at home through their guidance. The final recommended action within this trend also is the Mauritian next generation camp and this is something that a lot of Mauritian diaspora would like to see for their children. There's quite a bit of best practices of this particular action in Mauritian diasporas in the world. So this is something that we can basically learn from and replicate for Mauritias. And then we have the final trend and the recommended actions within the diaspora economic capital program. So we have the Mauritian diaspora tourism initiative and of course tourism for Mauritian is extremely important and it could be this initiative particularly could be an open invitation to diaspora for them to come back and try to build incentives for them to come back but also for them to be part of a basically maybe strategical target targeting second and third generations to further strengthen their connection with Mauritias. We have also heard quite a bit about the cost to travel to Mauritias as an issue that maybe needs and can be addressed through this initiative as well. Then we have the Mauritias diaspora trust fund. So this is something that needs time to be developed of course. So it needs a very strong leadership from diaspora from Mauritian diaspora and there's a need for a very strong structural network and framework of diaspora abroad in order to implement this. It is also important to note that when it comes to the investment journey according to the data that we have gathered we see that diaspora investment journey is probably in the mid to long term rather than in the short to mid term at the moment and diaspora is more interested in philanthropic giving and social development at this point. And then we see the final recommended action which is Mauritias diaspora business competition. So there's a lot of businesses that are already engaging and working in Mauritias from abroad as well as different businesses in Mauritias that engage with diaspora considering we live at a global age. So this is of course something that is already happening. It is important to acknowledge that and praise that collaboration. So it's important to actually have competitions that will encourage further collaboration of businesses from Mauritias with abroad as well as businesses abroad of diaspora that actually are engaging with Mauritias back home. There's quite a bit of examples on this point as well but I think that this will provide all of you with a framework of the recommendations that you can see in the report that will be published very soon for everyone to to read through and these are just some of the recommended actions. So it's very important for us to get a general feedback from you today but also to hear more examples, more suggestions of what actually works for you and what is important to the Mauritian diaspora. And on that note I come back to the same point mentioned by all of us please engage, please write your suggestions, comments on Facebook or on the platform here. We're more than happy to answer that. I want to finish this presentation on a note of thank you of course and so we are immensely immensely thankful to the advisory groups in Australia, Canada and the UK. This could not have been possible without their help and we of course are also thankful to the Mauritian diaspora in general and the individuals that have stepped up to help us with the outreach and with understanding what are the needs and aims of Mauritian diaspora and a special thanks goes to the team of IOM to everyone that has been engaged throughout and especially to Tanya who is now on the call and who has done an incredible job with coordinating everything and with helping us actually undertake this research myself and Martin. So thank you again very much. I think after this presentation we would like to invite our advisory our incredible advisory members from respectively Canada and the UK to share with us their research journey but also to provide some reflections on these recommendations. I think I can go ahead with inviting Shiv from Canada to say a few words after I stop the screen sharing and Shiv if you're available please go ahead and share with us your insights and thank you again for all the support throughout. Okay. Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes we can, Shiv. Hello everyone. My name is Shiv Sicharn. I'm from Canada. Firstly I start by thanking IOM mainly my good friends now Martin, Emira, Tanya and Mauritius and Salin also. So thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk. Also prior to that thank you for the opportunity to work together with IOM. Many of the aims and objectives of IOM have been my dreams on how to bridge Mauritius with Canada and the diaspora around the whole world. So thank you the team. What I plan to talk about today is to share some of the community work that I have been doing here in Canada for the past 15 years and intention is not to brag the intention is not to say I did this, I did that, no. The intention is to motivate people here in Canada, other people other diaspora in Canada and around the world also how we can work together as a community. I know it's very, very, very challenging. And then I will talk about the expectation of the diaspora here in Canada and most likely in the world. And some of my thoughts on how we can work together in the short, medium and the long term. So I started here. I came in Canada 20 years back and everyone we just started good living around through all the difficulties and all. But because of my past passion of doing community work in Cheshire, I was in Cheshire for seven years and I was in India also. That passion gave me some dynamism to sort of create or to set up a Mauritian community here in the west side of the GTA, the greater Toronto area. So we are friends together we sat down and we created a not-for-profit organization that we called Dudu Canada. Well Dudu Canada has been here for quite a long time I think since about 2006 we developed, we grew up we did quite a lot of activities. Yes, like many, many organizations and group grouping the Mauritians during events like the Independence Day, end of the year or during summertime we just mostly, honestly we just meet around, we have some dinner, we have some dance we have some fun together and that's it. So I call it as a dinner dance which is good. Many people come in many people come in for the dance that the organization will set up the entertainment. But the vision of Dudu Canada was beyond the dinner dance it was beyond that. Let's do something different. Let's get involved in the community. Let's do something that is real, has effects and we can leave the footprints around. And Dudu Canada, we did the food drive. You know the food banks, people can come and donate food and we go give it to the needy people. There's a system well set up. We did the food drive. It worked quite well for some time. And then another good project we did was the blood donation. It was so nice that during weekend we set up with the blood system of Canada and a lot of Martian community people they came and we did that blood donation for quite a while. Another good project we did was the tax, the volunteer tax where people who are not versatile, people who are not knowledgeable, people who cannot afford to file their taxes. We go through a system, we get trained and then we offer that service on a volunteer business and we did that for quite some time and we had to just book the room in a community hall and we invite those people who would need the services that would come and we developed the teams to do that. So and as and when time passed by the system evolved and the groups of friends we met, we re-journalized and thanks to some people at the Toronto City Hall and thanks to the councillor we developed the Mauritius flag raising. It was the first time that in Toronto about six years back at the city hall we did the flag raising where at one time we had about 750 Mauritius community people coming for those events. I would correct over here that it was not the first time that we did flag raising in Toronto ever in Canada because in Brandon, Manitoba a group of Mauritius friends they had done that prior to us. So people would be watching this issue, that's not correct or I'm going to do the first time it was Brandon who did the first time. Another good thing was that as part of the flag raising we connected I personally at one occasion approached the mayor of Toronto and I requested him to declare the 12th of March as the Mauritius cultural day. And after a lot of communication meetings, telephone calls and the city of Toronto agreed to declare the 12th march as Mauritius cultural day and heritage Mauritius is very proud to have achieved such a milestone among the Mauritian community and when you go at the city hall you see the on 12th of March it is returned this day is for Mauritius cultural day. So these are some of the good actual match we have done together and I always encourage people that to do a lot of community work beyond those good dinner dance which I myself I entertain myself well but it's fine. Also and at heritage Mauritius I must say that I was one of the keepers sent to empower other people, other members other community people to come in the front and take the leadership role and I'm proud that we have been able to bring in Yogita who is a woman to be the leader of heritage Mauritius this is a big achievement to bringing women in the front line to take leads and we have good friends like Noshad who has developed his leadership and communication skills and we have on the west side we have Shushila who most likely is listening over here and we have a lot of friends around I may be missing names around Vela, Neet everyone they have worked together to come in the front line so the community work has also given the opportunity to develop the leadership and the interpersonal skills among the groups of Mauritian with whom we have worked and there are a lot much more that we can do so I come to the parts of the expectation the expectation of the diaspora in Mauritius the other day we had talked about the number of Mauritians outside Mauritius I know the figure came to about I read 190,000 close to about but my figures are much more than that I believe there are over 500,000 Mauritian outside Mauritius and coming back in Canada we have about 35 to 37,000 Mauritians around here so the expectation of this diaspora I have been able to travel I have traveled to several places during this Mauritian community organization there are about close to six to eight Mauritian organization active one I've been to Montreal, Ottawa I've been to Brandon, Manitoba, Winnipeg I've been to Edmonton I've been to Calgary maybe Vancouver soon so the expectation of many of the community organization leaders and the Mauritian people is how we can bridge the Mauritians in Canada with Mauritius there are lots of good ideas coming we want to link yes giving back is good I personally I have a project of bridging education where we give supplies and other aids to the Mauritian needy students to have a similar project in Managascar also the expectation of the Mauritian diaspora is to see a better Mauritius you see a better Mauritius for the Mauritian people who are there and we see a better Mauritius for the diaspora who is outside Mauritius and who would like to have a linkage with Mauritius and who would like to retire back in Mauritius I have in my list some of the retirement schemes that Mauritius can develop and put forward for the diaspora around the world another point is some of the investment scheme I heard from Emyra I read that from Emyra they have proposed well what I will suggest going beyond the investment scheme where India has a similar project for attracting investment from the NRI they call that non-resident Indians so what they do is that they have special programs special schemes in the banking sector where the non-resident Indians can open back account at a premium return of investment I personally have that one because my grandparents are from India and I am someone who is the NRI or the OCI that they call it now and then you can have investment accounts with the premium return so that would attract the Mauritian diaspora around the world to invest in Mauritius where they will get premium return on their investment another good bit my suggestion would be the expectation of the diaspora another thing is that mostly the second generation of the diaspora who won either mom or dad who have been born in Mauritius they are eligible for a citizenship of Mauritius among the other criteria so either a parent who is born in Mauritius at the time of birth the child whatever age anywhere in the world can apply to become a citizenship of Mauritius fine but how about the third generation how about the fourth generation they will not they are not eligible so Mauritius should I will propose for Mauritius to develop under their citizenship act on how to attract the diaspora second, third, fourth generation to apply for a citizenship of Mauritius or a similar project that India has that they call it the NRI or the OCI another I heard in the last one or two webinars that Mauritius is developing the tourism attracting those tourism and the diaspora it is fine I think Mauritius there is a project where Mauritius can go to Roderick's island at a promo low cost but the criteria is that you book your air ticket and your hotel at the same time means that the island the small island of Roderick will get business over there similar model that they are using for Roderick you do the same model for around the world the Mauritian diaspora would want to come to Mauritius if they book hotels and the other leisure activities that are around there so air, Mauritius and other stakeholders they can develop a promo type of a scheme which will attract the Mauritian to Mauritius at a low cost believe me it is not easy for a family of 3, 4, 5 to go to Mauritius spend over 10, 12, 15,000 dollars for a vacation where away from the North America we can go to Cuba you spend less than 1,000 dollars all paid for 7 days so Mauritius should open their eyes the board of investment, the airline industry the hotel industry they should sort of come up together and in that external affairs Mauritius diaspora sit down and how to promote this thing so these are some of the project that I mentioned how Mauritius can attract the diaspora to invest in Mauritius I am going to share with my friends who are listening and watching me now there are ways that we can make proposal other than IOM acting as a broker or the Mauritius external affairs that they will create there are ways that we can make good proposal there is no need to go to demonstration all this time of BLD's there are good ways of doing the nice proposal the budget is coming so we can write the Mauritian organization all this community organization you can write to the ministry of finance and make some proposals I myself am going to make the proposal of that investment account that I talked about and right now the returning residents they are allowed certain benefits and that benefits it is a couple they give only one person who is allowed those benefits and propose to them give the benefits to both spouses and why not to the second and the third generation there are ways to make those proposals we keep on if now we have Australia we have Europe we have Canada we can all together sit down and make very good proposal and then there are some of the good things some of the other points that I have been always talking is we here in Canada we can sort of work together with the embassy to make a lot of good projects happen so my expectation is that we work together to make good things happen and I'm sure in future the momentum is there and in future we can do a lot of work together and having said that yes I heard about the mentorship program yes I heard about the exchange program we are here together we can make those happen so voila thank you very much I do appreciate the time given to me to share my thoughts and some a lot of thoughts are from my friends around and let's do it in a right ways in a you know you have there's a protocol there's a system that we will have to follow like it or not this is the ways whatever colors they belong to that's the ways but there's a way a system to follow so thank you so much all my good friends and I can sort of any questions now or even at a later time after this webinar thank you very much thank you so much thank you for all your help to date with the project with the outreach thank you for a very well elaborated present speaking today but also for all the suggestions that you elaborated and for all your thoughts we are very appreciative of that as well as for sharing the thoughts of your immersion friends abroad we strongly encourage everyone to actually share their views today on Facebook or on the platform here to address some of the points that you mentioned or some of the suggestions that you mentioned they definitely can all fall into the framework that was presented today I believe and they're very good suggestions India is a country with a lot of best practices on how to engage its diaspora there are definitely quite a bit of winner actions that India has been taking and this is something to learn from why not it's always good to see best examples and just replicate them there's no no shame in that so thank you thank you for bringing them up I believe Air Mauritius and some of the stakeholders that you mentioned are thankfully already part of steering technical working group that I mentioned as part of the first recommended action within the institutional leadership development so this is something that can be addressed throughout in terms of tourism and again there's quite a bit of points that I think are very helpful that you suggested and could actually fall into the framework of the recommendations that we mentioned Martin is there anything you would like to add or Tanya before we move forward to the next speaker No I just personally want to thank she I think she the first time we spoke it may have been a Sunday as well if my memory serves me right we had a good open and long conversation and we got around to that but I want to just commend she even as colleagues on the work that they've been doing and similar to people around the world and I leave you with this line for now which is something that a very dear friend of mine who was involved in the setting up of what's now a very big diaspora organization and the line he says always remember that nobody ever created a big company everything starts at zero so if we think about where the community is and there might be people on this call that are thinking about getting engaged so I think you know your own story has shown how starting from zero has grown and grown and the community is benefitting as a result of that so my message is just to keep going keep being as passionate as you are I think if you could bottle your passion from a ricious we'd all be very wealthy people because we'd be able to export it globally but look I just want to thank you for everything that you've done and I'm conscious of time so I'll be quiet now and we can move on to the next speaker Thank you Is there anything you want to add or should we move ahead? Yes, yes I really want to thank she for all the support he's been he's been giving us for the project but also as Martin highlighted like we can we can hear the passion and enthusiasm to related to Mauritius so we look forward to continue this dialogue with you and implement all these ideas I think you have great ideas so yes thank you again thank you very much Thanks again and thanks to everyone watching on Facebook as well as here in the Zoom platform we have a lot of thank you comments and hello's from Canada I believe from Edmonton from Pay so that's great to see please send your questions suggestions to us through Facebook or here in Zoom at the Q&A box next we move to our wonderful colleague from UK Yashoda to actually share her journey of the research with us within the advisory group but also her feedback on the recommendations the floor is yours Yashoda Thank you, thank you so good evening everyone hello to Martin Shiv and Tanvi and all everybody who's watching me right now on Zoom and Facebook Live as well so well for me I've been involved in the IEM Moorish and Aspera project through the high com of Moorishers here in London and the research journey was enriching and pleasant as Martin of course gave us the right platform to express ourselves discuss our views and concerns as Moorishans living miles away from home I personally reached out to my Moorish friends residing in the UK engaging with them to respond to the survey promoting some of the posts of the IEM group on Facebook and as well this project allowed me to focus to think on the ways on how to continue helping Moorishers and the community abroad and I had the chance to interview the webinars last November on how the Moorishan community abroad helping Moorishers each time of a crisis and even now people are still debating about what is going on around the world or the vaccine rollout so this is where skills transfer know how comes into play and as well that passion and the strong voice of the Moorishan community from here to Moorishers and the setting up of the advisory group has been one of the major features of the project as it acts as the think tank for the project and it gives us a platform to discuss and to give feedback on that's where all the recommendations that have been presented today came from I guess can I ask you to turn off your audio thank you thank you so this is where the recommendations are taking the shape and all the advisory groups from Australia UK and Canada have to come into play so that everything work together and for me I'm glad that all the recommendations we mentioned everything is now written down and has been approved by the Moorishan government so that we can start doing it however have like my small concerns of course about the logistics how do we make it work calling the person to coordinate and the motivation and expected effort that you want to achieve definitely the aim for the future is on the current and future conditions on how the world is operating right now should like start with short medium to long term plans and I believe that each milestone defined will take its time to reach and the well defined strategy to be followed I strongly believe should have like a transparent communication mechanism to be established between the government and Moorishans and the several advisory groups around the world for proper communication and engagement I have the same level of enthusiasm since October start of the journey now and for the future years to come to achieve all those recommendations and continuously improve as well I also believe that connectivity visibility should be key parts of the mission to encourage Moorishan abroad to be part of it and also to show the Moorishans living in Moorishans to see what is happening so we need to have this kind of both sides we understand each other and definitely use our embassies around the world offices so we have more connection with the people I also understand that we have different time zones and we are not able to meet each other to discuss but we need to create the key members of this advisory group to meet and also to share the ideas with IOM in between to come and also who will come from Moorishans to talk to us so we need to create that dedicated space I also wanted to mention about that yes we talk about those four segments of the recommendation and we need to identify the right people to come and support each one of them those categories subcommittees so we are to be trained and not only with IOM but also with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to understand as well some diplomatic agreements legislation policies that we are to amend to allow us for our self work and also the next observation I would like to make is about sustainability of the project definitely next generation is one thing and I support with what she just mentioned about all the schemes about first, second, fourth and so on how do we support them and also we need to take into consideration that us we are born in Mauritius our children will be born here and also what about our partners how do they also get benefits how do we encourage them to be part of this journey this is one thing and how do we keep our next generation engaged with the future generation of Mauritius to bridge the gaps between them I understand that we do enjoy the food that is in the entertainment more than that it's not just about the bright side of the sea, sun and beach stuff but also about policy making how do we help in the progress of the island it's just not entertainment everybody will probably like have definitely an exotic destination to go on but we need to help the country give the policy makers be as watching what they are doing to see what the welfare state is being maintained and how our investment is being used over there I also understand that this is a very challenging mission for everyone and it will take time and this is the next level of change that we are looking forward to continuous engagement with the community to understand the needs and concerns appropriate audit mechanisms to be in place to maintain the integrity of the project and proper communication lines to be established to stop and achieve the recommendations and I mean all that you said earlier in the presentation and also what she mentioned is what we wanted is actually becoming a reality so as for me I guess I'll call myself a third generation grandfather mother army third generation and I came here in a new country but I still maintain and I keep promoting my roots so that should be also something that we need to continuously do and engage people I don't know it depends how we we proceed the time frame that we have to do it like short term what can we do in the next five years or within the next two years right now but like for the UK I know that in July we are having a Meritian Festival it's like you know meet up for all Meritians to come and enjoy some music, food and basically entertainment but what's next so I mean when are we going to start the recommendation when are we going to do like action to turn it down and to seek concrete action just yes we can approve but for how long we need like a time we need to have like a duration this one first level second level sub activities or can we do like something in parallel or like the fellowship one we already have University of Mauritius and the other University in Mauritius that are there people from here Alumni Association can be helping from here to there so stuff like small actions still we go up to you know the end and I know like changing legislation and policies definitely take time and also how do we have the respect and care that we're looking for from our own fellows why we are saying that we want to do this for the community over there whether it will be accepted which people are we going to address the concerns who will be the ones to moderate it so it's a bit like it's good to have everything listed down then we can say in select and also to have the right people at the right place to do the job are we going to proceed with interviews who will be the ones to do it even the advisory group how are we going to meet so have all these concerns right now thank you so much Eshola thank you so much for and also I would like to thank everyone who helped IOM last class survey and everyone of you who helped us to achieve as you said that we have strong voices we are passionate we care for the home country and this is who we are people from Mauritius so thank you everyone and I hope to have like continued support for everyone who's watching us right now if I miss something send it into the comments send it to us on our Facebook and we can take it forward for those advisory groups and we can discuss it and turn it down so that the government can read it and yeah so I will just say once again thank you IOM and also the High Commission of Mauritius to give me the chance to speak and to serve my country even being miles away and I will continue to do so thank you thank you so much you raised so many important points and we're immensely thankful and also you asked the right questions actually and that's extremely important and as you said strong voices are always something that are welcome and they actually trigger change so they are very important you mentioned transparency which is extremely important and it was something that we had to follow this project based upon so we have tried to actually be transparent throughout all of the activities and these webinars the three webinars that we organized are also another way of us trying to engage with diaspora with the recommendations that we have the framework upon so that we get the feedback and so that the Mauritius diaspora is involved throughout all of the steps of the project and also a lot of other points which are extremely important I think a lot of the comments of what to do first and what to do next and whether to do things in parallel is a very valid and also it's kind of part of the strengths that we presented and I feel that definitely there's no need to wait for one step to get to the other so there's a continuation of a logical sort of framework to get from one to the other so that there's a lot of policies that can be done together with a lot of collaboration from the diaspora but also with Mauritius back home I will ask Martin and Gantania if they have any comments but also in the meantime let me once again thank everyone for being here on Facebook and Zoom and please do ask questions so I think we have some questions but please go ahead and provide here today also you can write to us and I think I posted a link in the very beginning I'll post it again it's a link for you to be able to schedule a time to speak to us separately so you can do that later on if you have further suggestions so please go ahead and do that booking the idea for these webinars was also to have the advisory members of different countries talk to each other so we hope to have similar events later on in the future Martin is there anything you would like to add? It was incredible I look at just a personal reflection when I remember the first time I spoke to you again very gracious with the time but I remember texting her very quickly after saying your passion shone through and then the call and I think they very much did there you know and look I think you correctly outline in many ways much of the nuts and bolts of what comes to reality so I think you can rest assured just to pick up on a couple of those to maybe for the audience as well when you see the wider report we address those issues of governance and we address them in quite detail quite a lot of detail so rest assured that's covered and I think we're in the process now we're developing the action plan to really build almost the microscopic steps to make these a reality and I want to provide a line that maybe it's an all Irish good one I think you know in a sense of when we think about the second generation and third generation or fourth generation and even though this is on Facebook I know I'm amongst friends so don't quote me on this I remember sitting down with an Irish diplomat about five six years about an event and I said this issue of you know who are the diaspora how do we define them and he leaned in with a little wink and he said don't overthink it he said if you feel Irish you wear Irish and I think you know it was well about third generation or fourth generation that will have the lineage line to Mauritius but when you mention partners for example there's really interesting ideas such as affinity diasporas and what's really interesting is that I can tell you hundreds of stories from many different countries but I can tell you one very quickly from my country if you wish how often the husband or wife of somebody from the country is actually more passionate about the country than the person that's from it it's a very different topic story that left an incredible mark on the development of education on my island that came from the spouse of an Irish diaspora that diaspora member who was not Irish so let's make sure that we keep that sense of you know never undervalued the power of a love story and where that can go in terms of diaspora engagement so from my end look I think you bring out the key issues of how we know structurally go about this and to Tanya because I know she may want to share some information on a project that they have coming up but obviously you're on the front line working in Mauritius on this so I don't want to speak on behalf of all of them so I think she can give you a quick update in terms of you know those wider structural questions or issues so Tanya the floor is yours. Yes so thank you thank you Martin and thank you Yushida for this so I think you mentioned a lot of important points and one of those were on the Tanya and Amira I would join them and saying like we're working actually on this action plan so we make all these recommendations easier to implement and as for the dedicated space where we could work together so as part of this project there was diaspora that was supposed to be set up at the level of the ministry of foreign affairs but due to the pandemic unfortunately this was delayed but we hope to be supportive we will be in setting this up, which would be a platform where we could centralize all diaspora initiatives. And in the meantime, we keep working as I think we said as a bridge or a broker to on this and provide a platform, but we also have a protecting the pipeline in regards to youth diaspora youth diaspora volunteer program, which will start I think this year where we hope to engage young diaspora members to come to Mauritius to volunteer in certain areas and sectors identified and connect with the cultural roots and, and yes, so we also look forward to working with you on that and welcome all your input. So thank you very much. Perfect. Thank you, Tanya. I just want to, as I was just just reflecting on what you showed and she said I think, I think both of you touched on the topic that's incredibly important for for the long term sustainability of this as well. And behind it all hopefully when you see the recommendations and the action times behind them, having really strong diaspora leadership and having that network then connected with each other. You know when we talk about some of the initiatives in this and the bigger question here as well as the role of government that's essentially what we're asking on many levels. And if we talk about the role of government as one of the facilitator or our implementer, there's definitely recommendations to my humble view, within what Amira has presented where the diaspora could take this up and lead on it on their own. You know, they can they can work in collaboration with government maybe but it can come from the diaspora I think that was speaking to her, where she was as well in terms of you know engaging and giving voice back and giving ideas back. So we want to see that culture of diaspora leadership get stronger and elevate in Mauritius and I think, you know, part of it is what's interesting as well for us in the research was that the diasporas in the three countries were at different stages of their own development. So there's even a lot of knowledge about you know how do we actually go about that if we just connect all those people. So I just wanted to bring that up because I think you know just a reflection from working globally on the topic as well. The more that you have those exemplary leaders that are really stepping up to the plate. And I'm wanting to commit and the beauty of what this research has proven to us is that those people are there for Mauritius. It's a much more difficult job of the people are not there to go do it. So the fact that you have them in the diaspora it's just about connecting them and look for one of the weather phase you kind of let them loose to create. And see what they come back with. So I'm conscious of time and we're kind of pushing on a time a little bit. I think you showed a particularly achieved presentation picked up on some of the questions that we got in advance so I don't want to rehash doors. You know, but those questions are governance the action can for this and the timeline of that. Just quickly on that for people that haven't joined the previous webinars. So what this research report really looks to is arguing that everybody across the landscape and Mauritius not just government, not just the diaspora but the public sector and civil society and everybody involved needs to commit to a long term vision. In terms of their engagement this is not a quick win, you know this is not something that you turn the light switch on and and it happens. So what we presented here we would see that as as arguably a five year body of work. Building block in a wider 15 to 20 year vision. So I think it's about really articulating that and I think that's where the strategy for example the national strategy will come in, because that's where you articulate those type of ambitions divisions the aims and things like that. So the other key question that we got in advance was about mainstreaming gender and youth and I think you can see that across the initiatives, particularly in the Mauritian diaspora leadership network we can create a women's leadership network in the diaspora we can create an international leadership network, same with the mentorship and as Tanya's project upcoming project mentioned just something that the IOM is very cognizant of. I think the other key question as I say was, how does this actually benefit the diaspora. And what I would say to that very quickly is that if you really look at strand one and strand two particularly of the recommendations. This comes back to that that idea of diaspora leadership and how do we support them support them to platforms and connectivity, but also true investment in the type of organizations are trying to run. So what was interesting for us is that you have really interesting landscape of diaspora networks and organization that work. Some are really established and you know one is very formal functional and nonprofit organization someone more informal such as Facebook groups and you know alumni networks or young student networks. So the question is how do we actually support them. So so they were the main questions I'll come back to a mirror in case there's any immediate questions have I missed anything or is renting from Facebook that I need to be speaking to. Before I get myself into trouble. The mirror anything else. Sorry, Martin took me a while to unmute. Thank you again to all that are watching on Facebook and here. So I think there's a few comments on Facebook of praise mostly and there are a few comments from hands. He's been saying that we need to reach out to him as well. And that's definitely something that we can do. I posted also the link for you to book a meeting with us on Facebook so please go ahead and do that. If you have further comments and suggestions. Hans is saying that there are so many meetings of diaspora groups and he wants to understand our motives. And if we are collaborating with the government. So maybe that's something Martin that you can answer quickly. I think we've mentioned it also throughout the presentation. Yeah, of course so in the context of this project as I said from the very beginning, it's an independent research project. So all the data that was produced was just for the purpose of the researchers only. So obviously the recommendations will go to hopefully informing government decisions and government policies with the research process was very independent. And maybe kind of defer to Tanya if she'd like to speak about IOM's wider work and in terms of up with the government. But but this for the purposes of this research it was very independent solely independent. So hopefully that helps answers the answer the question. Yes, I can add to that so as part of this project. I think we mentioned is earlier in the in the previous sessions as well we, we work with a technical working group were so people from different ministries or academia private sector as well. And this project so these people the these institutions stakeholders are key for implementation of these recommendations that we're trying to put forward. So we work together but as Martin said, this research was done independently. So everything every information that was collected was collected within our IOM. And that's our collection procedures so just to reassure everyone to assure that this was done independently independently but we do work with with the different stakeholders to implement this project so thank you. Perfect thank you thank you Tanya so look I think we've come to the kind of the end in terms of the next steps people are clear sense of we know develop an action plan so please book the meeting. If there are comments engaged with us email us hound us, you know we're happy to be hounded in many ways. So look just very quick. Thank you for my end to begin, and I want to begin to thank you with with she's your shoulder and all the team that were involved in the advisory group. But most importantly, I think as you showed us that as well everybody that took the time to actually fill out the form and get involved with the project. The number in general is very competitive and on the higher end of what is achieved in terms of diaspora projects. So, that's a good sign I think it shows that if you give the diaspora a bit of leadership and a bit of ownership, and I see she's smiling a member she even I, having a bit of a little bit of a collective conversation once and I said let's make it a bit competitive. So we see who finishes top of the leaderboard in terms of Canada, Australia and the UK, but but genuinely you know it's been a pleasure from from my end to learn about what we're from to learn about community to listen to the community and are very simple name in this research was to produce something that would hopefully help our wishes, but will also help the diaspora. So hopefully when you see the final report and you see the executive summary, you can see that that has been been achieved. I think you're sure that has the hands, hands so I'll quickly go back to her if there's anything to that. Yes, so I would just like to add on to what we are all saying so first of all there's no competition between diasporas and advisory groups so the aim is Mauritius. Okay, the benefits and the welfare of Mauritius. I know the Canadian group is very, very much more connected and active, as well as one in Australia because I guess they have the support of the government over there, because I've seen actions on this group on how, you know, bridge places where even the flags were hoisted when we had our independence day. Unfortunately here in London there was nothing happening. I was a bit sad in the sense that, you know, here, not even like lighting something for us so I guess maybe we should take this up with the UK advisory group and how we can get in touch with the High Commission of Mauritius here in London to do this kind of action. I think this is very good because CNN gave us coverage for like those 10 seconds that they have for adverts for different countries so whenever I tune into CNN I can see some time like moment of calmness, totally so actually they show like a beach, as well as the redreeks so I'm hoping that maybe we should work something with the BBC and other news channel to do just like how there's 10-5 seconds of showing Mauritius the landscape and you know to have that culture week during our independence and then something like that. So I know this on my previous employment in Mauritius, we've been promoting products and services and you could do it through ADB and they have their representative across the globe. So you can send also your suggestions to them because they also have a big part to play when they do the project drafts and et cetera. So this is one thing and also how they promote their semi-culture around the world. So I've been involved in those kind of activities. That's why I was willing to continue doing that. So one thing, yeah, I know I've seen the comments of Facebook but it's just not about, you know who is doing the thing right now. We should just not think now but the next 10, five years because people change, situations change because like say, who would knew that everybody would be in step of lockdown right now just one year ago. Nobody, so we need now to adapt as well on how to promoting ourselves and how we can encourage people to visit the island when everything is back to normal, normal between, you know, new normal. So, and also how as advisory group so we've shaved with the Australian people on how we are going to make because I was unable to connect like yesterday morning and misty alarm for six o'clock in the morning, five o'clock. So I guess maybe on Sunday we should like have like a working group so we can have like a three different session we can join in like that so we can have like some interactions. And I know there's so many groups on Facebook with the other countries, the European side of the Baspera is also very much active and they have been very, very important in when we had the crisis last year they even stood in front of the, you know they were in Paris, in Geneva, Belgium, Luxembourg and I mean, I have the friends over there. So we also need to think about the European side of the Baspera and everywhere else. So I guess with the centers that we are doing I guess we have like 200,000 Mauritians living outside the country and 40,000 around each in the UK right now. Well, I don't know. I know the data will be updated. So we need just to keep up to date but we have our community, how many people are there and how are we going to reach them? So I'm looking forward to continuously work with the IOM and with you guys to take this, you know to put it into shape. Thank you. Can I say something? Yeah, please, please. Okay, it's not competing. I want to correct that thing. It's not competing with each other. No, the competition was sort of in a good ways to sort of who we, which country will get the most number of interviews, which country will get the most number of surveys. So it was in a good ways to compete with each other which part of the world will get most number of surveys. So that was the good intention in terms of getting the participation, the maximum number of participation from the diaspora to come and voice out whatever all the suggestions that you may have. I am the first person to work in collaborative. I will come with my thoughts a little bit later at another time, Martin and the rest, how the different organization, the immersion organization from Australia to the North America, how we can form a common platform, how we can dynamism, how we can share our best practices. No competition. If we say compete means in terms of numbers, who's getting most? So then you are more dynamized to get more and more people to participate. To all lastly, to all the emotions around the world listening now and who will listen at a later time in the recorded streams, come up, you participate, just don't in a corner, fine. It is okay. You have a good time. You say, this must be done. We come with thousands of ideas. Yes, it is fine. But the correct way of doing is come with the IOM. They have a system. Come, you voice out. These guys, they listen to you. These guys have taken our proposal. They have taken it to government of Mauritius. They have taken it to the council of ministers and the council of ministers, they have approved that. This is a big, big achievement. I have never, never, never seen that happening in the past. So congratulations to IOM and all the Mauritian friends who are listening now. It's not this BLD that can make a system like this. I'm saying that in Creole. Come on, put it together. We come here. We come here. We come here to put this in paper. We propose it to do it. And the job of Martin and Emira and the team is to show us in some time, in a timeframe, what are the actions taken, what are the tangible results in bridging Mauritius with the diaspora and vice versa. Thank you very much. Thank you, Xi. And look, just to echo what I could understand. That, you know, genuinely, the spirit of collaboration and openness was phenomenal with the diaspora, once you've got through the sense of what research was trying to achieve. So you can rest assured that one of the very early sections of this report talks about the sense of Mauritianness and how we actually begin to build that and build pride in it. And I'll finish on this note from my end before my Irish gets me into more trouble. You know, the... This is something that a lot of diasporas tend to want to do anyway, but, and I think it needs to happen more. I think the shorter mentioned, you know, that the idea of celebrating ourselves more and having that pride in it, maybe in a more public display as well, in many ways. But here's the good news for the Mauritian diaspora. In all the regions that we looked at, the data backs up that the story of the Mauritian diaspora is one of achievement. So having that sense of pride and belonging, and if you look at the tagline of the report when you see it, we say stories of belonging, stories of achievement, belonging and opportunity. So that captures where we are. So I'll finish on that little tagline. And just to say again, thank you to everybody who filled it out. Thank you to all the Irish group members. But there's two people on this call as well. Obviously, thank you to Amira. She has to put up with me on a regular basis. And working with an Irish person is never easy. But most importantly, I wanted just two people on the call and Celine couldn't join us today because she kindly participated in the last two events. This project wouldn't have happened without the hard work of Kanya and Tanvi. They've been up at all crazy hours this late in the evening, Sunday Mauritius. So I just want to place on record my personal thanks and just say well done to Tanya, to Tanvi, to Celine. And the song that's reminding in the back of my head, it's what we've only just begun. So keep the conversation going, keep talking with each other and I'll hand back to Amira in case she has any final comments to Adam. Thank you all again. I'm conscious of time. I think we're past our scheduled time. But this has been very great in terms of interaction and also comments. And on both Facebook and Zoom, I'm very happy to see a lot of desire to engage. And we've seen that before as well. So we don't doubt it at all. We've met together with Martin, incredible people throughout this journey of research. We've met friends and we're very happy about that. We're here to help you in terms of voicing out all the recommendations and suggestions that you have. But as Shiv clearly pointed out and Yashoda, there's ways of basically you bringing up those recommendations and interactions and connectivity amongst each other as well as to Mauritius, which I'm sure that it's to follow soon. You're very lucky to have IOM as a UN agency who can serve as a brokerage for you. And IOM is extremely committed to hear and listen to the diaspora and to help you in whatever ways that you want to achieve your needs and your aims. So that is extremely important. We remain thankful with Martin to the IOM as he mentioned and definitely these webinars are something that IOM has been leading on in a great way. And I think that will continue, especially with the diaspora engagement action plan that we're building right now. So I'm sure we will hear each other and talk to each other again. But in the meantime, thanks for everything and thank you for your time. Have a great, great Sunday and hope to see you again soon. Thanks all. Tania, is there anything you wanted to add? I'm sorry? No, no, thank you, Amira. I would just like to thank everyone and especially our guest speakers today. So Shiv and Neshwara, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your contribution and devotion towards Mauritius. So we wish to continue this dialogue with you and all members of the diaspora and to engage on how to co-design the future with you. So just highlighting our line from last consultations and speaking to you following Shiv on that. So kuzim utande. We hear you and hope to reflect your inputs and feedbacks in our work. So please do contact Amira and Martin for the link shared on Facebook and in the chat box. So this is the last session of this series. So thank you very much, Amira and Martin, for leading this research and this session. So I think on that note, I'll just wish everyone a good day, afternoon or night from wherever you are. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, have a good one. Bye.