 we are back from our short commercial break my name is still Valentine and we are still on set with two very very very amazing I want to say personalities the transcendent from being people now they're just personalities and if you have not been listening to us or if you just joined us on the show that's fine I'm quite sure that my able team will put it up on a link on YouTube but in case you need us to introduce ourselves with one more time I'll allow them to do that professor. Hello my name is Natalie Frederick-Pierre I'm a professor of history at Howard University in the United States and I immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti as a toddler. And you are sir. My name is Nico Guto I was born in Kenya now based in New York City and they founded the executive director of Safariango International which was born in Cuba and stationed at Columbia University in New York City. Okay so now for the sake because I just had to explain to them this conversation could last forever there's just so much to know so much mind-boggling information going on over here but just hopefully two questions well at least for me and I'd like to start with you Nick so you are basically an activist for for the black people outside or even just over here you know you care about our rights and all these and we just mentioned or as you know last week his Excellency the president did a little reshuffle of his cabinet administrative secretaries now what caught my eye is not Dr. Alfred once again from foreign affairs which is very very important for this conversation because we are talking about foreign affairs so he went on social media and claimed that I think he had gone somewhere he had traveled abroad and then came back and then went on social media and said oh in Canada they're available their jobs and things like that there's just special for Kenyans so please just get ready let's go and then enters the immigration refugee citizenship of Canada the IRCC and they said this this information is circulating which suggests special programs are welcoming Kenyan immigrants and this is false the immigration programs referral don't exist what kind of picture has that painted in itself thank you for asking for that question because actually that doesn't really the main reason why we organized this conference this past Friday one because of misinformation and missing information we read in the newspapers every day and watch on TV how Kenyans and Africans lose money through these many agencies that are purporting to take you abroad right so our main mission was actually to bring experts in these areas right to come and give free information one thing we can agree on is that we are not going to stop Kenyans or Africans from traveling abroad looking for opportunities right we are human beings God gave us legs to walk so we are going to walk across the world this boundary is never existed 2,000 years ago right created by human beings that means I can't be here I can't be in the US tomorrow right so this information we are trying to plug that gap that exists between the right information and the people linking them to real opportunities we don't link people to opportunities as Safari and International but we avail the information like for example if somebody is done with high school in Kenya and is looking for a higher education opportunities for example in the US or in the UK or in Canada when you go into the internet that thousands and thousands of school this can be really daunting and overwhelming for a young person or for the parents who want good opportunities for their children right so we help you narrow it down we we help you see and I identify the things that you need to look for in a school she's a professor she live and help me with this the certain you need to look at what programs you want you know some of the schools are not even accredited wow so you have to make sure you're going to the right school and some of these schools have got very beautiful websites you know you can build a beautiful website get really nice testimony on it you will never know you will never know it's an evil school covered in a white wolf you know as they put it so as as an organization we help you narrow it down so that you can access some of these opportunities for example if you see online that the jobs in Canada the jobs in Australia you can come to us we can check it out if we have that capacity and we have the right information about that agency maybe in Australia or in Canada we'll be able to look it up and tell you hey this is a good opportunity go ahead and apply and we can see this is how to apply for it right if there's any red flags we'll be able to inform you so what we try to actually create in Africa or in Kenya right now if to have a membership so if we get in contact with any opportunity abroad there we can actually mass email it to our people and they can follow it in their own way you make your own decision we don't charge for that if you're a member we'll be able to get that information because there are lots and lots of opportunities as I told you even among the global black population there's a lot of resources a lot of skills that within us that we can share you know like on the conference on Friday Saturday I was saying the speakers were black people the organizers were black people this is in a black country this is black excellence assembling in Nairobi we need to be able to appreciate that we can get opportunities from our own black people not only in Zungu yes it was an entire black led conference and a lot of information was shared and a lot of people are happy we were able to bring different schools into Nairobi like Columbia University Columbia University has never done this before they've never gone into public trying to reach out to people you know it's an Ivy League school and people go to them I did my graduate studies there and when I applied almost a half a million people applied and they took almost just a thousand so you can see how competitive it is to go to that country so to convince them to come into a public space explaining the programs they do it's a lot of work and that's some of the things we do as an organization to talk to these schools convince them please come and explain your programs to the public that's what we do okay wow and as a professor how does that kind of spill over into that I think I think that I'll just add so for students who are applying to college one of the most important things are your letters of recommendation and as someone who has worked on admissions committees in my capacity as a professor sometimes the letters of reference are too vague you want to be alive in your documents and my recommendation to students who are trying to get education abroad is to be very strategic about who it is that you ask for a letter of recommendation and it would be better for you to have a letter of reference from your pastor than a famous person in Kenya because your pastor can speak to your character they can make you very alive in the letter so that's what I would add to everything that Nick just said it's kind of a human humanizing the person who is applying because once for example the grades are graded ABCD or 4.0 3.4 those are not human beings so when you write your story when you tell it you're trying to humanize those grades yeah because our Kenyan education system we focus so much on the grades but not the person although they're trying to move past that so we're not having the 844 anymore now we have the CBC which is I hear that it's been very stressful it's experimental that's very experimental so we're just waiting to see the fast budge but come out wonky like a pancake like the fast pancakes yes exactly hopefully the rest hopefully the rest right now my second and hopefully last question guys bear with me is now we're talking about the police coming into or the being deployed into Haiti and how is awareness going to help us as people how is telling the Kenyan people or the Haitian people that you know what this this is not something that was opened up to the grand public this is not something that went on debate that it was voted for this is not something this is kind of happened we also found out by the way like you found out we just saw it on the news and they all we really are okay I don't know what that means but okay all right so how does creating awareness help us remain absolutely I'm an educator so knowledge is power so the more Kenyans are aware about what's being done in their name they can publicly say not in our name and social media is a very powerful democratizing force I encourage Kenyans who are listening to look up the hashtag hands off Haiti so that they can see what conversations Haitians have had around the various occupations that we have endured and that they can put their voices in it because when these officers get wounded in my country there needs to be a public outcry because you all did not vote for this and you want to be as public as possible particularly for members of the African diaspora who are watching it is one thing to be the Kenyan government but it's something to be the Kenyan people and on social media the Kenyan people can make it very clear we don't want this and also you all have a very thriving civil society write op-eds with the cameras just simply say this is not what we want agitate to your local legislators I know that even in the US that doesn't often work but you want evidence that you resisted this happening under your name all right okay now for the sake of time maybe I'll just give you a minute to you know just give a sentiment or two on the current topic my sentiment yes please well my my heart breaks for the Haitian people and the Kenyan people because this is not where we want to be as towers in the African diaspora and the final thing is my understanding is this government's term ends in 2027 and I want everyone here to remember so that we can vote that you all can vote differently although that would be history being made if a government only just went on one term but anything is possible anything is possible all right Nick what would you like to say so I want to tell Kenyans that as a black immigrant advocate in the USA I see the challenges Haitian people face when they're trying to get into United States when they're trying to cross the border and how they're treated they're treated as poor people poor black people very violent people they're giving that level when they arrive at the borders and even when they're crossing that treated very very different from other populations of immigrants while Haiti is a very rich country with rich in the people in the history they've done it 220 years ago they did it they liberated other countries and these are black people these are African people and Kenyans you've done this before you've come together as a people to stop government from doing certain things this is your time come together use every single platform you have it could be in your charge on the streets on Facebook on tiktok hey I'm talking to the tiktokers now please this is an issue that you need to put at the forefront let's build that power from the grass roots talk to our leaders and make the government change their mind all right thank you so very much like really do have to wind this up it has been such an honor to hear both of you your can we have a conversation after this absolutely definitely okay guys meanwhile remember the hashtag to all today is yes MCM that's my crush Monday so I in the morning but we just learned a new hashtag hashtag hands of Haiti alright so keep it here we will be with Brian so quote one-on-one after this