 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. To know about and hope and pray that we never have to take it. But it is a journey that our sister city San Juan and the people of Puerto Rico are embarked on. It is the United States Congress and the President are treating the Puerto Ricans as a unwanted step child. It is a man-made disaster. Yes, the hurricane came, but what has transpired since then is man-made. And we in Honolulu have to come to their aid. We have to support San Juan is a sister city of Honolulu. And the Martin Luther King Coalition in conjunction with Amnesty International and Puerto Rico Rise Up Inc. are dedicating the Martin Luther King holiday to the people of Puerto Rico in their hour of need. And so you ask, why Martin Luther King? In 1967, May of 1967, a year before Martin Luther King's assassination, he talked about the thing that we have to move from civil rights to human rights and poverty around the world. That we have to look at everybody. He created the Poor People's March because this was for everyone, that we cannot leave anyone behind. So we have come together with these other organizations and you, our listeners, and Think Tech Hawaii to support our neighbors in Puerto Rico. So today my guest is Nancy Wysad and she is, quote, native Puerto Rican as well as a teacher in mid-pack. And we also have on the line a doctor, and she is from Puerto Rico Rising Inc. So all donations go to them. So yes, I am asking you to donate. Absolutely ask you to give, give, give. It's a dollar or five dollars or whatever you've got. We cannot leave these people behind. They are island people just like we are. We've been through hurricanes and we know what it's like. But we have not had the man-made disaster. So we need, we need you, absolutely need you. So Nancy, thank you for taking the time to be here with us. So tell us about Puerto Rico, because most of us, other than know where it is, even our president didn't know where it was. Surrounded by a big ocean. A big ocean. Yeah. He even had a golf course out there and in true Trump fashion, the golf course is washed out so he declares bankruptcy. But he doesn't do anything for the rest of the island. So tell us about Puerto Rico. Well Puerto Rico is my beautiful island, homeland. And I have been in Hawaii for 29 years. But right now, the current situation, my fear was when it first occurred, the hurricane on September 20, was that people will just move on and forget about this huge natural disaster. But like you said, it's also a man-made problems that have made it worse. And so I knew that the recovery was going to be slow. But for people who are not used to being a third world country, that's what basically it's coming down to. I mean, not having drinking water and you're not used to living in those conditions. It's really devastating to know that the people of your beautiful island are suffering so much unnecessarily. And that's why I will not let anybody forget and maintain attention and keep helping as much as you can. Have you been back to Puerto Rico since the storm? I have not. My mother did spend Christmas there. I was a little afraid for her. But she could see Puerto Ricans. We are very resilient is what you have heard, probably in the media. But yes, we know how to get up and keep going and not be lazy as some certain people had mentioned, certain administration. But we continue to work and everybody helps each other. There is so much need right now and that's why we focus. I'm helping from Hawaii. I support Dr. Lisette Gutierrez because she is with a group that is focusing on the most vulnerable, which are the elderly and the children. She is Puerto Rican rise. Rise up. Rise up. Puerto Rico rise up. The pink. She is on the line with us from Snowstorm in New York. Yes. Dr. Aloha. Aloha. How is everybody there? We are so delighted that I have taken the time to be with us this morning. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Yes. Yes. So I'm going to just tell you a little bit of what's going on in Puerto Rico as you all know, it's the 20th humanitarian crisis of epic proportion and food leading to shortage of power, water, medical care, essential supplies, and hope as residents see no end to what is going on still three months and a little bit more since Hurricane Maria. Three days after Hurricane Maria, which ended up being Wednesday, I took a relief flight on Debleau to get there and that's Saturday morning. I arrived there where there was no satellite and just to get an assessment of what's going on. I went to some of the towns and met with the Secretary of Health and who asked me to get volunteers to get to Puerto Rico as physicians. So with all that said, we built a whole network including over 3,000 physicians from Puerto Rico and mostly mainland US to get medical supplies, basic needs, and we just organized this nonprofit 501C approved nonprofit comprised of healthcare professionals throughout the US and Puerto Rico. It's basically to help rebuild centers of children. There are 32 centers of children, centers of children or orphanages and maltreated and substitute homes, which I lived in Puerto Rico for many years and until four years ago, I did not know there were 32 centers of so many children there. The second phase is to help rebuild elderly homes. So we just did during the holiday season, we did a huge toy drive for all these centers and we just did a mini-dalla to start raising money to rebuild these centers. On the long run, the crisis has been till three, the last time I was there, I was there four times and still going back to the same town that I went on the first time, you would think there would be a little bit of improvement, but that's not happening in the up in the mountains where there's still towns where there's still no water. We did get water filters from this company called Water Stuff who have been amazingly helpful to get water filters to these towns where people just get their water and come to certain parts of the town to get it filtered. Still a lot of people without a roof, there's still a lot of places there if you need tarps and there is still a lot of people in the cities who don't have power and dealing with generators, those are the lucky ones, but when there comes a physician, when you come with Delta, the needs that come behind it between the water and contaminated water and comes bacteria and things like leptosporosis and comes with hospitals being jammed with patients and even the patients that could be discharged can't be because they don't have power to have a ventilator at the house, secondary issues that come behind all this. You wonder when is it going to stop. I've been not stopped working with this in September 20th. Because it becomes more than what I just mentioned, there's a lot behind it. There's a lot behind where a lot of people question, where is the money going? How do you get things to get there? You have to go on your own sometimes and I felt myself, I started this and thinking when I was there, yes, I'm a physician, but how can besides spending over 150,000 pounds of medicine on my third trip, thank you to so many people that were helping to get private planes to get this and to actually send it to the hospitals in need instead of just shipping it and where does it go, or does it stop, and who takes it and who's not thinking of how else can we help. So on my personal level, I started and Nancy and the wise and amazingly and help with this with generators, patients with diabetes, cancer, people who need CPAP and et cetera, and diabetic patients who needed insulin or refrigerator to store their insulin. Not that insulin needs to be refrigerated, but the heat damage is it. So they were in need. And it's just like you think that I mean, I live in New York now and I hear people saying, well, Hurricane Sandy was terrible. It was devastating for a lot of people just like in Texas and everything that's going on in the world. But I used to live in Puerto Rico and sleep. I've been to Haiti five times after the earthquake, but I know what Missouri is and to actually see my people who are not used to having such a humanitarian crisis until this time. It's devastating. On my first trip, I had to actually go basic needs to people on up in the mountains in this town called Eduardo and to see them receive it and to still be very resilient and say, thank you. It's tough when you go back home and you have what they can't have right now. So I want to thank Hawaii. I want to thank Nancy for doing such an amazing job helping us. And if it only takes, if you could only just get one dollar and imagine how much if everybody just did that, how much it actually could help whatever we can do. We are making every effort to do this to help you and all the people of Puerto Rico. What is sinful in my eyes is that the United States is the richest nation ever in the history of the world. And we have homeless people, hungry children going to bed at night with no food, people sleeping on the streets in every city in the United States. Our soul, where do we lose our soul somewhere along the line? I don't know. But this is just too much that we overlook people, people in the streets, people like Puerto Rico. It is just heartbreaking to think that we are just throwing away people everywhere, not just Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Haiti, you know, right here in Honolulu. Honolulu, we sell aloha, yet we are the meanest city in the United States. You know, that's what they say we are because we have more people on the street than any city. This is, so I'm, I'm asking everyone to dig, dig deep, not just so we cannot move into a new year, a new time and leave people behind in Puerto Rico. This is our sister city. We have to act for our sister city, for the people of Puerto Rico. Well, let me ask a question about the mayor of San Juan, because I have come to love her. And whenever she's on it, I just love, love, love her. So tell me about the mayor of San Juan. Lizzie, can you hear me? Are you talking, I wasn't sure if you were talking. Yeah, no, I'm asking you about the mayor of San Juan. I just love her. So tell me. So President Colleen, I don't know her personally. I, I try not to get involved with them politics, that's how I work, but she has caused a lot of attention. And I, I do, I just actually compare her to a president in a way that they, they don't have, they both don't have filters, but I, I think she speaks for, for many Puerto Ricans. I don't think she speaks for all of them. And again, I, I just work with what I, I see, and I just try to, to get, stay away from politics. I, I don't believe that's the way things get resolved. Unfortunately, though my goal and our goal and the nonprofit is to actually just work with and get things where they have to get, because these 32 centers of children, they stopped getting help from the government. They stopped getting federal health. They stopped getting local help, maybe because of the economic crisis that's going on. And that was going on before. And I'm not trying to cover what the issues were from before Hurricane Maria. I mean, I actually believe that her team was just in a, in a, in a positive way. It's actually created an awareness of what was going on already. There's 45% of poverty over there already. And people say, well, the grid wasn't good anyway. And it wasn't, but it's not going to get better anyway. Now they're not going to put it underneath the ground. How it, how would a lot of people would have thought, oh, you're going to really fix it right now. It's just standing up the polls. And next hurricane.com is going to happen the same thing. Unfortunately, that's, that's what's going to happen. And we're good all the money goes, but it would have been more and much more expensive to actually fix it the way it should be fixed. And that would take even, even longer. So I really don't have anything much to say about the, about San Juan. Only that I just actually hope that she and all the, all the, all the majors of each town really get their act together and see what prioritized what, what's really important right now. It's not, it's not the, it's not the recreated centers of parks. It's actually seeing people that are still without water, without power, without food, without a roof. And that's where people should concentrate. I, I know a lot of things get mishandled and money goes where it may be not to be going. And, and, and I find that, that, that's not only happens in Puerto Rico, that happens everywhere. Well, doctor, we, very unfortunately, we need to take a break and we'll be back in one minute. So don't go away. We'll be. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. Back in. We're back. And this is a marvelous day for us. This is our first day back in the new year. And so we are jumping right in to what, for me, is the most important thing. When you're navigating the journey and we have dedicated to talking about issues that are the way we want to live our lives and what we want to say about the way we live our lives. So one of the most important things then is to look at how we treat our neighbors and how we treat our friends. So we are here with Nancy Wassett. Why? Sorry. Yes. Thank you. Who is our official Puerto Rican. It's an honor. Quite an honor. Because we wanted to talk about what is going on with our sister city in Puerto Rico. Well, the whole all of Puerto Rico, not just our sister city. And so with us, we have on the phone from New York from, let me get this right, Puerto Rico Rise Up, Inc. And we are asking everybody to donate. I don't care if it's a dollar, a quarter, whatever you've got to donate, because we have to come to the aid of people in need. And so Nancy. So tell us about Puerto Rico and where we are now. OK, so the current situation, the metropolitan area, which is San Juan, the north, there's not a hundred percent electricity in all the towns, not one single town has a hundred percent electricity. But they are the ones that are best. Just yesterday on the west side, Aguadilla, somebody, if you go to Maria Updates, Hurricane Maria Updates, a person said, finally, I got electricity in my house. And so imagine being over a hundred days without electricity and just the stress. People are suffering from so much stress that they are becoming stressed and there is a high rate of suicide, a depression. So this is really affecting in such a big way. I know that the schools, I spoke to my little niece and she's in Trincon and she says that they're going to extend the school year to June. Usually school is out in mid-May. So that's good that the students don't get to lose their school year of being a teacher here. I don't care about those things. But regarding water, they're doing better, but there are towns that like in the countryside, Ibonito, where Dr. Gutierrez and I are from, that's two thousand feet above sea level. It's a very cold and winter, I heard that it's gotten as cold as 45 degrees. So it's a beautiful town and people there, some people don't have water because the water depends on the water pumps and that you need electricity for. But some hospitals are getting electricity. I think it's on and off. So it's really hard when it's not consistent. A lot of people are starting to be on the internet again. I can communicate with my family on Facebook. That's because they have solar chargers for their phones. So at least that's one way. But if I communicate with them, I can't expect immediate response. They might respond a day later. So recently my dad was very sick and he had to be taken to the hospital and I couldn't get a straight answer till six hours later. To get a message that, oh, that is really ill and I don't know if he's going to pass away and dealing with also the drama, dramatic, oh, okay, my family can exaggerate sometimes. But just having that living so far away, it's really hard to deal with things like that. So the stress that they're going through, it's really real. Gasoline and diesel, the prices, there's not, the lines are not too long anymore but the prices have gone up. Most supermarkets in the area Metro, they are fully stocked but I'm not sure about the inner, I say inner meaning up in the country. The geography in Puerto Rico is so different from Oahu. I was looking also, it's 78 towns, different, 78 towns. Different metropolitan towns with their own government? 78 towns were each one with a mayor. So here in Hawaii, we don't have that, we just have the Syrian county of Honolulu. The whole island is the city and county of Honolulu, right? So there's 78 and that includes two adjacent islands, Vieques and Culebra. And Vieques was compared to Cajo Olave. Oh yeah, I remember that, yes. There is 9,000 people that live in Vieques. These two islands, they're still having trouble with transportation. I heard that you can still apply for a tent from FEMA till the end of the month. So it's crazy if you don't know about these things and you miss the boat. We only have a minute or so left. Doctor, can you hear me? If she's still there? I can, yes. Okay, now we're gonna go back to politics. So this is just as racist and mean-spirited as it can be and I'm just so disappointed with our government for treating it this way. Now this is my idea. And well, maybe it's not an original idea, but you have so many Puerto Ricans who are leaving Puerto Rico to move to Florida and to move to New York and other cities. My idea, of course, because I'm an old-time political junkie, all of those people need to be organized and they need to vote and they need to vote out everybody that's in the Congress right now that has refused to help them. They need to know, they need to make it clear to everybody why they're in the condition they're in. Now I know you're a 501 and you can't lobby, but I can. And I think they have to organize and they have to say we cannot be treated this way and those of us that are not in Puerto Rico, we can do the same thing. We can organize and we can tell the Congress, you cannot continue to treat people this way. That they have to vote against them. They have to stand up and vote against them. Thousands of people leave in Puerto Rico every day. They move to New York, they can vote. They move to Florida, they can vote. They have to do this. So like I said, I know you're a 501 and you can't lobby, but I can and I have no problem doing this. I totally agree with everything that you just said. Yes, we have to do this. We have to come together. We have to come together. We cannot, like Martin Luther King said, this is a human right and we as part of Martin Luther King coalition, as part of the city of County of Honolulu and Think Tech, we have to come together. We have to take a stand. They cannot continue to treat people this way. Yes, I think that we begin with educating people about this and like you said, so many people are leaving. That means that people that can help this elderly and the younger, the children, they're leaving and that hurts the economy even further. It's a big mess. Well, it has been. And when they do leave, because there's the other side of the story is that once there, a lot of people who have moved for, let's say, for example, Florida, Florida now is like a mini Puerto Rico so it's overpopulated now with people in Puerto Rico and even the governor there doesn't even know what can you do with all, if that was. So we vote against him, too. If people in Puerto Rico are helped. Who we vote against him, too, I think he can go. A lot of physicians in Puerto Rico have left Puerto Rico because they're kind of like stuck and they haven't gotten help. I was trying to tell the government in Puerto Rico, help them rebuild their offices again and help the doctors stay there instead of not helping them and then you're staying without positions that you're gonna end up needing. Yeah. And it's as simple as that. It doesn't cost much to help them rebuild their office and get them back to where they were supposed they were before to have the physicians content and staying there for their own people. But actually having all these people, physicians and the rest of the population leave in Puerto Rico, let's say for Orlando and they once they get there, they thought maybe it's a better life but they're actually stuck and how can they get help in the state? It's not an easy decision for them to have left and it's not an easy what they're going to do once they have landed to the US. Well, we have to go. Our time has come to an end and it's been a pleasure spending this time with you and we will be back. We'll call you again and we'll talk as this progresses or doesn't progress, whichever the case may be. Thank you for having me. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. I love her. Thank you.