 Good afternoon. This is Bezia in Portland Media Center and Tom, we're going to talk about what we do here. Okay, sure. Well, the main reason we're here is for anybody in Portland, anybody, maybe even in the greater Portland area, but mostly in Portland, to talk to the community. The community could be the whole community or it could be just some group in the community. We have a television station. We have two television stations. We have channel two on the charter cable system, which just goes to people in Portland. And then we have channel five on the charter system that just goes to people, it goes to people in the greater Portland area, 16 towns. So what people can do is they can come in here and make a video like you're making now. Right. And you actually are doing exactly what we want people to do. Okay. You want the greater community to know what we do here so they can use us. That's correct. And that's the kind of thing that we encourage people to do, to communicate with their neighbors, with their community about what's going on for them in their community. And it doesn't have to be something like just this video or anything like that. It could be about tradition or culture change. I mean, if I say, example, I moved from Philadelphia like three months. Maybe there's somebody never been in Philadelphia or maybe somebody never been in Washington this year. Right. Or maybe I came from Africa. Right. Or maybe I came from Middle East. Well, right now you're doing a show called Africans United. That's correct. And you're explaining to people, both you're explaining to the general public what it's like to come from Africa and live here. To be here. And you're also talking to people who come from Africa and saying, well, this is what other people are experiencing. So you're sharing your ideas with different segments of the community. Okay. And that's what the channel is for is for people to talk to their community. But it could be sharing the arts. It could be sharing cooking. It could be sharing ideas. You could be talking about political things. You could have, we've had debates on here where people who are running for public office debate each other on different issues. And you can allow people to come up or you could just have your candidate come up and speak about the issues that are important to them. You can do whatever you want if you're a Portland resident. But the other thing too is that you can learn how to use the equipment and make your own videos. And we also had a podcast studio. So people make their own podcasts. And the cost is very low. All you have to do is pay for the classes to get started. And then after that, if you're a Portland resident, then you can come here and use the equipment free of charge to produce videos to share with the public on those two TV channels or even on YouTube. And soon we're going to have a Roku channel and an Apple TV channel for podcasts. So we have Spotify and we also have Apple podcasts. Oh, that's good. And how to get to the cable? I don't understand how if you say the program in the cable, did I have to rent a box or did I have to connect to the Internet? Well, you can actually watch us on the Internet. Our website, portlandmedia.org, has a, you can click at the top where it says media. You go down, I think it actually says archive. But when you get to that page, it says watch. You could watch us live stream right on the Internet. Oh, that's good to know. Or if you have cable, charter cable, then you can get us on Channel 5. And if you're important, then you can get us on Channel 2. That's good. So you're talking about freedom. I mean, if I say I'm coming from Africa in a different background, I don't understand what means freedom. It's kind of, for me, it's a big word. But if I want to break it down, what do you try to say? Well, the thing that I think a lot of people don't understand, whether they come from Africa or they were born here generation after generation, is that freedom of speech is really our birthright. It's our right as a citizen to speak our mind to the public and let people know what we think. A lot of people, and we have more freedom here in this station than you have on any other television station because other television stations are privately owned. So whoever owns that TV station dictates what goes on that TV station. Oh, wow. This is a public. This is public. It's open to the public. And in this particular instance here in Portland, this center is primarily for Portland residents to speak their mind because each other town has their own or has the ability to have their own station. However, we do have this regional station that goes to 16 towns. And because we have this regional station, that isn't a free speech channel necessarily, but it's operated by us, the Portland Media Center, which is a nonprofit. And so what we do is if people come in regardless of where they live and they have an idea that we think is valuable to the general public, then they can do it. For example, somebody who's a recent immigrant from Africa wanted to do a game show. He just wanted to do a game show. Okay. And that's what he's doing. He came in here, got the training, and he started his show just last week. It aired for the first time, a game show that he did. Another person wanted to talk to people in the arts. Okay. And so they have a talk show where they bring in people who are involved in different parts of the arts. It's those kinds of things that it could be about anything. It doesn't even have to have a certain subject to it. You can get on and do a show every month and do it on something different. Yeah. I like that because it looked like a Portland Media Center, even people that are not connected to it, but it looked like there's a lot of stuff to be done here. And even in the skill of telling the story, proving your English is speaking. I mean, when you say speak, you've got to be live and speak. And you'll be proud of yourself. Because I feel like I'm right here speaking. When I'm going to get out here, I'm going to say how I'm speaking. And I correct myself even if I'm wrong. That's good. That's good to know. Well, that's a really good point because I think when you watch some of the programs that people do, if you see the first show that they do and the 10th show that they do, even whether or not they're English speakers or not, even if they were native English speakers, their shows improve over time. So if you want to get good at making video or being the host of a show or anything like that, being here is a good place to learn because it's not something like it has to be a certain amount of quality. We have staff here to help people learn and improve what they do. We often sometimes, you know, not always during a pandemic, but sometimes we have courses here to, you know, teach people how to do their videos better. Oh, wow. But practice makes perfect. And that's what you have an opportunity to do here is not only to speak your mind and say what's on your mind, but learn video, learn podcasting, learn all the technical aspects. And in the future, more and more people are going to use video. People use video to promote their causes, to not profit, to promote their business. Because they go online and there you can see videos instantly. You can go on TikTok and see a short video. You can go on, you know, you can post a short video to Instagram or put it on Facebook or your YouTube channel. There's so many uses of video in social media and in the way people communicate now that it's going to become more and more important for people to make good videos so people will watch their videos. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I'm really more interested and make me to think about it wisely and get the message out there, especially to the people who live in the seat of Portland, Maine or Augusta or other part of Maine. They have to connect it because this is good. It's giving you something to think about it and you'll be proud of yourself and you bring it back to the community. Because Portland Media Center is the purpose to reach out to the community. I like that because we have a lot of idea but we don't know how to go to it. We don't know how to reach out. So whatever you watch in this program, BZ and Tom, we try to explain to make it easy for people who doesn't understand what it means, Portland Media Center. And what you're saying too is about getting connected to the community. Coming in here and taking classes, I see people get more connected to the community by being here. Because you come in, you take a class and maybe you don't know anyone else in the class but by the time you finish the class, you know the other people. So people help each other, get to know each other here through the classes and get to know what's going on with other programs. We've had programs about a bike shop or learning how to bicycle. People start learning about that when they work on those shows. So it's always, to me, this job is really great and it's interesting because I'm always learning new things about the community. You guys never think about who can be in a show and who can art somebody somewhere else. It's like we're talking right here and somebody can be in New Hampshire, be connected. It's like a network in a different way. You never guys think about that? Well, yes. And what we do sometimes, at least in Maine, is that we sometimes share our programs with other places in Maine. Because if we travel and people go up this coast, they might want to know what's going on up the coast in Damer Scott or out in Burwick. So it's not that far to travel to go to those places. So if we get programs from those stations, we'll put it on here. We get out in Hollis. There's another station that shares programming a lot and we put that on here. So we share a lot of programs back and forth locally within Maine because people would likely use that. But also, we download programs and this is another thing about watching our station. We download programs from other parts of the country even because you can't see that same programming on Main Street media. For example, there's a news program called Democracy Now right now that we hear. And it's live from New York every Monday through Friday at 8 o'clock in the morning and then we re-broadcast it at noon and 6. Now right now, sometimes there's a little problem with our connection. We're getting high-speed fiber so that we can download it more easily. I know that if people are watching this I try to watch Democracy Now and there's little glitches here and there. That will change within the next couple of months because we are in the process of getting fiber and having a faster download speed to download that live program. But the thing is that thought information and that point of view is not corporately funded. Most media outlets are corporately funded and as I said before, this is a public station so anybody could put anything they want on and a lot of people want Democracy Now because it doesn't filter the news through a corporate lens. So that's one advantage of it. The other advantage of it is you might wind up seeing anything on this station. And most of it comes from your neighbors. I've had a lot of people and it surprised me because people really aren't watching TV that much anymore. They're watching stuff on the Internet. But a lot of people like, if they have cable, like to put on our station and just see what's on. Because you never know what you can get through what you're watching because the change of life is all about one second. That's why I call it. We don't think it in the way it is. When I look at it, we're just in 2021. We're now in 2002. You'll be like, what? It's just like a jump to other. So I think social media, you can look at it in the way it is. I was just thinking about two weeks ago when people think about Facebook pay you money. But I say, they can't pay you money if you're not doing good. You gotta have a square in that just like a credit where it is. But the way I look at the the Portland Media Center, there's a lot of community here, but I think we gotta do the best to reach out to more people to bring what they know in the level of the music sometime. And I can say, well, bring a DJ to talk about what they do in the wedding tradition, a wedding. They proceed all that. And I think the station will welcome those ideas. Yeah, and the thing that I should also mention is that we gotta grant so that we can provide training and assistance to somebody creating a program without charging them anything, without charging them for classes or anything. If they're an immigrant within the last 10 years, or if they're low income and by low income we mean they're receiving some kind of assistance because of their income level. So we have a grant to do that. We have another grant to train 10 people in how to make short documentaries. And we're gonna be starting that well, we've already started it in terms of putting together the curriculum. We're working on that now, but we have the first few students who are gonna work with two or three students at a time at the end of this month. So there's a lot of learning opportunities and you were just saying about, you know, is it gonna be good? You could put lots of stuff on me. That's why I'm here and I'm trying to educate myself and educate the community in Portland, Maine. Because I know from me I look at it I'm coming from Philly to Portland. When I came here first time everybody looked at me like, who this guy? But today I became part of Maine. So that's why I feel like through the Portland Media Center we can benefit a lot in a simple way. Because sharing information is very important. Oh, shared information is what makes the democracy. That's correct. So I'm happy to be here and I'm willing to be in the next of this ground, of this group. I can get some idea. Yeah. The thing is that what you've done already is kind of amazing, man. The last show that you've come up with this idea with Anne who's hosting a lot of the shows for Africans United. Right. And we just had somebody on, it's airing right now, somebody from Kenya who was a minister. But he ministers through his accounting business. Okay. So I think that's a really unique thing to do but also it combines two things the spirituality aspect of it and also the assistance with accounting especially tax accounting. Right. Where in this country people come from another country. It's hard to figure out. Taxes and court and how the process is. Right. Let alone to know somebody who comes from a broad, right? Right. Who can help you and say, okay this, I know it's strange but this is how it works here. That's correct. And you can find out about that on this channel. Yeah. This is why for me I'm trying to be involved sometime to get me because if I go back to African culture they almost believe if the chief he doesn't put time to something, well I have to put time. That's why I put time to be with you guys. That's the mentality of the background of African back home. I present my own people. If you look at this three color here those three color present the content of Africa. Even we have it in the background. I don't know if you realize that. And we're all from Africa but I know sometime people that don't want to talk about that. But for me I believe in that. Right. And the world is set in Africa even the talent, the medication and all that. These are people who was maybe 400 years ago but it's still I have to say thank you and right now in Maine what we can do to transit Portland media center for the millennia for the senior for the simple citizen life in Portland Maine. Yeah. We're always we are always changing what we do because the technology changes. That's correct. And the way people receive their information changes. That's correct. So we used to be the community television network but people don't watch television that much anymore. No more, yeah. I mean they do watch television but they don't watch it as much as they used to and they rely a lot more on other forms of media so now we're making ourselves available as I said on other platforms such as you know YouTube, Roku, Apple but the major thing is is that people can come together here to make videos with each other with their community. That's good. And that's the key thing that even though we're the Portland media center now we really are about sharing the community and bringing people together because whether you come from Africa or whether you come from Europe or where or your family was here for generation after generation of a Native American descent we're all a unique community right here right now. And that's dynamic. It's always changing. And so that's what the community media I mean Portland media center does is bring the community together right now in this snapshot of time this is where we're at and this is who is here. That's good. That's good to know and we're going to be doing a lot of show and we'll be able to reach out and even have a magazine that's coming up and I'm going to give you guys a chance to be in my magazine. Magazine? Yeah. What's the name of the magazine? Brad Fuchsia. Brad Fuchsia. Brad Fuchsia. Yeah. And I'm thinking to be out by June 6th. And it's an online magazine? It's going to be online. It's going to be a rally magazine. You can hold it. If you see Bessia even if you don't know English you can ask somebody like where this guy is here? And what's the idea? It's going to be all about business. People who does business in the United States or the state of Maine, Dallas, Texas definitely even on travel next month to Dallas, Texas to set the idea. Wow. So it's going to be a national? National in the United States. Wow. Yeah. Wow. And that's coming out when? June 6th. June 6th? Well, yeah. So I'm pushing for that. It's going to be a rally magazine like I said. It's going to be online to make sure the millennials see what we're doing and share the information between. But I'll give you guys a chance to be in this magazine. Okay. Because really I'm impressed since I've been working with you guys. And I think somebody is telling us to be ready to drop the program. But I'm happy. Tom. Thank you very much.