 Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, the Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Some of you may have heard about a march that happened this last Saturday, the Women's March. It was apparently a very historic march. I think it was very much so. One of the largest and most internationally renowned and participatory march I think that has been for civil rights, for human rights, for women's rights, was an extraordinary event. I think it was enough that I got to participate as well. More importantly, what we're going to talk about today and who we're going to talk with today has much more to do with the march itself and the logistics, what happened, how it happened, and so forth. So please welcome Mr. Michael Galoio Jr., who is the producer of the actual march here on Oahu. So thank you, Michael, for joining us. Oh, thank you for having me. What I would like to do here is do a bit of a Women's March on Oahu wrap-up. But I want to start with, tell me about your involvement, how you got involved, and what you did. I heard about it online and I made a phone call to somebody named Sherry Campania. You may know her. I do know her. And I said five little words, what can I do to help? And next thing I know, I was brought on board as logistics manager and then it sort of just evolved into producing the entire event. And while doing that, I was also supporting the other marches throughout the islands as well as providing graphic layout to the travel team and wherever else I could fill in. But my core responsibility was making sure that we had everything in place. So whatever happened on January 21st happened. And that started off with pulling the permit for the capital. Because that just seemed the most natural place to have it. We had discussions about having a Capulani Park, logistics-wise, getting everybody parked someplace to march into Capulani Park. That's a nightmare. It's also a nightmare of bringing in a stage and sound system because then there's also it's becoming impossible to do because there was also an event already happening there. We did not want to impact anybody negatively by us having our voices heard and making sure everybody's voices were heard. So we chose the route. When did this begin? So this began back in November. So it was the November 9th? No, this was a couple of days after November because I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I knew I had to do something in response. And I was looking at maybe holding a rally on December 18th, the month before going into the legislature. And it's the day before the Electoral College. And I was like, that gave me less than three weeks to put something together. And I was like, no, that doesn't seem enough time. What else is out there? Saw the women's march. And so I reached out to Sherry. And so we began talking and we had... So the first thing I did was grab the capitol before anybody else could to make sure we had something. Which was key because it was an issue in D.C. as well. So okay. So to make it clear, yes, Sherry Campana is my wife. She ended up being the state coordinator for the women's march here in Hawaii. And that included not just Oahu, it included all of the neighbor islands. So I thank you for jumping in and helping as well. Because I know there was a lot going on there and you both did a great job. And everyone involved, all of the co-chairs, everyone did a great job. There are always challenges and ups and downs in those situations, but that's the nature of trying to make something like this happen. So I just, you know, I appreciate everything that you all did. So okay. Tell me more about the... How many marches did we have here in Hawaii? Where were they? We had one in every island except for La Naye in Kuala Lumpur, so we had all the major islands. I heard something happen on La Naye. We still haven't gotten confirmation of that yet. If you're watching on La Naye and you did something, contact us so we can put it up there. How can they contact you? You can reach out to us at Honoluluwomensmarch.gmail.com, Honoluluwomensmarch.gmail.com, yes, or check out our website. We have a brand new website. It's HonoluluwomensmarchHawaii.com, but we'll talk about that a little bit later. So the first, Hawaii had over 1,500 people show up for sign waving when the largest gatherings on the island for an issue, for this wonderful issue, a wonderful women's march. Here on Oahu, the numbers some people are saying are low end, around 5,000. As somebody who's done events at the capital, many events have been to many events. I believe it's more to 10,000 to 15,000 range, just here at the Oahu. Just there. There were a lot of people. It was massive. It was a sea of people. And if you go to our Facebook page, you can see the pictures, and we're going to put up some pictures. We had a drone out that day. We wrapped the entire route. The route started on Richard Street, went to King to Alipay, Alipay, back to the capital. And we wrapped that one, almost one and a half times. There was a sea of people. So while the numbers don't really matter is what matters, the message that we got out. There were so many. Whether it's 5,000, 8,000, 10,000, 20,000, there were a lot of people. The message got out there, and that was the initial most important part. We'll get to the next steps after that. And so then we also had an event on Moloka'i. Around 200 people showed up. It's like half the island, almost the other island shows up on Moloka'i. Just kidding. Moloka'i is bigger and more important than that. So they had, so we were happy to have that. And they came on board on Thursday, Thursday before the March. You know what? Better late than never, and it's wonderful that they were able to pull it together. They were like, we're happy if we got 10 people. When I got the numbers of that. And then we had Maui, UH Maui, we had college, we had over 5,000 people show up there. I heard that that was a big deal. Well, now let's also start by saying Maui is where the idea began. So tell us about that. Yeah. The idea for the whole March began on the November 8th, the, uh, uh, Teresa Shrek, who, uh, went to, was on a, a secret Facebook page called Pantsuit Nation. And she was like, like a lot of us were very distraught about the results of the elections, and she wanted to do something. And so they, in that group, they taught her how to set up a Facebook event. And so she put up a Facebook event that she wanted to march on, she wanted women to march on Washington. She went to bed with 40, 50 people saying they weren't going to go with her. She woke up the next morning with 10,000. And uh, Facebook caps you out at 10,000 for an individual event because they're like, are you for real? Is this really happening? What's going on here? And it just, from there, it was, it is a strictly grassroots movement that a lot of people came on board and it was just, it was magic for lack of a better term. No, it grew. It was, it was, it went in, in its way, I guess it kind of went viral to that extent because it went global. Oh yes, we went international. The marches started in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, across Asia, as well as into the Middle East. We had Iraq, as well as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria into Africa, across your pictures from all of those places? They are putting them all together trying to make sure that we document them all. That's extraordinary. And what we believe was this wave, people seeing the night before Australia coming out of New Zealand, Australia and then waking up in the morning and seeing, seeing these pictures from Europe and then the fact that the march was so huge in D.C. that there was no march per se because- There wasn't a march. It was a gathering. You came to gathering because there's no for people, there's no for them to go. And it eclipsed whatever happened the day before in sheer numbers. And it sent a message loud and clear across the- Yeah, I saw a report in one way that people gauge these things is the number of buses that are secured, parking spaces for the buses. So the inauguration is what you were talking about as far as what happened the day before. And there was like 300 buses versus 1200 buses for the march. Yeah, we actually capped, there was 1400 spaces over at the JFK Memorial Center stadium, and they took every one of them. Yeah. And there was 1400 buses. 1400 buses showed up versus 200, 250 for the inauguration. And so it was just this outpouring. And let's say this again, a lot of, I don't know, ruckus was made about the fact, about the numbers of people that showed up for the inauguration and the alternative facts regarding that stuff. In the end- R.S. I call them lies. It doesn't matter. Yeah. How many people showed up for the inauguration? It was viewed by millions of people, okay, great. I'm not going to worry about that part. What I'm going to, what I am hoping for, and we're going to transition into this a little bit in our internet segment, what I'm hoping for is that this is the beginning. This is the waking up of the sleeping giant. That is the grassroots organizing for, not just the Democratic Party, but for the independents, for the libertarians, for all of the people who recognize the challenges, for the women's groups that are out there, to start ringing the bell and saying, we must do something. So I believe that that's what's happening here, but there needs to be, there needs to be next steps. And that's the thing that I know we're going to talk about in a minute. Yeah. But to finish up the marches here. Yes, please. We had one in Hanna where Trisha Shuck is from. She had 300 people showed up there. And then we had 4,000 to 5,000 people, 4,000 people show up at Kona in the afternoon, and over 2,000 people in Hilo. So we had record numbers across the state, people showing out. And the media tried to encapsulate this as an anti-Trump movement. And then anti-anything is hard. I was actually going to ask that. Now there's been a lot of said, and a lot said about a number of different things. First of all, it's clearly an anti-Trump march and movement, okay? And then other people said, well, it's all about women's issues. And almost every conversation that I've seen happen or that I've even engaged in at any level, it all goes back to, well, it's just basically just this pro-choice movement. It was a pro-issues movement. And everybody that had something to say, at least here, we did our best here at O'ahu to make sure that everybody that wanted to, that was a supporting organization that supported us, we had 50-plus supporting organizations when we were said and done, had their chance to speak to the crowd, got a chance. And we spoke on a variety of issues, the environment, LGBT rights, yes, of course, women's rights were at the forefront because this was a women's march. But women's rights are also men's rights, making sure, a strong man does not fear women's right. Exactly. It's human rights. So that how I, and I'm not the only one, how it was rephrased is it's not about women's rights, only it's human rights, it's civil rights, it's women's rights. It's all of that. And the other comment that I want to get your thought on this before we transition, the other comment I got was, what exactly are we marching for? What is the point? What rights have been taken away that we have to stand up for? It's not what's been taken away, what can be taken away if we've already seen from this new administration, it's sending a message that we are not going to let the clock turn back on any of the rights we've already gained. We are looking to look forward. We will do our best and we will fight tooth and nail to make sure that all the rights we currently have, we do not lose. And that he's, well, we will not go silent into that cold night. Yeah. Well, and that's the point of it. I guess you're right. We don't want to lose the rights because once they're lost, they're gone. And how do we get them back? And does it happen just because of an election in four years or in eight years? And what does that really mean and what else can happen as a result? So it's not just about the president. It's about the president's cabinet and it's about all of the agency hires or non-hires that happen and how that impacts the nation and then the world. And that's what everyone is concerned about. That's why, in my opinion, it was a global movement, an international movement. So okay, we're going to transition. We have to take a quick little break. So thank you. We're going to transition and talk a minute about, okay, now that we have this March, what are we going to do next? So we'll be back in one minute. Thanks again. Hello, my name is Crystal. Let me tell you my talk show. I'm all about health. It's healthy to talk about sex. It's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about. It's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it. So I welcome you to watch Quok Talk and engage in some provocative discussions on things that do relate to healthy issues and have a well-balanced attitude in life. Join me. Okay. I'm here with Brett Overgaard of the Faculty of the School of Journalism and the Department of Communications at UH Minoa. We've had a number of shows. We have a movable feast going on and we talk about journalism. We talk about language. We talk about communication in general and we talk about the effect of that on the country and on individual people. Brett, it's so good to be able to discuss this with you in our movable feast. Oh, it's my pleasure. This is a great opportunity. You'll have to come back again and again, okay, deal? That's the deal. Brett Overgaard. I'm Jay Fidel. We care about everything. Thanks. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers Politics in Hawaii Series. I am your host, Carl Kempanya. So once again, I'm joined with Mr. Michael Glouyou, the producer of this last weekend's Women's March on Oahu. He actually did a lot. He helped with logistics and coordination and graphics across the board for all of the marches, or most if not all of the marches that happened across the state. So this was a big deal, this whole thing. In Hawaii, it started on Maui. It was a big deal internationally. This march happened. One of the numbers I saw was 2 million people internationally were engaged. But how that can be verified is a whole other question. But a lot of people were definitely engaged, and you can see that in the pictures. So this was great. My question is, wonderful. I support it. Now what? Well, now what is the great answer is that, because like you said, it started here in Hawaii. We got to end the marches here around the globe, wrapping the world in aloha as we like to say. And now where do we go? What are the next steps? And we've already started that. Nationally they have 100 days, 10 actions. It's a list you can find on our website, womensmarchhawaii.com. And we have the link to that. We also have our list of things that you can do here locally. And one of them is get on our email list, so you can stay active. We are going to be sending out. How do we get on the email list? There's a link on our website. And what's the website? Womensmarchhawaii.com. Thank you. Check us out on Facebook. We have our main page, which is Womensmarchhawaii on Facebook for those of you. And then we also are retooling our other social media platforms for the next step. Because as we had all these different marches, we had wonderful coordinators across the state. This was a totally grassroots movement, as you saw by the leaders. As a lot of our coordinators were like, we've never done this before. And we're like, that's okay. That's what we're here for. Sherry and I have done these things before. We were able there to provide them guidance across the state. And really everybody, everybody that was brought in to be part of the team, played a part in bringing more people in, and bringing some funding in, because there was fund raising needed to happen. And I hear that you did a great job as well for that. But everybody did. So let me back up one minute and say, where should some special thanks go with regards to sponsors, donors from that side? For Oahu, we have our list of sporting organizations. We could not have done without them. Every person that bought a T-shirt, we raised almost half of our funds, over half of our funds from T-shirt sales. From Bonfire, we currently still have those T-shirts for sale on our website. And the money is used to help pay off our expenses as well as give us seed money to move forward for other events and other things that we need to do to keep this movement alive for the next steps. So we'll get back to the next step. So special thanks goes out to the Hawaii State AFL-CIO. They stepped up and donated. Rainbow Family 808 helped out financially. So did the LGBT caucus on Oahu. We had some women's fund supporters come in and help us. Individuals donations, we had donations from $5 to $500 from individuals that helped cover the cost. Because to put something out of this magnitude onto the capital so everybody could hear and everybody could see and everybody could go to the bathroom. These are logistics, these are important logistics. And making sure we, so those were the things and it cost us in the round of $16,000 just for Oahu to put that on. And to raise that kind of funds in that short period of time because in reality we didn't even really start fundraising until the 18th or 19th of December to raise that much money. A little over a month including the holidays. Yes. And so it was amazing. The outpouring of Oahu from everybody that opened their hearts and their wallets and their organizations to us, they helped push it out. And just getting the word out, that was the thing. How we are thanking them by including them in our action calls and that's part of the next step process is thanking them and making sure we engage those thousands of people that showed up or were interested in showing up but couldn't make it because of work. Will there be more events coming? Yes, there will. We are deciding which events that we will spearhead ourselves and which events that we will support from our other supporting organizations. Because again, it's a grassroots movement. Nobody can do this on their own. Anybody thinks that they can, they're sorely mistaken. Which leads to the next question, will there be advocacy training? We are working on that as well. And so everything is figuring out who's already doing the advocacy training and maybe we launch on them. We help them out and see if they can record it and get it out there. One of our next steps is getting the simple things on how to submit testimony. Because the bills are coming up. How to submit testimonies for things, how to pull petitions together for things. How to organize and reach out to your neighborhood, your community, to get any involvement, engagement. So all of those, that doesn't just happen. You don't just say I have this thing, there needs to be a network of people that it spreads to. And there are techniques for that right now. And one of the things that I really want us to do, and again we're still in the recovery and wrap-up phase, is also, but looking forward to providing the skill sets to all the women's nonprofits, so the local nonprofits that care about the issues that are, care about any of the issues out there. And give them the tools and give them the soft skill sets that they need to raise funds. Social media, there is a lot that needs, that people, we should be able to learn from each other, share that and use this, the group that we have as a jumping off point. And inviting other people along for the trip, because we all, we all have a lot to lose. We also have a lot to gain by standing together. I think we have much more to gain than I think we realize. Because we are going to be getting, we already have more engagement from people. Now, one thing, I personally believe that everyone who showed up to this actually voted. I don't think that, you know, maybe there's a couple of people who didn't vote here. I heard from them, in general, I believe that, I had people, I've never voted before, I'm going to vote next time, I apologize for not voting this time. That's one lady walks up and tells me that after I got off the stage. And I was like, great, we've got one more person to vote. I think, and we've got people involved, we have new people who are coming in, new people recognizing, that's that grassroots groundswell that gets more people engaged and involved. And keeping them active is the key of what the next steps are going to be, right? Yep. And when you go to our website, we have a call to actions. We have the national call, our local calls, as well as we've reached out to our supporting organizations and asked them, what can we do? We ask them for their websites, we ask them for the contact information, and a call to action. And so, not everybody's going to want to do everything on that list, and you'll burn yourself out trying to do it all. But picking that one or two things are key issues that matter to you. I think it's important, I mentioned it earlier a little bit, but I think it's important to point out that this wasn't also only a democratic party thing. Very specifically, there were two Republicans that were on stage at this event, and that is relevant because it's recognizing the situation, recognizing the character of our president and where we want to draw the line. And I think it takes leadership and guts to do that as well. So I think that needs to be said too. Oh yeah, it was a completely non-partisan event. We couldn't have done it any other way because we wanted to make sure everybody had a seat. Everybody felt welcomed and accepted at that. And so I think that's the most important part. Let me jump in real quick. People called it bipartisan. No, it was a non-partisan partisan. And we had the democratic party asked if they could come out as a sponsor, and we basically said, no, thank you, though. We allowed the caucuses to come on board because they're issue-oriented. This was an issue-pro policy thing. And that's how it had to be because by putting the party's label on it, we knew that could turn some people off. And it absolutely, and we recognized that. I mean, obviously, that's the whole thing where it ends up being an anti-Trump thing. Well, OK. It's an anti-negative policy. It's an anti-human rights issue. Everything is the anti is. And one of the questions I asked is like, well, OK, if you think the women's march is anti-Trump, well, do you think Trump is anti-human rights? If he's anti-human rights, then OK, now you have a bigger question. And why are you not engaged in this? Because what does that mean? Look at what I look in the mirror. Look at your family. Look at your community and your neighbors. How will the removal of any of these human, civil, and women's rights, the removal of any of them, how will it impact you and your family? Ask that question, honestly. And you could just tell by the difference of signs out there, there was no one solid message. The signs were amazing. And the creativity that just poured from our local artists and the grassroots people, like, she goes, I've never made a sign before. How's this? And I'm like, it's great. It's great. It's spectacular. Because you put your voice, it has your voice. Because someone's like, well, you should have mass produced signs that you hand out to everybody. And there are a lot of great ones. One of my favorite ones was there was one that was a picture of a cat. And it said, we bite. That's one of my favorite ones. And OK, so we only have a couple of minutes left here. So OK, there are steps forward. There will be events coming up. Go to the websites. There is an app for that. There's actually a Women's March app that includes the 100 days, 10 things. There's an app for that. So you can go to that and download that on your phone and keep in touch that way. That's the thing. It's what we do from here. So let me ask this though. This is the toughest question. And we'll probably end it on this. Will it matter? Absolutely. It always matters when you have your voice. You use your voice. Whether they actually follow through with it is another thing. But you having a voice, you going out there and putting yourself out there definitely makes a difference. And because it engages everybody. Because think about it, Theresa Shuck had never done that. Had never put up that thing. We would not have had the engagement. We would not have seen the women coming out that had never done anything like this before. The emails, this is my first protest. This is my first civic engagement. Thank you. Those are the kinds of things we got. So who's the next Theresa Shuck? Who's the next person that's going to make a difference and empower a new generation? And that's what I believe she has done. And she will never say that herself. So I'm going to say it. And the rest of us, she is part of our heart and soul. Luckily, we live Hawaii. Luckily, we have Theresa. That she's part of our core group moving forward of making sure that this movement stays alive and that we keep people engaged. She needs an award, a certificate of recognition, appreciation, something. OK, we'll get her a statue. I'm just kidding. Something, something. OK, so OK, so it does matter. And it will matter. And when it matters is every issue, every bill, every resolution, every opportunity to get your voice heard leading up to the next election cycle, which is in two years. It's already started. And we started the legislative suggestion last week. And some of the easiest things to do is make sure your legislator knows your name and knows what you care about on the issues. They're paid there. They're paid to do their jobs. It's our civic duty. It's our civic duty to do that. And unfortunately, we're out of time. OK. We could talk for another hour, but we are out of time. So I thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers Politics in Hawaii series. Thank you to my guest, Mr. Michael Glow-Yu Jr., the producer of the Women's March on Oahu, extraordinary, extraordinary historic event. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week.