American writer and activist Dhoruba Bin Wahad was falsely imprisoned for 19 years. His essay on the national oppression of black people remains deeply relevant today.

By: Dhoruba Bin Wahad | May 30

In 1971, Dhoruba Bin Wahad was accused of murdering two officers while still in his teens and imprisoned for 19 years. Bin Wahad always maintained his innocence and won his freedom by forcing the FBI to release thousands of classified documents proving that he had been framed. The justice department eventually rescinded Bin Wahads conviction and he was released in 1990. The essay that follows was published three years later in Still Black, Still Strong: Survivors of the U.S. War Against Black Revolutionaries; it remains deeply relevant today.

Conventional wisdom holds that peaceful and non-violent change is in the ultimate best interest of a social system. Seldom is the use of force seen as socially productive. By and large this is true. Regardless of the causes, very few civilizations have survived cataclysmic violent internal upheavals, or the long-term decay of their institutions of social control (which amounts to the same thing, for institutional decay results in unreasonable resort to force and repression, thereby causing violent social reaction). If a society thrives through peaceful change, then the exercise of power must be perceived as just or at least indicative of a common moral identity. No status-quo power can long maintain itself without some claim to moral integrity unless it does so by use of naked force, and history illustrates that force alone is insufficient to maintain and hold power.

When we rethink the concept of self-defense against racist aggression we are also reevaluating the ethical grounds for the use of force in a particular social context. Any concept of legal force is determined by the prevailing ideas of those who govern the use of violence.

In U.S. society these prevailing ideas are erected upon the notion of white-skin privilege, that is, of European superiority. This notion holds that a white persons life is somehow intrinsically worth more than the life of a person of color. This, of course, has played itself out in history. The genocide of Native Americans, the establishment of the African slave trade, and the subsequent era of European colonialism all testify to the fact that white-skin privilege ideologically justified the use of violence in pursuit of European profit and control over people of color. This is the context in which Black people must discuss the idea of self-defense. No rational discussion of self-defense for Black people can proceed without at least this basic understanding.

Perhaps it would be useful to further examine the relationship of force to the American national character, and how this relationship has been institutionalized. Very few people can argue, with any credibility, that the establishment of the United States was a non-violent historical episode. The seizure of the North American landmass from its native population was a decidedly genocidal undertaking. The consistency of this enterprise over such a long period of time over 250 years refutes any notion that European racism was merely the aberration of a particular era. The use of African chattel slave labor to establish the foundation for the great North American economic and industrial miracle was steeped in ruthless cruelty and maintained by the omnipresent threat of violence.

When we witness the countless incidents of racist police brutality and murder that are an everyday feature of the Black experience in the U.S., it is evident that there is a double standard when it comes to the use of violence: one standard for Europeans and another for people of color.

It is estimated by some historians that over 20 million Native Americans were killed by European settlers of the Western hemisphere between the 15th and 19th centuries, and that over 50 million Africans died in the middle passage between Africa and the Americas in the period between the 16th and 19th centuries. In the early 20th century, the projection of U.S. power into Central America, the Caribbean and elsewhere proceeded in the wake of gunboats or relied upon the bayonets of U.S. Marines. Indeed, the U.S. has invaded Central America over two dozen times in the last century, and has annexed territories it seized from other European colonial powers defeated in just wars.

In the words of a 1960s activist, violence is as American as apple pie. Force and violence are part of the American male folk wisdom that socializes generations of white males into macho notions of aggression toward people of color. One small example of this is the cliche that the West was won by the six-shooter. Indeed, the sanctimonious glorification of equality based upon force could be summed up in a play on the words of the U.S. Declaration of Independence which states that all men are created equal. A popular saying on the 19th-century frontier was that God may have created men, but Sam Colt made em equal, Sam Colt, of course, being the renowned American gun-maker and founder of Colt Firearms Corporation. Flowing out of the notions of white-skin privilege and the white-male frontier mentality is the subconscious presumption (now normative for white American cultural ethics) that all Europeans have a moral right, even a responsibility, to use force whenever their position is threatened, and that people of color have no equivalent moral right to defend themselves from European aggression especially when the aggression is cloaked under the name of law and order or U.S. national interest.

When we witness the countless incidents of racist police brutality and murder that are an everyday feature of the Black experience in the U.S., or the use of U.S. military force in Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama and the Persian Gulf, it is evident that there is a double standard when it comes to the use of violence: one standard for Europeans and another for people of color. It has been said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Perhaps it can be said as well that racism is the first refuge of the insecure. Racism, having exercised considerable influence in the development of western nation states, has built into these states this dual standard of humanity, which is so ingrained that it is often taken for granted. As a consequence, freedom for the national racial minority, as a whole, often requires the radical disruption of the social status quo and a complete reevaluation of the dominant values and norms. It is little wonder therefore that the demand for human rights by the victims of racist subjugation is always perceived by the dominant culture as unreasonable and threatening. Nowhere is this better illustrated than around the issue of force, as it relates to self-defense against racist violence.

In the United States, poor people and especially African Americans are universally encouraged to pursue non-violence in their struggle for human rights. It is argued on the one hand that violence per se is unproductive and only begets more violence, and, on the other hand, that you cant win any way. You of course being the poor person of a darker hue. Subsidized by liberal foundation grants, institutions exist to train the poor in non-violent attitudes and actions. The main stream media, decidedly male and white, while bombarding the populace with esoteric violence in the form of cop shows and Rambo movies, send the subliminal message to the white male population that the use of force and violence by underclass African-American and Third World peoples is by its very nature either criminal or morally suspect. African-American history is rewritten to emphasize the non-violent struggle for human and civil rights, while equally heroic but violent examples of struggle are pigeon-holed and dismissed.

Even the history of non-violent activism in the African-American struggle for equality is presented in a sterile light. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is consistently portrayed by the mainstream white media and in American history books as a toothless moral dreamer who essentially endorsed the proposition of the American capitalist state and its support of reactionary movements around the world. Of course nothing is further from the truth. Clearly, non-violence as preached by the mainstream media to Black Americans and the poor is never put forward as a tactic, but as a goal in itself.

While the disenfranchised Black community is fed the psychological pablum of non-violence, the enfranchised majority white community trains its children in the use of force in its war colleges and police paramilitary institutions. Moreover, Eurocentric American nationalism provides the mass culture with a moral and ethical framework in which to act out the violent impulses of their institutional training. The tradition of conservatism and the right are fundamental standards by which all other perceptions and views are measured. Thus an unfair imbalance is achieved between the benefactors of a racist society and its underclass. Indeed, the so-called liberal American tradition operates within this race- and class-bound imbalance, which is one reason why the so-called two-party (Democrat-Republican) body politic and the principle of separate branches of government are bankrupt, and never prevented U.S. intervention in the Third World, e.g., Korea, the Congo, Vietnam, Grenada, Angola, the Middle East, Libya and Central America, and it never secured for African-Americans equal and fair treatment under existent law.

While the disenfranchised Black community is fed the psychological pablum of non-violence, the enfranchised majority white community trains its children in the use of force in its war colleges and police paramilitary institutions.

The obvious consequence of a dual standard of human expectation is a unique system of democratic fascism and a permanent condition of police or military repression aimed at the underclass and social dissidents. Limited political democracy is permitted while corporate control of the economy dictates the real content and direction of the state. In this context the specter of racist subjugation resolves itself in an ongoing and continuous cycle of police repression, underclass crime and social deprivation-in other words a permanent state of crisis.

The highest expression of this system of democratic fascism appears to be the National Security State, or NSS. This Orwellian corporate government structure has developed both as a corporate political manager of, and a reaction to, the condition of permanent domestic social crisis and an insurgent post-colonial Third World. The American NSS, as an institution, sponsors and sanctions racist violence of law enforcement at home and euphemistic low-intensity conflict in the Third World. In terms of its breadth of organization and its management of violence as an instrument of policy, the NSS is the ultimate purveyor of force on the face of the earth.

The bureaucracy and technocrats of the NSS serve the transnational interests of corporate America. It derives its strength and power from control of technology, a huge military-police apparatus, and its capacity to control the primary sources of information. Because the NSS sees itself as preserving the American way of life,. i.e. status quo power, it views its own citizens as subversive to national security whenever they disagree with the police or the interests of the NSS. Consequently law enforcement takes on a decidedly political function. Behind criminal law enforcement lurk the political police whose job it is to contain the unruly, quiet the outspoken, and destroy the dreamers of a new order.

Behind criminal law enforcement lurk the political police whose job it is to contain the unruly, quiet the outspoken, and destroy the dreamers of a new order.

Effective mass organization of people against racist/class inequality, against high minority unemployment, against socio-economic dislocation (homelessness), or for the redistribution of wealth, reorganization of national priorities, and social control of technology, is always seen by the NSS as disruptive of the status quo. For this basic reason, essentially moral and economic issues such as street crime, drug abuse, criminal justice, or the African-American underclass are political campaign issues gratuitously used to manufacture an ill informed public consensus which endorses democratic repression of dissent and of the disenfranchised, as the Willie Horton issue was used by the racist right during the 1988 presidential campaign. An accurate assessment of the use of violence against minorities in a racist culture would be very difficult if African-Americans did not take a serious look at the nature of the National Security State.

Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB), a Washington, D.C. based non-profit civilian watchdog organization, recently reported the existence of the little-known State Defense Forces (SDFs) being created throughout America. According to CAIB, these State Defense Forces (a generic term) have been organized in approximately 24 states as auxiliaries to the already legally constituted state National Guard. It is presumed that a domestic SDF will be needed to control dissent and civil unrest in the event of a national emergency arising out of an unpopular U.S. military invasion abroad in which the National Guard is federalized and sent overseas. Recruits for the SDFs are unpaid civilians, and though it appears that anyone can join the SDF, its ranks are at present filled by zealots of the political right.

This is significant, especially for African-Americans who are considered by the NSS to be an acute threat to Americas domestic security by virtue of the justice of their grievances. It should come as little surprise to know that the SDF cadres are being trained in urban riot and crowd control, and in the use of weapons such as shotguns, M-16s, M-60s and 45-caliberpistols, as well as in various police techniques of anti-insurgency. While African-Americans are being taught, trained and indoctrinated into a non-violent frame of mind, the whiteAmerican National Security State is teaching, training and indoctrinating its adherents to employ lethal force in suppression of dissent and protest. This is not a coincidence. The violent mentality of the racist status quo and the white fear of Black America are almost symbiotic in nature. This seeming symbiosis has as its objective the denigration of the political option of self-defense for people of color, and the criminalization of the advocacy of such options. Thus, people of color are encouraged to rely on the very system of violence that subjugates them.

The violent mentality of the racist status quo and the white fear of Black America are almost symbiotic in nature.

In January of 1989, Don Jackson, a Black police officer on leave from the Hawthorne, California police department drove through predominantly white Long Beach, California on a personal fact-finding mission. He was investigating reports of racist police harassment. Mr. Jackson was shadowed during his drive by an unmarked KNBC-TV van. What happened to Mr. Jackson was nationally televised in graphic detail: he was stopped arbitrarily by policemen from Long Beach, one of whom slammed his head through a plate-glass window to impress upon him exactly who was boss. Mr. Jackson wrote in a January 23rd New York Times op-ed article, Police Embody Racism to My People, that police brutality inflicted on Black people has a greater historical function than mere gratuitous violence:

The black American finds that the most prominent reminder of his second-class citizenship is the police. In the history of this country, police powers were collectively shared among whites regarding black people. A slave wandering off the plantation could be stopped and detained by any white person who saw fit to question his purpose for being away from home A variety of stringent laws were enacted and enforced to stamp the imprint of inequality on the black American. It has long been the role of the police to see that the plantation mentality is passed from one generation of blacks to another. No one has enforced these rules with more zeal than the police. (emphasis added)

The irony of Mr. Jacksons assessment is that the collectively shared police powers of whites has given way to a collectively shared perception of Black people as potential criminals and terrorists. Indeed, even Mr. Jacksons effort to expose the truth fell victim to the need for white society to obscure it. The dramatic racist police mistreatment of Mr. Jackson was juxtaposed on national news broadcasts next to Black people looting white and immigrant Hispanic-owned stores in Miami. The white media, as if by reflex, played to the dual realities of a racist culture. Surely white America got the message that the police have their hands full dealing with potentially volatile Blacks, and that if they are somewhat aggressive, who can really blame them? At the same time, Blacks were made to feel as if their truth was being told. The duality of historical experiences one Black, one white whatever the facts, makes democratic consensus without equal power impossible.

Equal power? What does this mean for African Americans? Perhaps we would do well to reevaluate our idea of what equality means, for if we are of the notion that individual freedom in a racist culture can be acquired at the expense of the collective freedom of the victims of that culture, then we have accepted the amoral concept of equal opportunity exploitation, the very same concept that enslaved our ancestors and which divides the world today into two antagonistic divisions of haves and have nots, exploited and exploiter. Malcolm X once said, history is the best subject to reward all research. There is no way we can judge the relationship between African-Americans and European-Americans under imagined conditions of equal power, that is, absent our history of subjugation, absent the consequences of chattel enslavement driven by profit incentive, or regardless of the elaborate edifice of legal and social discrimination erected to maintain African-Americans in a purely minority status in which their interests are subsumed by the interest of the dominant caste and class.

The common humanity of both African-Americans and whites has had to endure and suffer the predatory appetite of a system devised to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

The common humanity of both African-Americans and whites has had to endure and suffer the predatory appetite of a system devised to enrich the few at the expense of the many. Whatever episodic sparks of humanity that the races may have exhibited toward each other surely occurred despite the European nation-state system-not because of it. The struggle for Black empowerment can ill afford to ignore history. There is no power without the capacity for independent self-defense.

Whenever the question of Black self-defense arises, it inevitably stumbles over the issues of legality and appropriateness of violence (which all too often amount to the same thing, that is, violence is always considered appropriate if and only if it is legal). This is because self-defense against racist attacks is generally viewed in a very narrow fashion which is unjustified by our experience as a people. To combat this, in the first place, the idea of the use of force to defend oneself has to be stripped of racist duality. Secondly, we have to understand the function of force as the European power elite perceive it, and third, we must evaluate the utility of a newly derived definition of self-defense in assuring collective survival.

Should we examine Mr. Jacksons historical assessment of police violence we would see that it is the same as the organization of racist terrorism. Violence was historically used in conjunction with other psychological factors to dehumanize the African slaves and secure their system of servitude. For the men who controlled this system, slave control was not only an economic consideration but a matter of physical self-defense as well. The fears of Native Americans and of African slave revolt were two permanent features of early European-American colonial life. In 1710, the governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, advised the Virginia Assembly in these words:

Freedom wears a cap which can, without a tongue, call together all those who long to shake off the fetters of slavery, and as such an insurrection would surely be attended with most dreadful consequences, so I think we cannot be too early in providing against it, both by putting ourselves in a better posture of defense and making a law to prevent the consultations of Negroes.

Apparently the honorable governors advice did not fall on deaf ears because the Virginia slave code mandated that should a slave run away and not immediately return, anyone whosoever may kill or destroy such slaves by such means as he shall think fit. In addition the courts had authority to order dismemberment or any other measure as they in their discretion shall think fit, for the reclaiming of any such incorrigible slave, and terrifying others from like practices.

Other examples abound of the terroristic use of violence codified into law with the express purpose of maintaining our ancestors in a position of abject fear and servitude. If times have changed, the residual and accumulative benefits of white-skin privilege still ensure the legal codification of violence in maintenance of the status quo. It is this status quo, with all the moral righteousness of the founding fathers behind it, that now preaches against the evils of terrorism. Former President Ronald Reagan admitted to a profound historical analogy when he equated the terrorist and murderous CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras to the moral equivalent of Americas founding fathers. To borrow a phrase from the distinguished Governor Spotswood of Virginia, African-Americans would do well by putting themselves in a better posture of defense.

The purpose in drawing attention to early American history is not to revel in moral self-righteousness or engage in useless judgment of another period when behavior and attitudes were determined by different standards than today. It should not be too difficult to see that the founding fathers of America were men of property driven by the contradictions of European culture, a culture based on agriculture, with feudal hierarchies of the nobility (lords), vassals and peasants, which evolved from the slave societies of Greece and Rome. History is clear: erected upon the European conquest of North America, upon the genocide of the Indians and the racist brutality of slavery, Europeans stratified a civilization based on private property. The European need for land and space, combined with the dubious ethics of mercantile capitalism, made racism and genocide integral to the society and system we know today. The rhapsody of the American dream sold to countless immigrants is only a part of the true story. We must understand the truth of our historical experience so that we are clear in our thinking and fully appreciate what America is capable of.

Racism has been an important tool in dividing the poor and working peoples of America. It has prevented white laborers, the middle class, and various Third World immigrant communities from uniting against an exploitative and relatively small white male elite.

Racism has been an important tool in dividing the poor and working peoples of America. It has prevented white laborers, the middle class, and various Third World immigrant communities from uniting against an exploitative and relatively small white male elite. Despite this objective function of racism it would be inappropriate for the African-American to ignore the very real physical threat racism represents to our empowerment. In the struggle for power, often perception is more important than reality.

The common Eurocentric perception of African-Americans is that they lack certainty of principle and a willingness to defend themselves. Our self-destructive treatment of each other, that is, our obsessive imitation of the most shallow white American values, our disregard for Black youth, Black on Black crime and the entire range of psychotic self-hatred we act out every day in our social relations reinforce white Americans with negative perceptions of Black people. Many of the problems that now confront African-Americans begin at home, in our community. Until we establish independent mechanisms of community supervision that provide moral, ethical, political and social direction, African-Americans will continue to be the doormat of U.S. society. Depending on outside forces to regulate and govern the African-American community is a prescription for disaster. A community without internal authority and control is no community at all.

Weakness tempts power to practice brutality and oppression. The seeming increase of so-called racially motivated attacks is in large part the consequence of the apparent inability or unwillingness of Black America to defend itself. While the term racially motivated attack is a media buzz word intended to individualize systemic racist subjugation, we need not fall victim to this deception. There is nothing exceptional or individual about racist attack in a racist society. Media buzzwords notwithstanding, our response to racist attack must be collective, uncompromising and most of all organized! We should respond in a political manner to all racist attack, as well as to conditions that invite attacks. Both legal racist violence (police, state and institutional brutality) and extra-legal racist violence (racist gang violence, individual discriminatory treatment) serve the same function: the subjugation of the targeted racial national minority. Black people must break with the mental baggage of slavery and shed the knee-jerk non-threatening negro posture white folks love so well. Our concept of force, its political utility, is obsolete. Force and violence must be seen for what they are and placed in a relevant political context: instruments of political power, instruments of control.

Depending on outside forces to regulate and govern the African-American community is a prescription for disaster. A community without internal authority and control is no community at all.

The violence of racist oppression, when internalized by the African-American community, results in reactionary violence or negative violence, and it must be repressed by the African community if self-defense is to advance beyond vigilantism. Vigilantism is not the political organization of force-it is the social organization of civilian frustration. It can be co-opted by the status quo, misdirected by opportunists, and will eventually fizzle out. The political organization of force by the Black community implies its connection to the struggle for power and control over the entire quality of life available to Black people. Unlike reactionary apolitical violence, or vigilante force, the concept of Black self-defense, e.g. the political organization of force, is proactive force. Self-defense in this context is as broad as the requirements of and the struggle for empowerment. Legality and illegality are relative to the struggle for empowerment not sacrosanct in and of themselves. White folks taught us the efficacy of this approach to this use of force.

By way of example, the tactic of economic boycott can be seen as an economic form of self-defense against economic exploitation, injustice or discrimination especially when it upsets the colonial relationship between the African American community and the status quo power. In this sense it is proactive and not reactive. Taking control of social institutions or educational systems that affect the quality of African-American life by establishment political means, i.e. electoral politics, and the creation of grassroots alternative institutions which provide services to the Black community are forms of proactive self-defense, for a primary objective of self-defense is deterrence, and a limited political power is better than no power at all. But it is not always enough to deter racist attacks.

Black Americans can never relinquish the right to exert a political consequence on those institutions and individuals who abuse us. Questions of legality and illegality are relative the appropriateness is both tactical and ethical. Insofar as Black America is unable to punish racist brutality and exert a political consequence for racist attack we are weak, vulnerable and unequal. It is a moral imperative to organize Black people to defend themselves. We must get away from the plantation mentality and the cowardly notion that organizing force in defense of Black people and in pursuit of our political objectives, when necessary, is somehow amoral and therefore rightly illegal. All people have the right to defend themselves. Moreover, all that is legal is not morally just.

The proper criterion for distinguishing between right and wrong is not mysterious. It is embodied in the principles that advance the cause of the oppressed and exploited over the cause of those who live by oppression and exploitation. Even though the oppressed and exploited may not always be correct, their cause is just and right. Nor should we foolishly imagine that, by following the guidance and leadership of those who uphold the cause of the oppressed, we are somehow conferring favors on such leadership. For leadership is a burden surely the more one knows, the more one is responsible for. This is why current Black leaders act like they dont know whats happening in times of crisis, because white folks will hold them responsible for the consciousness of the masses. Our leaders must be responsible to us not to the status quo, which demands that our people remain in check.

Our leaders must be responsible to us not to the status quo, which demands that our people remain in check.

Humankind has a weakness for falsehood, vanity and crookedness, not because we are inured to truth and selfless devotion to community, but because it is much easier to pursue falsehood and vanity than to seek truth and social responsibility. So it is, that the delusions of the material world gratify us and yet leave an aching emptiness in our soul. Perhaps this weakness is why African-Americans, in the tradition of Western materialism, would much rather follow a fool dressed in a silk suit than a wise righteous person draped in rags. We fold our hearts like a handkerchief, tucking it away in our back pocket, sitting on it as if embarrassed that we possess a heart at all. Surely the corruption of a persons heart is a great tragedy for the malaise of the human spirit is reflected in the social condition of a people. Their need arises from the drifting and unfocused hunger of Black America for a class of men, women and youth committed to upholding the social, moral, ethical and spiritual integrity of our community no matter how great the sacrifice. We need to care more about ourselves than about what white folks think about us, and in so doing realize that history does not respond to those who lack the basic instruments of bringing about historical change. This means we must acquire independent power. The rhetoric of liberalism, left dogma, or right integrationist accommodation are passe, obsolete. They are without moral or ethical integrity and of limited utility to Black America in crisis. The crisis of Black America is not only material (i.e. economic), or political, or even social. It is at its root a malaise of the heart of the spirit. The reality of the nation-state in which we live is in transition. Our struggle for liberation as a people must reflect this and invigorate us with a new sense of direction and purpose.

We need to care more about ourselves than about what white folks think about us, and in so doing realize that history does not respond to those who lack the basic instruments of bringing about historical change.

The world is changing. It is in a transition from a world order dominated by European economic hegemony born out of racist colonialism to one in which that system of domination is under increasing strain to accommodate the interests of the disenfranchised. Increasing awareness of the need for a world order and redistribution of wealth unencumbered by selfish class-based nationalism is rising in the world. Technology has placed humankind at the crossroads of history. What will be Black Americas role in the historic struggles that lie ahead? Black leaders who do not frame the struggle in this context are not Black leaders at all.

While we must prepare ourselves collectively to wage many struggles at once, we must do so with a common sense of mission and purpose. Without this sense of mission and purpose we will succumb to the spiritual and material degradation of a racist culture. The times in which we live portend both hope and doom.

During the long centuries of the slave trade, Africans had a sense of mission, of common purpose to survive and defeat the brutal system of dehumanization and break de chains. In post-Reconstruction America, when the national agenda was set for the remainder of the century by putting Negroes back in their place as neo-serfs (sharecroppers) and servants, Black people had a sense of collective mission. When white labor was bludgeoned into submission by the robber barons of commerce, and the political elites of both North and South consolidated the economic wealth of America into the greatest material growth in human history, Black people had a sense of mission, purpose and common direction which culminated in the upheavals of the early- and mid-20th century for civil and human rights. We must rekindle this flame and sense of purpose, but on a much higher level. We know what white America is capable of when it comes to people of color. We understand the limitations and imperatives of history, and a racist culture. The question therefore is what do we intend to do about it.

Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad is an American writer and activist, who is a former prisoner, Black Panther Party leader, and co-founder of the Black Liberation Army. This essay is excerpted from Still Black, Still Proud.

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Toward Rethinking Self-Defense in a Racist Culture - The MIT Press Reader

GIRLS with bachelors degrees are mopping floors for a salary as low as Rs5,000-6,000 per month, says Ahsan Ali from Maid in Pakistan, an agency that provides domestic help to households in Karachi.

We mostly service Defence, then Pakistan Employees Cooperative Housing Society, followed by Nazimabad all the posh areas, he says, explaining that they have divided household chores into different categories. Cleaning, washing and ironing are one category, cooking and washing dishes belongs to another category whereas babysitting is a third. The wages of each category are different, depending on the skill level and fluency of the maid.

While the lowest monthly salary that a maid of Maid in Pakistan earns is Rs25,000, some earn as much as Rs30,000-33,000 if they are fluent in English. Such maids are hired by families in Defence for their children. To put this salary in context, a Montessori teacher with a diploma from the internationally recognised Association Montessori Internationale that costs upwards of Rs200,000 earns Rs23,000 while working in an upscale pre-school in Clifton.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate the market size of domestic labour in Pakistan is worth billions if it could be formalised by the private sector

The Defence area is serviced by Azam Basti, Akhtar Colony, Kashmir Colony and Qayyumabad. Girls from areas such as Azam Basti and Mehmoodabad are well-spoken in English.

They used to work in banks and insurance for Rs18,000-20,000 and are thus better-groomed and better-educated than the average masi.

Maid in Pakistan has given placements to about 600-650 maids in Karachi and has about 40,000 maids on the roster. Its a business worth billions, says Mr Ali. We have an online presence but there must be 25-30 small agencies in Karachi alone that use old-fashioned marketing techniques such as passing out flyers in the vicinity.

Market size

There were 12 million urban households in 2017, as per the census. The Household Integrated Economic Survey places 43 per cent of the urban population in the fifth quintile with a monthly average income of about Rs60,000. Therefore, about 5m residences can afford a maid.

If each household was to have one maid earning the minimum wage of Rs17,500 per month, the market size for domestic labour for urban areas in Pakistan clocks in at the stupendous amount of Rs87.5 billion a month or over Rs1 trillion a year.

Obviously, a household earning Rs60,000 will not be spending nearly a third of its income on domestic help. More likely, the closest slum area will provide a more economical option (of around Rs2,000-5,000) since most middle-income households have at least one domestic worker in the house. Similarly, there are those who earn millions in a month for whom the minimum wage is less than the cost of a new pair of shoes and need to have a staff to maintain their homes.

These back-of-the-envelope calculations are illustrative of how big and vastly untapped the informal market of domestic help is in Pakistan. Statista places the value of the worldwide household cleaners market at $32.6bn in 2020, estimated to grow to $40.4bn by 2025 (not accounting for the coronavirus impact).

Defining workers

We dont call them masi, we call them helpers, says Suniya Sadullah Khan, co-founder of the app Mauqa Online that provides domestic help at hourly rates in Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Mauqa started about 2.5 years ago and has roughly a hundred maids available for hire.

They recruit by going to communities in slum areas and refuse to hire anyone below the age of 18. Using an Uber-like app, they allow the domestic help to rate the customers and vice versa. Charging Rs300 an hour, depending on the service, they give the option of not going back to the house if the client is unpleasant.

Similarly, TAF Foundation (TAFF) is a non-governmental organisation that recruits from the suburbs of Karachi and slum areas. We have girls who have earned masters degrees but under the strict supervision of their brothers or fathers, says TAFF CEO Dr Hina Hussain Kazmi. They have no confidence or people skills. Through a programme of 15 weeks, we train them for housework as well as social and financial skills and call them housekeepers or house managers.

TAFF ensure that its graduates earn a minimum wage of Rs17,500 though some, for example, the one working for the Italian consul general, earns upwards of Rs30,000. To date, TAFF has generated labour income of Rs80m.

Both TAFF and Mauqa work towards re-branding the humble masi and changing the culture of arbitrarily assigning work and hours to a more structured format. TAFF mediates a contract between the employer and the housekeepers. The contract is valid for a year, has the job description, working hours and facilities provided, says Dr Kazmi. Initially, there was resistance since the culture was such that one day the girl would be asked to put oil in her employers hair, and the next day she would be asked to cook. Employers have been known to fire workers when they refuse to deviate from the job description stated in the contract.

Whether the girl is working for a few hours, half a day or the full day, she would earn the same, says Ms Khan. But because of the hourly rate, they feel less exploited as they earn for the number of hours worked and our customers have become efficient in terms of housecleaning rather than coming up with work just because the maid is around.

Uplifting maids through laws is a long and arduous process, made more difficult by the countrys chequered history of poor implementation. Nearly 85pc of the employers are abusive towards the girls, treating them like slaves, says Mr Ali. Media reports abound of rape, murder and imprisonment of domestic help. However, if the private sector formalises the informal sector of domestic help, not only will it result in upliftand empowerment, it can also generate higher revenue in terms of labour hours.

The essential service of the rich

Haye meri bechari beti, said the Defence wali aunty as she watched in horror while her daughter mopped up the floor. Why dont you send the live-in driver to fetch the maid every day? Or better yet, tell her to shift into your storage room, she advised.

In the first couple of weeks, belts were girdled and Defence wali aunties who had never picked up the plunger were determined to fight the good fight with all the jharoos, poochas and Scotch Brites at hand.

But days passed and squatting for thighs that could do yoga on mats but had not learned the art of using the humble poocha while walk-squatting became just too darn difficult. Demand for daily help coming in changed to domestic help living at home. For those for whom this was not an option, drivers were dispatched to keep the sparkling white bungalows spotless.

A battle may be raged in hospitals where doctors and nurses clad in personal protective equipment for armour have flowers air-dropped upon them in cities while nations stand in balconies to clap their thanks. But the humble masi, using a makeshift dupatta as a mask and caring not a whit about the coronavirus though being the most vulnerable to it, will battle her way through crowded public transport to provide the essential service of making sure her bajis toilet remains streak-free.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 1st, 2020

Original post:
Elevating the humble masi to a maid - DAWN.com

The savvy Lady Gaga fan in 2020, when confronted with a new song called Fun Tonight, knows enough to flinch. Because it is a latter-day Lady Gaga song; because it is 2020. Im not having fun tonight, goes the chorus to Fun Tonight. Right. Thought so.

The vibe is downbeat electro-pop. (If youre still obsessed with Ally, her A Star Is Born characterand why wouldnt you beits caught halfway between the bubbly frivolity of Why Did You Do That? and the stern grandeur of Shallow.) The lyrics range from Wish I could be what I know I am to I feel like Im in a prison hell. The songs intended target, according to savvy Lady Gaga gossip hounds, is her ex-fianc Christian Carino. (She is now reportedly dating a New York Times editors ex-boyfriend.) You love the paparazzi, love the fame / Even though you know it causes me pain, Gaga laments, evoking past glories, now drained of their glory, or at least their frivolity. Even her idea of a prison hell has changed dramatically since she recruited Beyonc for the Telephone video.

Gaga launches the chorus of Fun Tonight with a lovely, anguished falsetto swoop, the words borderline nonsensicalIm feelin the way that Im feelin, Im feelin with youthe anguish nonetheless palpable. The end result is neither the best nor the saddest song on Gagas sixth album, Chromatica, out Friday. The best songand Shallow excepted, her best and hopefully biggest pop hit in nearly a decadeactually is the saddest. But dip anywhere into this record, even the fussy orchestral interludes somehow, and the bawling-on-the-dance-floor pathos will bowl you over the same way it bowled her over.

In touting Gagas glorious return to full-blown dance pop after the meta rockist provocations of 2018s A Star Is Born and the minivan-ad turbo-Americana of 2016s actually quite beguiling Joanne, the Chromatica rollout had a soothingly chaotic throwback quality to it. The goofy tweets. The wanton messiness. (The leak-plagued emergence of bombastic lead single Stupid Love was a saga unto itself.) The gaudy Grimes-before-Grimes sci-fi flamboyance of the early visuals, like the cutscenes in a Japanese RPG whose battle system you could never hope to understand. The COVID-borne release delay (which also nixed a planned Coachella sneak attack) was a disquieting new wrinkle, certainly, but it felt great, in a nostalgic future-shock sorta way, to be once again bewildered.

With reliably brash production from BloodPop, Burns, Skrillex, and other proud maximalists, the resulting record, which spreads 16 tracks across a relatively restrained 43 minutes, has a surface outrageousness youll certainly recognize, but a relatable bone-deep melancholy too. Unlike, say, Dua Lipas Future Nostalgiaa superior pop album but a far more discordant self-quarantine listen, given its raw yearning for communal dance-party releaseChromatica is the perfect summer album for the Lost Summer of 2020. Im completely lonely / Please dont judge me, she entreats us amid the trance-adjacent freedom-via-isolation jam 1000 Doves; her idea of typical pop-star self-empowerment this time out is bellowing, Im still something if I dont got a man / Im a free woman, on Free Woman. Its unsettling that she even felt it necessary to point that out.

The flamboyance and the desolationEven when you feel 6 feet under, you can still fire on all cylinders, Gaga told Zane Lowe in February, describing her studio mind-set as Im miserable, Im sad, Im depressedare productively at odds from the start. Im tired of screaming at the top of my lungs, she announces on Alice, her voice ever-so-slightly robotic, the uptempo house chug evoking a Wonderland with little wonder in it. At times this restraint, this hint of steely resignation undercuts the wackiness, which is a shame: The blaring neo-disco of Replay could serve to be, lets say, 50 percent wilder, and the understated Sour Candy, costarring the disruptive K-pop girl group Blackpink, could be, lets say, 200 percent more disruptive. But when she gets the uppers vs. downers balance just right, look out.

The one-two punch of 911 (her monotone extra robotic, her mentality extra self-defeating) and Plastic Doll (her falsetto swoops extra anguished) is especially bruising. The self-medicating lyrics to 911 range from Turnin up emotional faders / Keep repeating self-hating phrases to Wish I laughed and kept the good friendships; the hushed bridge to Plastic Doll begins with her chanting, Tell me, who dressed you? / Whered you get that hat? / Why is she cryin? / Whats the price tag? There is a hint heremore than a hint, reallyof the dehumanization that pop stardom demands, the disastrous private life that a boldface-celebrity lifestyle inevitably leaves in its wake. She sounds more sympathetic on this topic than Drake does, anyway.

But Rain on Me, a triumphant pop-star summit with Ariana Grande, is the peak that expertly doubles as a valley: Its coming down on me / Water like misery, Gaga wails, before the monster hook kicks in. Its anthemic but frightfully vulnerable, an instant pool-party classic with the troubled soul of a drained pool. Its her best pop song since, what? The Edge of Glory? The hug she and Grande share at the end of the video is awkward in an awfully endearing way. Your first hug with someone youre not currently living with, however many months from now that transpires, will look a lot like it.

Very little of this has that Gaga-specific WTF quality youre likely craving: Its the difference between chain-smoking and fashioning all your cigarettes into a pair of rad sunglasses. But Sine From Above, a late-album collaboration with Sir Elton John, gets closest to liftoff, emotional and otherwise. The theme is musical inspiration as the balm for personal devastation: Then the signal split in two / The sound created stars like me and you, the two divas sing to each other, consolingly. Before there was love, there was silence. Its egotistical in an awfully unguarded way.

But the most jarring and empowering and weirdly thrilling moment in the song belongs to John alone: He thunders, When I was young / I felt immortal! with more ferocious catharsis than youll find in all of Rocketman. It would simply sound ridiculous if you didnt totally believe him. Sine From Above wraps up with an abrupt, colossal breakbeat, and the disorientation is pleasurable indeed. There are lightning flashes of the classic, heedless, fearless Lady Gaga throughout Chromatica, and all the more thrilling for how brief they are, and all the sadder for their brevity.

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Lady Gagas Chromatica Is the Pop Album for the Lost Summer of 2020 - The Ringer

Noozhawk hosted a webinar on Friday that addressed education hurdles and how remote instruction changed the learning experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The webinar, titled Learning Together Remotely: Navigating Education in the COVID-19 Era, explored the lessons and challengesaseducators and students switchedfromface-to-face classes toremote learning.

During the webinar, viewers tuned in to an open discussion about how the pandemic accelerated technology-delivered instruction and fueled new opportunities.

Kim Clark, Noozhawk's vice president of business development,moderated the free, live Zoom webinar with five educators from the Santa Barbara Unified School District.

In support of the school district, the Santa Barbara Education Foundation gathered an accomplished group of educators who have worked tirelessly to help young learners stay engaged and on track during these unprecedented times.

The Santa Barbara Education Foundation supports and provides programs that enrich the academic, artistic and personal development of students in the Santa Barbara Unified School District.

More than 100 people registered for the webinar, and the 60-minute session includedan insightful question-and-answer session with guest speakers.

Click here to view thewebinarrecording with password 7P!hh^=^.

Youths across Santa Barbara County are not attending regular in-person classroom instruction because of state-mandated closures in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. Educators and school officialscontinue to provide a wide range of essential services.

When asked about somesignificant challenges that students are facing during school closures and the implementation of remote learning, Dos Pueblos High School Principal Bill Woodard spoke about the nature of COVID-19-related school closures.

The campus community had to shift gears on the fly.

We arent really doing distance learning or remote learning, he said. We are doing emergency COVID-19 response learning, and therefore, not having any preparation for that was extremely challenging as we rolled it out.

The spread of the coronavirus forced school campus closures in March.

Students were suddenly cut off from peers and school teachers, and everyone had to quickly adopt digital technology.

Students were not expecting it, and teachers were not expecting it to be for the rest of the school year, Woodard said. They didnt have any sort of warning that it was coming.

There were a lot of unmet needs in terms of just simply emotional safety, and also physical safety and comfort. Parents were losing their jobs. There werefood insecurity issues, and on top of that, now you have to shift the way youre learning at home.

Some students didnt have aconducive learning-at-home environment, and some still dont, frankly, Woodard said.

Franklin Elementary School music teacher Joanna Pascoe spoke about the benefits that remote learning offers compared to traditional on-site instruction.

My favorite part about all of this has been the sense of community, and not just within Santa Barbara but the global community, Pascoe said.

She received an influx of emails, with people trying to help and provide online resources that can support students at home.

The shift to learning online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed different types of teaching material compared to only in a classroom.

The global aspect of suddenly having access to the Berlin orchestra or the Los Angeles Philharmonic or ballet companies in New York has been incredible, Pascoe said. A huge advantage of online learning is how much help and support we are getting from the global community.

The change also cultivated independent learners, and students are learning more independently.

We are teaching the students how to be their own learners, and how to find the resources for the subject you are most interested in, Pascoe said.

Ali Cortes works through the Santa Barbara district as the clinical youth outreach worker. She provides trauma-focused intervention, such as case management, advocacy, mentorship, workshops,mediations, empowerment groups, and therapy to at-risk adolescents and families.

During the webinar, Cortes mentioned some obstacles to student success in the wake of remote learning. Humanizing technology is a big barrier, she said.

No amount of remote learning is going to compare to the connection of a human being, Cortes said. We are all on the same ocean. We keep hearing the analogy of we are on the same boat, and we are not. We are all on the same ocean,and everybody is in a different place.

Some students have come face to face with the challenge of not havingspecific instructional materials for hands-on programs.

Franklin Elementary STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math)teacher Brendan Carroll said he gets creative with his lessons to keep students engaged. Young learners made origami, as well as sugar and salt crystal experiments and created aluminum foil boats.

We dont have the actual physical materials to give the students, so personally I havebeen trying to design engineering or science lessons based on my guesswork on what they (students) should have at home, Carroll said. This is sort of a patchwork band-aid situation.

Kelly Choi, director and co-founder of Santa Barbara Unified's Academy for Successprogram, also participated in the webinar. She described the lessons learned in the new world of remote instruction from the standpoint of an educator. For example, teachers learned new toolsand other creative solutions.

There are a lot of things us as teaches have wanted to do for a long time, Choi said. We have been in a cycle that has notallowed us as teachers to have time to get out there and try it or learn it all of a sudden, we were forced into a level of skill like learning technology and Zoom."

Noozhawk held its first webinarearlier this week, focusing on how the community is dealing with mental wellness during the coronavirus pandemic and local resources to help combat stress in the time of COVID-19.

The free, live Zoom webinar, titled Mental Wellness During the COVID-19 Crisis," included representatives ofDomestic Violence Solutions,CALM(Child Abuse Listening Mediation) andSanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara. Click hereto view the webinarrecording with password 2K##0=1!.

Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.

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Noozhawk Webinar Focuses on Navigating Education During COVID-19 Pandemic - Noozhawk

By Loyiso Sidimba May 27, 2020

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Johannesburg - Hundreds of black-owned small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) across the country are set to benefit from the multimillion-rand procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane has amended an earlier instruction that prescribed the emergency procurement of Covid-19 PPE items and cloth masks to ease supply by SMMEs and create an environment for the stimulation of local supply and manufacturing.

Institutions are encouraged to use suppliers/manufacturers falling in a designated group in terms of the Preferential Procurement Regulations 2017, reads Mogajanes new instruction, dated May 20.

According to the regulations, designated groups refer to black designated groups, black people, women, people with disabilities or small enterprise.

Earlier this month, the Treasury issued an instruction stating that there had been concerns about the procurement process excluding a number of domestic suppliers and covering too wide an array of goods, especially those that could be manufactured locally.

The Treasury also reiterated its commitment to fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective procurement processes. It has assured the country that it wants these processes to be compliant with the countrys imperatives of promoting structural transformation and broadening participation in the economy, to strengthen economic development and empowerment of previously disadvantaged groups and individuals.

The list of suppliers identified by Mogajane include more than 700 companies who manufacture PPE items such as cloth masks, aprons, gowns and other protective clothing.

The companies are registered with the Department of Small Business Developments supplier database.

There is also another list of over 400 suppliers able to produce between 500 and 500 000 fabric cloth masks a week provided by the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Industry, and more than a dozen companies who are part of the National Treasurys transversal contract to supply and deliver clothing to the government.

Business for South Africa (B4SA), which was set up by organised business to support the governments efforts to mitigate the health, labour market and economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, is looking for a broad-based black economic empowerment- compliant lead logistics provider to distribute PPE in a fast and price-efficient manner.

B4SA has already secured emergency supplies of PPE for the public and private sectors for the first eight weeks of the pandemic and monthly afterwards.

About R1 billion has already been spent on buying PPE using funding donated to the Covid-19 Solidarity Fund established by President Cyril Ramaphosa including millions of N95 and surgical masks for health-care workers and patients, sterile gloves, face shields, gowns, sanitisers and ventilators.

Unions representing health workers at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19 have complained about the lack of PPE and have even advised their members to demand it before performing their duties before working in dangerous, unhealthy, unsafe and unconducive work conditions.

Political Bureau

See original here:
Covid-19 in SA: Black-owned companies to benefit from making protective items - IOL

The business world may have changed forever because of COVID-19. But how are different sectors reacting and what do leaders think the future will look like?

To answer these searching questions, Business Leader brought together a high-calibre panel of business leaders.

The aim of the debate was to look at how business leaders are responding to the challenges presented by COVID-19.

The panel:

Dr Oliver Prill Tide Bank

Paul Beach Arbuthnot Latham

Asma Bashir Centuro Global

Johnny Palmer SXS Events

Paresh Modi Vodafone

Andrea Reynolds Swoop Funding

Gary Fletcher Gallagher

Jackie Fast entrepreneur and investor

John Stapleton entrepreneur and investor

Pat Lynes Sullivan and Stanley

The first question asked was, How is COVID-19 affecting your business and your clients?

Asma Bashir, who has run various businesses in her career, kicked off the debate by saying: We have several businesses in our portfolio and were able to react very quickly. As soon as the government announced we were going into lockdown, we were able to respond efficiently due to the technology infrastructure we had in place.

In regards to the shift to remote working, there was a high-level of excitement in the first couple of weeks, with working from home being a new experience and people feeling united with their families, but gradually it is starting to wear on people and the excitement has waned.

From an external perspective, the impact on our clients has been varied. For the start-up clients we deal with, they are being challenged by cashflow, their business runway in terms of funding and also how they navigate the various government schemes.

For our larger customers, we have had challenges with their expat population and people being stuck in other countries and weve been trying to support them with crisis management and getting them the advice and support they need.

On how Vodafone is responding, Paresh Modi, comments: We have 100,000 employees across the world and 95% are now working from home.

We have also seen a 50% increase in broadband traffic and, somehow, we have managed to keep the networks going by using our technology to push bandwidth levels at short notices through clarified structures. In our business we are having 40,000 virtual calls happening every day in our employee base. Keeping that up and running was a monumental task.

We have also been quick to support our customers, by shortening our payment terms to give them cashflow and also by setting up affordable business accounts and infrastructure for companies that may not be used to remote working.

Paul Beach has a large client base consisting of entrepreneurs and private businesses. On how they are being impacted, he said: Our private clients have been looking at how the wealth they have created is being impacted by the volatile nature of the global oil and equity markets. Its an uncertain time and naturally this client base is seeking advice and clarity.

For our entrepreneurial clients, it has been interesting to see how they have been innovating and pivoting during this time. For example, we work with a business called Seven Cherries an ethical catering firm who have moved into home deliveries across London.

Another business, Twipes, has also responded by moving their whole business online and into a B2C model, where they can deliver disposable wet wipes to UK households.

One sector that has certainly been impacted by COVID-19 is events. Johnny Palmer has looked to try and find opportunities though, as he has explained: Our industry (events) has been affected more than any other and it does not exist now. This made us look at our priorities which are our clients and employees and for the former we have been looking at how we can host their events virtually and also help them with advice around venue contracts and ticket prices.

In response to COVID-19 we have also developed our own education learning platform called Intelligo, and we have also launched a new online platform to host conferences. As a business, we are reacting where we can.

One of the biggest challenges for many businesses during COVID-19 has been accessing vital funding and navigating new government structures and systems.

To get an insight into the pressures this is putting leaders under, Dr Oliver Prill was asked to give his thoughts on the current funding context.

He said: At Tide, we have 150,000 SME business customers, which is one in 40 of all UK SMEs, so this allows us to see the whole spectrum and it is very tough for them now. The sad story is that the UK governments business response is well intentioned as from a Conservative Government this is unheard-of generosity but the execution has been found wanting, as large parts of the government machine are not working at the level that they are required to work.

This is in part because they have never had to work to this scale, but they too also have high rates of absenteeism which makes things difficult. We are trying to be supportive of government when representing our members but we also need to pick out these execution gaps.

The grants on offer only apply for one fifth of all SMEs because many small firms do not pay rates; and the loans have been an absolute disaster, as only 1% of SMEs have been able to access one.

Many companies are going to go into hibernation unless funding kicks in and investors will only inject funding if they see a light at the end of the tunnel and a coherent plan.

Andrea Reynolds sits on a fintech consortium which is talking to government about the challenges businesses are facing. On this subject, she said: We have seen a 1000% increase in customer demand and we are also seeing lots more mature and traditional businesses looking for funding, which we didnt see before COVID-19.

Businesses heard amazing things from the Chancellor, such as the 330bn fund, and if youre in business you assume it will be available to you, but the navigation has been very difficult. There is a huge disconnect between the announcement and reality and you have a situation where the lenders are inundated with demand and the business is stuck in the middle.

The system should be centralised so businesses can see who they can receive a loan from because now they going to their bank, being rejected, and not seeing the other lenders that are available.

The bandwidth for execution is not there and although government is moving at a faster pace than they ever have in their history, it is just not fast enough for business.

Individual investors, like large funders, are vitally important to the business eco-system and COVID-19 has naturally shaken portfolios.

To find out more, Jackie Fast, explained: I own a wine business and that is dead at the moment, but what you are seeing in this space is that Sommeliers and high-profile people within the drinks industry are building their own personal profiles with events like wine tasting and cocktail masterclasses.

They are building their profiles, rather than thinking only in a commercial sense.

What has surprised me is that in one of my companies a luxury handbag brand business is booming. It must be that people are sitting at home and happy to drop a large amount of money on a handbag, as they are not spending it elsewhere.

John Stapleton, who is also an active investor particularly in the food and drinks sector added this when talking about investor sentiment and how the sector is being impacted.

He said: There are positives and negatives from COVID-19, depending on the industry you operate in, what your route to market is and what stage of growth your business is at. In food and drink you have of course seen many companies diversifying and moving supply online where they can, as this is where there is now an opportunity.

I am also seeing an investment mismatch, where investors think valuations should be coming down given the challenges businesses face but business owners argue that this is just temporary and theyre saying come back to me later in the Summer as Im holding my valuation.

Going forward, I feel there will be a boom in investments once we begin to come out of this as there is pent-up deal flow and where businesses can demonstrate momentum they can attract investors and reasonable valuations.

Generally, the fundamentals of your business need to kick back in. Hold tight, conserve your cash, get in what you are owned and do not spend where you dont need to. Try to return to momentum and focus on making the second half of your year successful by preparing for the new normal. You need to turn uncertainty today into competitive advantage tomorrow.

The debate then moved onto remote working in more detail. To find out how organisations are responding to remote working, we spoke to Gary Fletcher.

He said: Our business is spread over seventy offices and prior to COVID-19, we didnt operate with many of our staff remote working. But we are robust as an organisation and we had a well-tested business continuity plan in place in the event of something like this happening. We did not expect to have to move our entire estate in one go but we did it; and the implementation has been very successful.

We are proud of what we have achieved, as we did not expect to have to do this on such a big scale. For our customers were also proud to be giving them business as usual service and investing throughout this period to support them. They are talking to us about cyber risk, unoccupied premises and other matters and we are working hard to be by their side.

Back to our people, the challenge has not been the move, but its been about how we communicate with them. This is important from a wellbeing perspective and keeping our culture going is our focus now.

Inspiring remote works is all about strong leadership. To find out how COVID-19 is changing the way we think about leadership, Pat Lynes gave his thoughts.

He said: Many businesses are hibernating, cutting costs to the bone and retreating but I think the ones which will come out stronger from this will do the opposite reset, reorganise and reinvent; and this comes down to strong leadership and a clear vision for the future.

This challenge has given us a free pass to assess how we operate as leaders and to rethink how we want our organisations to be. COVID-19 has sped up the future of work as it has ripped off the band-aid for the industrial world of work, moving away from hierarchy and control to a more servant style of leadership, based on trust, collaboration and empowerment.

Most executives and change experts Ive spoken to do not want to go back to death by business case, analysis paralysis and slow decision-making indicative of hierarchical structures. So, Im hoping to see less time and activity-based management to more inspiring leadership with a product and services-based outcome, which is focused on the delivery of value to customers and the bottom line.

The recent World Economic Forum at Davos predicted that the businesses who will thrive in this decade will be those that embrace change as a constant and bring learning back into their organisations.

Pat added: I believe that the leaders who put change at the heart of their agenda and capability will be the organisations that succeed.

The debate then looked at mergers and acquisition activity and whether this will increase going forward, as stronger companies look to acquire weaker ones.

Paul Beach said: I think that could increase in the future but, initially, the concerns are around funding companies and investors. The number of deals has fallen very low in the last few weeks and possibly as low as 2014 numbers.

Some deals are still going ahead though and there is some positivity out there. Investors are taking longer to go through the deals though and there is less money involved and lots of deals are going into follow on deals.

Asma Bashir added: I relate it to 2008 and the recession back then. We were approached to be acquired and, because of the challenging conditions, I considered it, but I stood my ground and we waited it out. Rather than focus on activity in the UK, we pivoted into new markets and became a global business. This decision in 2008 changed the landscape of our business and we became a large company off the back of it.

I would say if you can survive without being bought, Id hang on and look at how you can enter new markets and how you can innovate. If you can get through this, it transforms you as a leader and it can inspire people. Difficult times are the real test that can show your resilience as a leader.

Overall, M&A activity is there but if a company is just looking at this as a way to resolve cash flow, there may be other things they can do to solve this issue.

John Stapleton also said: Being an entrepreneur is all about taking advantage of tough situations. It is not just about being prepared, its about being more prepared than the other guy and thats about developing a competitive advantage.

I remember the 1990 recession well, as we had set up New Convent Garden just before. We were scared at what might happen to our early-stage business, but our sales rose during the economic downturn. In recession, consumer behaviour shows that people trade up and they trade down simultaneously. They trade down from going out, but they eat in much more, so our sales of New Convent Garden Soup rocketed. And they traded up to consumption of premium products in the home consumers dont want to eat staples all of the time. Were undoubtedly heading into a recession following this first Covid wave. Those who understand their consumer base and have an insight to how their behaviour will likely change post Covid, will be ahead of the game of survival come the recession.

The debate concluded by talking about how leaders themselves can stay mentally resilient during this period. When asked how he keeps himself motivated during this time, Johnny Palmer said: The first thing I did was launch a campaign called Boss Take it First. In the early days of this crisis, when people were not behaving well and putting their own shareholders and dividends ahead of their staff, I felt that leaders needed to be practically and visibly taking the first hit. The boss needs to get paid less and the boss net worth needs to get hit first.

This is about strong leadership and a statement to your staff. You also need to work on your mental and physical fitness as a leader, to make sure you can look after everybody else.

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'COVID-19 has ripped off the band-aid for the old way of working' - BLM roundtable brings together leaders to discuss CV19 impact - Business Leader

Services and studies

Asbury United Methodist Church The church has suspended in-person worship and will have an online service each Sunday morning. You may view the weekly video at http://www.asburycolumbus.org/latest-worship

A new Asbury Kids video is available each Wednesday. Follow the link: http://www.asburycolumbus.org/latest-asbury-kids

Look for our Asbury Kids Facebook page for fun and fellowship for kids of all ages! Follow the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/699946243533189/

The church is located at 1751 27th St., Columbus.

Cornerstone Outreach Ministries A nondenominational ministry at 1229 California St., Columbus. Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m.

Bible study is on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

For more information, call 812-375-4502.

Dayspring Church Apostolic Worship begins at 11:15 a.m. at the church, 2127 Doctors Park Drive, Columbus. Every visitor will receive a free gift.

The Sunday Education Session starts at 10 a.m.

Bible Study is Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. and is a group session sponsored by Heart Changers International, LLC on Depression, Perfection and Anger with hand out questions. These help build our Personal Empowerment and walk.

Our Prayer of Power starts at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and is preceded with requests and instructions on prayer.

Ignite is the Youth Growth Session that happens every third Friday.

For more information, call 812-372-9336, or email dayspringchurch@att.net.

East Columbus United Methodist East Columbus United Methodist Church in-person services and Bible studies are canceled due to the pandemic.

East Columbus United Methodist will only be offering on-line services until further notice.

Fairlawn Presbyterian Weekly worship service on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. via Zoom (links and numbers below or folks can check fairlawnpc.net or visit our Facebook page for login and phone information).

Please use Zoom to call in by phone and/or login online.

Join the Online Zoom Meeting at https://zoom.us/j/431070245 with the Meeting ID of 431 070 245.

Dial in using landline or cell phone: +1 253 215 8782 US; +1 301 715 8592 US; Meeting ID: 431 070 245.

For more information, visit Fairlawns Facebook page or website (fairlawnpc.net), email office@fairlawnpc.net or call 812-372-3882.

All are welcome! Please call or email the church office for most up to date information at 812-372-3882 or office@ fairlawnpc.net

The church is located at 2611 Fairlawn Drive, Columbus.

Faith Lutheran The church has suspended all in-person activities until further notice. Wednesday and Sunday worship services are streaming live on Facebook: Faith Lutheran Church Columbus, as well as times for prayer each day at 9 a.m., 6:30 p.m., and 9 p.m.

More information is at Faithontheweb.org or call 812-342-3587.

The church is located at 6000 W. State Road 46, Columbus.

First Christian Church The church will only be having an online service at 10:30 a.m. on Facebook (www.facebook.com/FCCOC) and at http://www.fccoc.org/sunday/watch-now.

Details at http://www.fccoc.org

First Baptist Columbus will not be holding public worship gatherings at present. The church does offer a live stream worship connection at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays.

First Presbyterian First Presbyterian Church has canceled all in-person gatherings, including worship and committee meetings, and the office is closed until further notice. If you need to be in touch, please call 812-372-3783 and leave a message, and the church will be back in touch with you as soon as possible.

Streaming of worship services is available here https://www.facebook.com/groups/56933406910/ each Sunday, until the church is meeting back in person. Join the church as we worship together through technology!

Please know that we are praying for our church, our community and the world in this time of crisis, and we encourage you to join us in prayer. God bless you.

Information: fpccolumbus.org

First United Methodist Until further notice, First United Methodist Church will continue to live stream worship services instead of congregating in person. On Sunday, May 24, Rev. Howard Boles will deliver the message Where Do We Look For Jesus? The scripture will be Acts 1:1-11.

The service will be live streamed at 10 a.m. on the church Facebook page. Services and sermons will be available on our website as well http://www.fumccolumbus.org

Information: 812-372-2851 or fumccolumbus.org

Flintwood Wesleyan The church is located at 5300 E. 25th St.

In response to the current Covid-19 (coronavirus) situation, Flintwood Wesleyan Church is canceling all midweek services and activities.

Sunday worship services resumed with the implementation of the recommended in-person worship guidelines.

Please remember to check our various communication spaces Facebook, Website, Mobile App for updates. Your Flintwood staff will be doing everything possible to keep our congregation encouraged. We need to do all we can to keep our staff encouraged. Above all pray!

For further information about services or our ministries, please call 812.379.4287 or email flintwoodoffice@gmail.com. Church office hours are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Our website is http://www.flintwood.org.

Garden City Church of Christ Garden City Church of Christ will continue to honor the Indiana stay-at-home order and has suspended all in-person gatherings including Sunday services, Bible studies, youth & childrens activities, and meetings. Please visit our website or Facebook page for updates.

Weekly sermons can be viewed at http://www.garden citychurch.com/media/ listen-to-sermons by 10 a.m. each Sunday. Weekly packets go out to families with grade school age children that include a family devotion, video, and activities. The Youth Group and the College and Career group are meeting via video chat.

In absence of our weekly gatherings, you are encouraged to continue giving your tithes and offerings through the website and the GivePlus app.

Garden City Church of Christ is located at 3245 Jonesville Road, Columbus.

For more information or to get connected, email us at gccc@gardencitychurch.com or call 812-372-1766.

Grace Lutheran Worship is at 9 a.m. and can be livestreamed at http://www.gracecolumbus.org/livestream.

All services will be live streamed but if you miss it, they are all available as recordings at the same location.

The church is located at 3201 Central Ave., Columbus.

North Christian Church Gather with the church for virtual worship! Services are regularly uploaded to our YouTube channel on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. YouTube: North Christian Church Columbus, IN

Find supplemental worship materials and resources at http://www.northchristianchurch.com. Follow them on Facebook for updates.

The staff continues to work remotely. No building access is available at this time. The church will continue to monitor this ever-changing situation, and update their response as appropriate.

Information: 812-372-1531

The church is located at 850 Tipton Lane, Columbus.

Old Union United Church of Christ Scriptures for the 10 a.m. Sunday service with social distancing will include Acts 10:34-43, Colossians 3:1-4, and John 20:1-18. The message will be What Happened in the Garden?

Though the church couldnt this past April, they are celebrating Holy Weeks Easter Sunday.

The church is located at 12703 N. County Road 50W, Edinburgh.

Petersville United Methodist Church The church continues to post Pastor Stormy Scherer-Berrys sermons on Facebook each week; the title for Sunday, May 24 will be Trouble in My Heart.

On separate posts, scriptures will be shared by Joe and Kathy Bush from Psalms 31:5, 15-16, and John 14:1-2, and Teresa Covert will give the childrens message.

In-person services at the church will not be held for a few more weeks.

Information: 812-546-4438; 574-780-2379.

Sandy Hook United Methodist Sandy Hook United Methodist Church has cancelled all public worship services and meetings. Weekly messages are available on our Facebook Page or the Pastor Stephen W. Austin Youtube channel.

The church is located at 1610 Taylor Road, Columbus.

St. Pauls Episcopal Church All in-person activities at the church are suspended until further notice. Sunday Eucharist is being hosted on ZOOM at 10:15 a.m. each Sunday morning.

The First Thursday Ladies Lunch will also be on ZOOM, May 7 at 11:30 a.m. (see website for ZOOM meeting ID).

St. Paul Lutheran In person communion worship services will resume Sunday at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 6045 E. State St., at 8, 9:30 and 11 a.m. following all CDC guidelines for social distancing.

Pastor Doug Baumans message is entitled Celebration of Ascension: Mission Accomplished? based on Luke 24:44-53.

The Spanish Worship service will be at 11 a.m. in the Fellowship Room. High school and college graduates will be recognized.

Christian Education classes will not meet. The Sunday worship services and the children and youth Sunday School lessons will be posted online Saturday morning, May 23 at http://www.stpaulcolumbus.org and at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnNwPk8yYCeX_bAnyMsXEsA

Radio Worship Service every Sunday at 8 a.m. on 1010 AM and 98.1 FM.

Open enrollment for the 2020-2021 pre-school class registrations continues for students who are 3 & 4 years old by Aug. 1. Information: 812-528-0168.

Information: 812-376-6504.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus At this time, the church has postponed in-person gatherings until further notice. Please join the church virtually! Follow the church on Facebook or visit uucci.org for more information.

The church is at 7850 W. Goeller Blvd., Columbus.

Information: 812-342-6230.

Westside Community Until further notice, all in-person and onsite activities, including Sunday worship, are suspended. Please visit http://www.WCCShareJesus.com for recorded sermons, as well as Facebook for daily Points to Ponder by Pastor Dennis Aud.

When able, WCC has plans to host a community-wide garage sale. Be on the lookout for more details in the upcoming weeks. If interested in participating, while you are stuck at home this might be a good time to clean out your basements, closets, garages, etc.

For more information on studies or small groups that meet throughout the week, contact the church office at 812-342-8464.

Events

Eckankar of Southern Indiana All Eckankar events in Indiana are suspended through May 31, 2020. This is to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. This includes the monthly Eckankar Spiritual Discussion held the third Sunday of the month at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation building in Columbus, Indiana.

Check http://www.eck-indiana.org for the latest update on events in Indiana, and you are invited to browse the main Eckankar website for videos and reading material at http://www.Eckankar.org.

North Christian Church The church is temporarily suspending all church activities, effective immediately and for the foreseeable future due to caution concerning the coronavirus outbreak. The offices of the pastor and staff members will be closed as well. The church will reopen as soon as recommended by health officials.

South Central Indiana Christian Mens Fellowship The SCICMF meeting for May 26 will be held via Zoom at 7:15 p.m.

The program will be led by Ryan Croft, Hilltop Christian Camp Director. The theme is Vision 2020 and Beyond and the theme song is Be Thou My Vision.

To join the Zoom Meeting, click https://us04web.zoom.us/j/7565567429?pwd=VVZJMDhxREhwVTBtRnNyTkY1Y0thUT09

Meeting ID: 7565567429; Password: 61984

A second way to join the meeting is by calling in with your phone. You can dial 312-626-6799, then put in Meeting ID 7565567429 followed by # , there is not a participate ID, so simply press # , then, you will be asked to enter the password 061984 followed by #. This should get you into the meeting.

On your computer you may need to first download the zoom program from: zoom.us

Make sure your sound and video are working before joining the meeting.

The rest is here:
Religion news May 23 - The Republic

COVID-19 has had a major impact on our personal and business lives but now, with the easing of restrictions, were starting to look at our lives post-lockdown. You may be running a business or thinking of starting one up and a new podcast released today looks at this topic exactly how to kick start your business after lockdown.

The two women on the podcast are international bestselling author and life coach, Sharon Pearson, and she talks with Sydney publicist now turned empowering businesswoman and mentor, Tory Archbold, in her new Perspectives podcast The Power of Passion.

Both of these inspiring businesswomen believe life and work can become better than ever after our COVID-19 lockdown, with new priorities, connections and goals.

In the podcast, the pair talk about all the topics you want to hear about right now:

Archbold made her name with her own company, Torstar a global PR firm whose A-list clients included Zara, David Jones, Nespresso and Drew Barrymore. These days shes launched her own personal empowerment and mentoring business Powerful Steps.

Like Archbold, Pearson is a trailblazing entrepreneur. In 2004 she founded the award winning The Coaching Institute one of the worlds largest life coaching schools. She coaches international CEOs and students alike, and launched her latest book Ultimate You at New Yorks Barnes and Noble bookstore last year.

Since COVID-19, The Coaching Institute has become a purely online company and is doing record business, while Powerful Steps is expanding and has never been more relevant with its message of advancement and fulfilling dreams. Both of these successful women are thriving in these times, not surviving.

This free podcast, The Power of Passion is out on platforms including YouTube, Spotify and iTunes today. Listen in here or below:

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Life Coach Sharon Pearson's New Podcast On Kick Starting Your Business - Women Love Tech

DALLAS--(Antara/BUSINESS WIRE)-- Mary Kay Inc. continues its support of female entrepreneurship, empowerment and thought leadership as a premier sponsor for the 2020 International Women's Forum (IWF) Virtual Cornerstone Conference. Originally scheduled to take place May 13-15, in London, the conference has shifted to a digital format due to the COVID-19 pandemic; much of the same great content and speakers will be broadcast globally in a series of virtual sessions shared weekly at https://www.iwforum.org/.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200519005709/en/

On May 21, Mary Kay will participate in a virtual session entitled A Conversation with TIMES UP UK discussing important issues such as #MeToo and how the ensuing TIMES UP movement has led to re-thinking womens safety on film and television sets, as well as other industries around the world. Carolyn Passey, General Manager of Mary Kay UK and Ireland, will open the session focusing on changes TIMES UP UK is seeking to implement, navigating the line between personal and professional, and aiding those who frequently find themselves vulnerable and exploited while filming.

At Mary Kay, we advocate for womens empowerment and gender equality and we partner with organizations whose mission is to do the same, said Passey. Today, as the COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating women's vulnerabilities and gender inequality1, we know trust and safety are more critical than ever for women to thrive. The workplace should be a safe and dignified place for all of us. How can we ensureand demandthis happens? I look forward to the discussion on the topic with thought leaders from around the world.

Speakers at the session include:

Dame Heather Rabbatts, TIMES UP UK Chair Managing Director of Cove Pictures; Chair of Soho Theatre and non-executive board member for Arts Alliance. Ita OBrien, the UKs leading Intimacy Coordinator and founder of Intimacy on Set, her company through which she has been developing best practices regarding intimacy and nudity in film, television and theatre and through which she trains Intimacy Coordinators all over the world.

Now, more than ever, it is crucial to continue the conversation around safe and equal working conditions for women within the entertainment industry and beyond, said Stephanie OKeefe, CEO of IWF. As the world develops a new way to work in the context of COVID-19, I am hopeful that there will be strategies in place to ensure women can re-enter the physical workplace with confidence they will be safe and treated equally. Mary Kay is a long-time supporter of gender equality, and we are thrilled to continue this fight with them to ensure a more gender-equal world.

A link to watch the event will be available on the IWF website and its YouTube page May 26: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdLPNS7ai1_XHaqgEnhEjtg

1 United Nations Secretary-Generals Policy Brief on The Impact of COVID-19 on Women, April 9, 2020 https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/policy_brief_on_covid_impact_on_women_9_apr_2020_updated.pdf and - Blog article by United Nations Foundation, Blog article from Michelle Milford Morse and Grace Anderson, April 14, 2020 https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/shadow-pandemic-how-covid19-crisis-exacerbating-gender-inequality/

About Mary Kay One of the original glass ceiling breakers, Mary Kay Ash founded her beauty company more than 56 years ago with three goals: develop rewarding opportunities for women, offer irresistible products, and make the world a better place. That dream has blossomed into a multibillion-dollar company with millions of independent sales force members in nearly 40 countries. Mary Kay is dedicated to investing in the science behind beauty and manufacturing cutting-edge skin care, color cosmetics, nutritional supplements and fragrances. Mary Kay is committed to empowering women and their families by partnering with organizations from around the world, focusing on supporting cancer research, protecting survivors from domestic abuse, beautifying our communities, and encouraging children to follow their dreams. Mary Kay Ashs original vision continues to shineone lipstick at a time. Learn more at MaryKay.com.

About International Womens Forum (IWF) and the Leadership Foundation IWF is an invitation-only membership organization of more than 7,000 diverse and accomplished women from 33 nations on six continents. IWF advances womens leadership and champions equality worldwide by connecting accomplished women both globally and locally. Members include Fortune 500 executives, government leaders from the local to sovereign level, international nonprofit leaders, and luminaries from the academy, arts and sciences. For more information, please visit http://www.iwforum.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200519005709/en/

Contacts Mary Kay Inc. Corporate Communications marykay.com/newsroom 972.687.5332 or media@mkcorp.com

Source: Mary Kay Inc.

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Mary Kay Inc. continues its support of womens empowerment at the International Womens Forum TIMES UP Virtual Conference - ANTARA

Carolyn Passey, General Manager, Mary Kay United Kingdom & Ireland (Photo: Mary Kay Inc.)

Mary Kay Inc. continues its support of female entrepreneurship, empowerment and thought leadership as a premier sponsor for the 2020 International Women's Forum (IWF) Virtual Cornerstone Conference. Originally scheduled to take place May 13-15, in London, the conference has shifted to a digital format due to the COVID-19 pandemic; much of the same great content and speakers will be broadcast globally in a series of virtual sessions shared weekly at https://www.iwforum.org/.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200519005709/en/

On May 21, Mary Kay will participate in a virtual session entitled A Conversation with TIMES UP UK discussing important issues such as #MeToo and how the ensuing TIMES UP movement has led to re-thinking womens safety on film and television sets, as well as other industries around the world. Carolyn Passey, General Manager of Mary Kay UK and Ireland, will open the session focusing on changes TIMES UP UK is seeking to implement, navigating the line between personal and professional, and aiding those who frequently find themselves vulnerable and exploited while filming.

At Mary Kay, we advocate for womens empowerment and gender equality and we partner with organizations whose mission is to do the same, said Passey. Today, as the COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating women's vulnerabilities and gender inequality, we know trust and safety are more critical than ever for women to thrive. The workplace should be a safe and dignified place for all of us. How can we ensureand demandthis happens? I look forward to the discussion on the topic with thought leaders from around the world.

Speakers at the session include:

Now, more than ever, it is crucial to continue the conversation around safe and equal working conditions for women within the entertainment industry and beyond, said Stephanie OKeefe, CEO of IWF. As the world develops a new way to work in the context of COVID-19, I am hopeful that there will be strategies in place to ensure women can re-enter the physical workplace with confidence they will be safe and treated equally. Mary Kay is a long-time supporter of gender equality, and we are thrilled to continue this fight with them to ensure a more gender-equal world.

A link to watch the event will be available on the IWF website and its YouTube page May 26: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdLPNS7ai1_XHaqgEnhEjtg

United Nations Secretary-Generals Policy Brief on The Impact of COVID-19 on Women, April 9, 2020 https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/policy_brief_on_covid_impact_on_women_9_apr_2020_updated.pdf and - Blog article by United Nations Foundation, Blog article from Michelle Milford Morse and Grace Anderson, April 14, 2020 https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/shadow-pandemic-how-covid19-crisis-exacerbating-gender-inequality/

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Mary Kay Inc. Continues Its Support of Women's Empowerment at the International Women's Forum TIME'S UP Virtual Conference - ITWeb