#53. Collaborating with Voice of Aroha to end the year

We Collaborated with Voice of Aroha on an exciting podcast featuring Lawyer and Host of the Podcast, Me, Racism and I, the incredible Thoraya Abdoul-Rassol. In the episode we delve into thought-provoking discussions on identity, culture, and personal experiences. Check it out!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:22 What do we identify as Home? Family Vs Place
• 17:19 Migrant identities. Why do some need to choose their identity when others don't?
• 22:09 Thoraya's Podcast - Me, Racism and I
• 27:01 Learnings from our podcasts
• 36:28 What next in 2025?

Transcript

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I think it's awful when people come over any place. You're bringing extra hands, definitely. The economic side, of course, is always advantage when you have more people. There's all these terms and all these questions people have, but it's too scary to ask, and you don't want to offend anyone, like me using the term white person. The mainstream media point which you said was very interesting, because one of the reasons which I wanted to sort of talk to experts, quote unquote, especially online, you used to see so many things of people with thousands and thousands of followers. 

start fighting from now who will start the show? Welcome to the Smooth Brain Society and to Voice of Aroha. Kodren, I'll let you because this is your studio, you're hosting us although it is supposed to be a collaborative podcast. I will let you sort of talk, introduce everyone to the audience and go from there. Yeah, thank you, thank you, Sahir. And welcome, Hare mai, to our studio and a new place as well. So, Kia Ora e te whanau, we are having a really great show. This will be a collaborative one between Voice of Aroha and Smooth Brain Society. And also amazing guest is joining us, which she is also a podcaster. So before we go there, I want to talk to Sahir, how you feeling about this today? I'm excited because I have had you on my show and interviewed you. You have had me on your show to interview me. And now we get now we get to work together. And I have had a little bit of my merch onto the set here, which is brilliant. I like, I quite like it. I have to take it back though. It's my only shirt, but for the time being it's there. Um, and yeah, I'm excited to get into this. Also talk to another podcaster, which I think we shouldn't do too much. I think everybody's having podcasts now, which is, maybe we, maybe, maybe we need to hand licenses out for this or something. Another degree. Another degree. A degree in podcasting. So, Thuraya, how are you? I'm good. Very welcome and thank you. I remember we met when we did that podcast online with me, right? And also you introduced yourself there and you had a podcast. Thuraya, first things we want to start with you, can you introduce yourself? This is the mic for you. How would you love to introduce yourself? It's funny, I did a breath work. a week ago and I don't know why it came to me like to introduce myself differently. Usually I just say, Hi, my name's Thoraya and I leave it at that. I'm like, I don't know what you want to know about me. As-salamu alaykum, it's me Thoraya Abdul Rasool or Thoraya Hussam, Abdul Sattar, Abdul Jawad, Abu Shair, Um, Amal Moussa, Marit, Ahmed Moussa, Bitt, Mayad Sabri, and Hussam Abdul Rasool. Hafidah Jameela Sabri, Muhammad Sabri, and Salma Al-Sattam, and Abdul Sattar Jawad Abu Shair. My lineage. My name's Throraya. So, yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. I got that. I heard a few words. So here is the thing, right? I literally... So, Kodrean speaks Arabic. You speak Arabic. I do not speak Arabic. You should learn Arabic. I should learn Arabic. Is this the name? She just said the name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I figured that out. I figured there was the names of your dad in there. I heard the name of your mom in there. Was the name of your partner in there as well? Yeah, my husband. Yes, your husband was in there as well. So I heard these names and I'm like okay I see where you're going with this but I don't understand everything Yeah so my name is Thuraya I am the mother of Emel Musa, the wife of Ahmed Musa The daughter of Mayad Sabri, some of the Rasool I forgot to mention my brother in Arabic but the sister of Jaudet Abdel Rasool The granddaughter of Jamila Sabri And Mohammed Sabri as well as Salma Al-Sattam and Abd Al-Sattar Jawad Abushayr A lot of names and they change because when we immigrated to New Zealand the paperwork didn't reflect how we would Have our names in the Middle East so you see me thinking because i'm like i can't remember which is which and like what should I do here? Yeah Names are a funny thing because my granddad He has six brothers and they all have different surnames Because it wasn't a real thing So everybody has different surnames there and then me, my dad and my mum all have different surnames again. That must be so annoying to travel. Yeah, so if we travel together our passport, everybody has a different last name in them and it's just the most confusing thing when we're like, no we're all family, we're all one, just nobody has the same last name. Yeah, because in the Middle East it's based off, like your last name you just take your father's first name. So you trace your lines through. Absolutely. That's very interesting. So why you choose such introduction? Like, yeah, that's a really good question. I don't know. So I did a breath work. Do you guys know much about breath work? No, I only came across it last year. My friend was like, you should really do it. I'm going to do such a poor job of explaining what it is. And I'm so sorry for that because it's a really, really cool thing. And I fall in love with it. But it's an experience where you actively breathe. So it's two seconds in, two seconds out. over a period of time, you should do it with a facilitator to help guide you through there. But your body goes into this rhythmic phase and you can process trauma that has happened that your body has stored. So I did this breath work at a community breath work that Gemma Rose runs in Hamilton. And while I was on that breath work journey, for some reason, I kept imagining. like my ancestors, I kept seeing them, and I've never ever, ever had that in my life. And as we all know, growing up or living in New Zealand now, the indigenous Maori, it's all about their whakapapa. They'll always introduce themselves through who they are, and you hear all of it. And I respected that they did it, but I never felt the need to do it myself. But during this birth work journey, I just saw my ancestors and I don't know why. I was just like, I really want to start introducing myself this way because that's who I am. Like, and now that I've had my daughter who has since passed, it's, I've got the people before me, but also the people ahead of me. Um, yeah, I just, this is the first time that I've done it. It's great. It's just great. I actually did it. Just building on that though. Uh, you talked. You mentioned a lot of family, but like you said, with Māori it's all about the whakapapa, but it's also about ties to the places they're from, and your introduction didn't have any sort of place-related stuff in it. And do you think, did those things not come to you, or is it more about the family? Yeah, it was more about the family. It's a good point that you mentioned, like I'm originally from Baghdad, Iraq. I will say though, I think the reason why for me, places and countries don't come straight away and interested to see if you guys relate at all, or I'm sure you will, but in which way do you relate, being an immigrant, I feel like I kind of got plucked from my ties. So I come from Iraq, which was under a dictatorship. and it's too hard and too painful for my parents and their generation to speak about. So I don't know much about my country. I don't know. I know like history, like when I say history, I mean like Babylonian, Macedonian times-ish. But Iraq has changed as you would know, very much over the years and I don't know. So while we're in New Zealand, I love, admire, slightly envy. and move to do it myself when you've got Māori people that are like, yeah, this is my mountain, this is my river, this is my iwi, this is my hapū. I would love to be able to do that, but I don't. And the reason why I don't is because it's too painful for the people that have that knowledge to share that knowledge with me because they have to go through all the hardships in order to give me that information and it's too raw for them 30 years on. So yeah, that's why. I don't even know where I would start, other than saying I'm from Baghdad, Iraq. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, no, I can totally relate to it, which is, you mentioned that. It's also when we want to mention that, or when we wanna use that, we say we are from here. Because we also, we are living here now for a long time as well, you know, like we are here, you feel this has become another home. So it's also you want to still be proud from the place that you're eating and leaving there. So sometimes we get confused, should we say we're here or there? Because there's a lot of things have been taken away from us, either from childhood or like you mentioned that if we go ask our elders, they basically they don't want to talk about it because they don't want to make you feel that what they've been through. They want to keep it for themselves. And because I have like my grant. you know, my elders in my community, when I go ask them, they really don't want to tell you all the bad things. They just want to say no, because they want us to not be thinking about that. They want us to think about the future. That's why they think, okay, now we come here, we sacrificed, we want you to focus on your future and live the rest, you don't get anything from there. But in the same way, sometimes, you know, we, especially as other young, I had the chance to, I grew up there actually. I come like... in my youth age here. So I had enough kind of many years there. But I see other people from my community who grew up here, they wanna know about their place. They wanna know like they are interested more to discover. So it's really, we stuck from this. And also we face, I don't know, it's also funny because it's funny and it's sad as we're at the same time, because some of you say this and some people don't really like where we come from. And we also go back. we will be considered as foreigners. So as a refugee or immigrants, we face that kind of, you become the others. And that's be something with us. Here we become the others, we go back to the others. So it's really, it's hard, like, why should we mention the place and what is the place meaning? Because for us, family, it come first, you know? Family now, for me, is the place. That's why I'm also, that's why I like it, because... You mentioned the family, I'm thinking about this because if I want to also do an intro, I will go that way. Because this day was the reason to give me this life, they were the reason to call this place home. Because without the family, how I can call this place home? That's my answer there. There's also an element of, like, I have distinct memories of when people find out where I'm from. than going into, like, expecting me to know and explain the history and the politics of what's going on there. Yeah, that's right. Like, I remember being in primary school and intermediate at the age of like 10 with the teacher asking me like, oh, so what do you think that's going on there? And feeling the need, like, I should know this. And I was always such an advocate. I still am an advocate. It looks a bit different now. And like... learning all the stuff so that I was prepared for when people ask that type of question and now I kind of like pause a bit Because it's like I don't want to say something and then have to like sit there and be your teacher for you Yeah Exactly. So Sahir, how about you? Well for the place what you face so Finally, if you go watch my episode with you interviewing me and you asked me to introduce myself I said I've been an immigrant in four countries. Because although I was born in New Zealand, because my family were immigrants here, I was treated as an outsider. Then I went back to India, like you said. When you go to India where your family's from, or when you said, if you go to Iraq where your family's from, you're again the outsider there. You're not the same. And then, well, I went to the UK, which is the motherland for every common-world country, I guess. But again... where there are immigrants there and in America I was an immigrant. But yeah, the point that thing sort of resonates that the place you love the place, which has sort of adopted you in this case, out there, or we can like your home, but it's not the same. You have the passport, you're a citizen, but the connection to the land is not necessarily the same. The connection to the people was like the friends you've made. So so I would. I think the introduction the same way as like you said, I would say family, but I'd probably add a lot of my friends in and I'd remove some of my other family members who probably weren't there for my family at the time or whatnot, or we haven't learned about in my introduction if I were to give it by, you know, if I went by the son of daughter of post grandparents, we don't talk about a lot because a lot happened during the partition of India and things like that. So a lot of families were lost. And so we, in many cases, I do not know a lot about. I want to say three generations more on one side and the other. So there is that as well where if people don't talk about it, how do I know? And then I could have sub, I kind of supplement that with all the friends I've made from around the world. And I think someone had asked me once ages ago of like, this comes up a lot with sports. I mean, like, who do you support if New Zealand and India are playing a cricket match, for example, and I'm like, I support New Zealand and my family supports India because. a bit more, I think I have more friends here and so on. But then if you flip that into, if you had to go to war for a country, who are you defending? And I'm like, I'm defending my friends. I don't care. I don't have any links to these people. Like I want my friend from Israel to be safe. I want my friend from UK to be safe. I want my friend from New Zealand to be safe. I want my friend from India to be safe. I want my family and all these respective places to be safe. I don't really necessarily, yeah, that sort of kind of that national sort of pride, I guess, is not... Comes below that sort of familial and like the friends or the family you've kind of made along the way. Kind of thing. Does that make sense or... It is. We do face these questions a lot. And it's really interesting also how we would... It's really depend also on the personality and people. Exactly. You're talking to the context. Yeah and... What do you feel? Because it's really hard. This question like who you would like support or defend. That's the question, right? Because I don't know, maybe it's very hard. It's very hard. People don't get it if you're not in both sides in the world, it's very hard. Who you are fighting with? Is it your cousins or the place you're living with and eating from, you know? It's both are theirs to the heart. So they'd say if I face this question, I'm really hard, I would say I will be the UN. You know, even it's terrible. Well, no. You hope the middle one go to somewhere else. I don't know, you know, because it's really hard. Look, New Zealand now for me become home and become all my families kind of, you know, there's still like second or third generations of second or third degree of family still there. I still care about it. And not only that, it's just I'm also indigenous people of the land. So I care about the land a lot, the history of the land of Iraq. But been taken, but then the question is, I'm meeting different background of people, different culture and things, so every day someone is adding to my life, should I still stick on my that, indigenous things of the land, or should I say, I'm indigenous, I wanna bring the beautiful culture I have, to this other cultures, which is global, so I can learn each from there, I can also add to them. That's what I'm thinking, because if I stick here, I think it will make me more nationalist and then it will also make me trauma and things and all of the things that you know you can go back or if you go... All of it is just a heart you know. And the same time I'm leaving here, it's like you know you're telling yourself, put your brain here, take your heart there. Or put your brain there, take your heart here. It's interesting that we feel the need to choose when there are settlers on this land who don't... So there's a story which was taught to us in school in India once. I do not remember the actual names of the king involved, but apparently when the Zoroastrian people came over to India and they landed on the ports, the king at the time of that particular region, because India wasn't one country, it was multiple kingdoms, the king at the time of that region said, a bowl of milk filled to the brim basically and showed it to them being like this is our kingdom it's full we have no space for you and one of the leaders of the of the Zoroastrian people took out some sugar and put it in and said like yeah but we will dissolve and make the place sweeter and it was that kind of idea of we will we will come in and add to the culture you just need to embrace us. And I quite like that story. It's quite how I feel. Although I feel that a lot of the time it is the pushback from the people, not even the indigenous people, right? The people who have power in that land being like, no, you cannot come in. It's that kind of thing of sort of convincing them that everyone has a lot of like, can just enrich the place by being let in or. Everyone has something to offer. Exactly. But the problem with saying something to offer, I always feel is it becomes like monetary almost. Transactional is what... That's why I wanted to say it in a different way, in the sense that... Because when you say, oh they have something to offer, it means like, oh they can... They'll make us more money or not. That's interesting, because I don't think... When I hear the word something to offer, I don't go to... The first thing I'm thinking is... Okay, they have... What are they... Like, yeah, if you say it's something to offer, if like you make the place better, it's a different thing. I just think about like enrichment. through dialogue, art, just being a part of the community. You know, for many ways, calls for a way, being there, and just a human, because sometimes you have empathy land, there's no humans there. That's awful, we are just populating you. I don't know, good and bad, I think it's awful when people come over any place. You're bringing extra hands, definitely. The economic side, of course, is always advantage. when you have more people. But the culture side is great. And just the feeling that, you know, interaction with other people, actually, even sometimes if you bring some people who you really disagree with, it gives you alpha. If you really think about it, because it gives you, you might start thinking about some other things, how I can find the solution that we already disagree. You know, if you don't have that kind of issues or problem, then you will never think about it. how we will start our brain moving and stuff like that. If you just go that kind of way. But guys, I want to just bring back to two, it was very interesting conversation. We talk about the place, you know, it was just interesting how important it is. So I want to talk about more about this, this related about our why, because one of the things I think we do, this kind of podcast, by the way, all of us have a podcast here. Shortly we talk about it. I think it's also related about that why, which is the place of. Is it the place recognizing us or not? That's why I think we can talk more. But, Tureya, I wanted to know a little bit more about your background. And you are here to graduate, right? No, Sahar's here to graduate. Sahar's graduated. Yes. I did all my grads already. Yeah, I see. Long ago. When did you graduate? When did I show up to your graduation? 2019, end of 2019. Yeah, just before COVID. You're right. What did you finish? I finished law. Law, nice. So you're practicing law now? Yeah. Amazing. We have a lawyer here. Sahir, your graduation is tomorrow? My graduation is tomorrow. I did the parade today. That was a lot of fun. Me and my brother both did it together. So that was exciting. Very cute. Very family moment. It was nice. But yeah, tomorrow is the graduation. I'm looking forward to it. I had come to Therese's graduation. Oh my gosh. So when, I think a couple months ago, So when I joined, then you introduced Therese there. Therese, can you talk to us? called Me, Racism and I. I co-hosted it with my friend Julian. It started off, well it still is a passion project and I had been thinking about it for years. To be honest, I had probably been thinking about not necessarily in the format of a podcast but of something in that realm. Honestly, since I was in high school, I just didn't know how or what to do. I thought about a blog, I was like, no one reads blogs, no one reads. Um, and then podcasting became a thing and I never thought about doing it myself. And then I had a friend started podcast that has since become very successful. And I was like, Oh, like you actually can do this just in your like kitchen at home. It doesn't have to be fancy, although the quality in the product is usually better when it is fancy. So it's this passion project. Um, Racism has been a big thing in my life and I would say honestly everyone's life. If you say it isn't like you're kidding yourself, you're in denial. It touches absolutely everything and people are too scared to talk about it. It's a very big, daunting, scary topic. I get it. And it can be somewhat divisive and you think that there's a right way in a wrong way and there's a right and a wrong in groups. and because it's so scary people don't talk about it and because people don't talk about it continues and people suffer and relationships get ruined and it's just like I don't know it's like this gross disease that just continues to live and morph and can like grow and I think one of the ways that we can shrink it so it's not as scary is by actually talking about it so I was like I don't like to talk about it, but I'm comfortable talking about it. And I think one of the ways that we can break this apart is if we were to... not talk about racism as racism, but talk about racism in little bite-sized pieces. So, what actually is racism? Can you actually be racist to a white person? What is microaggressions? There's all these terms and all these questions people have, but it's too scary to ask and you don't want to offend anyone. Like me using the term white person. People hold their breath. It's like, yep, cool, hold your breath, but now let's talk about why you're holding your breath. And once you talk about why you're holding your breath, you can kind of move past that. Yeah, so that's why I started it. Interesting. Very interesting. I want to also talk more about like, what was the learning or any interesting guests you cast? Yeah, so it's interesting. So I have this podcast, but I like to call myself a recovering perfectionist. What does that mean? So I'm a perfectionist, but I'm trying to recover from being a perfectionist. And... Being a perfectionist means I don't start anything unless I know it's absolutely perfect. But nothing will ever reach the level of perfect that I need. So it took me a very, very long time to start this podcast and I've since launched it. And Sahar likes to talk about it to me a lot. Hold me accountable. I'm now on your podcast and you keep calling me a podcaster. Okay. I've really got to own this identity now. So one of the, you asked what are one of the learnings? It's still very infant. I've only got three episodes at the moment. There's an episode that's already edited that just needs to be launched and I just need to keep recording. But really what the podcast is, it's so it's myself and my friend Julian and Julian and his wife Maya also hold me accountable. And when I told them about this idea, they loved it. And so they kept pestering me. to launch it. So I asked Julian, I was like, I'm really scared. Would you do it with me? So it's him and I. And we really just talk about these concepts through our own lived experiences. So it's nothing formal. It's not like I've got like, Sahar, you like to bring on experts in their field. I'm yet to do that. I'd love to do that. I'd love to interview people, but it really is like at the base level. us just breaking down definitions, talking about what it is, and then our thoughts, feelings, and whatnot about it, and then peppered in with stories that him and I have gone through. Why? Have any of the stories which sort of like Julian's brought up sort of changed your perspective in any way, or in vice versa? Yeah, so our very, very first, well I say very, as if we've got like hundreds of episodes out, episode one is about what is the definition of racism? Can you be racist to a white person? And we went into it with totally different points of view. And through discussion, I could see it through his point of view. I'd like to think, I'm sure he could see it through my point of view, but yeah, definitely. Every time we talk, like, often we'll go out for dinner or just be hanging out, and then we look at each other, we're like, damn it, if only we had the mic, like. We talk about these things every day anyway, so it was like very organic to just be like, why don't we record this and we're so passionate about it. No, my mate Jeremy, he keeps saying he works in media productions, he keeps saying always keep the camera rolling, never cut it. So maybe you should just carry that one mic with you everywhere you go. You know what I need? I need those little mics that you like put on here. And then just like record but then I have to edit it. That's the problem and I have to listen to all of that How good are you with listening to your own voice during the editing stage? I'm okay I'm okay. I do cringe but everyone cringes You get over it very fast. Yeah, nice. Yeah, it's also it's fun. You know when you do this you hear again It's just great. You learn a lot of things. So for us, we are doing the video side of it. You know, we are being an expert in Canva now on designing. Yeah. Just enjoy it. You've got to become an expert in everything. You're like self-sufficient. All of a sudden, you're like a media manager. You've got your Instagram account. You know, where to find designers. Exactly. You tell us. We talked on the previous podcast we had with you about your podcast. But can you share a little more like tell us about the learning from your podcast? Because you also host quite a few good number of guest. What was your more kind of interesting subject? And you find it very interesting for you personally that you enjoy. Oh, so there's many. There's many like. So first of all, my mom spoke about genetics on episode four. So because she's my mother, I have to say that was my favorite. Like we come from immigrant backgrounds and like your parents are loving, but very scary people. So that was my favorite episode. Now that that's out of the way. Yeah. So I've had what about 55 episodes now and like three or four more. I will probably like have been reported. They'll come out soon. Uh, I think the one which. was the most interesting for me in terms of something which I never thought about or done before was this was with Dr. Karaitiana Tayuru who does work in terms of artificial intelligence and how it intersects with indigenous communities and what that sort of means for data sovereignty what that means in terms of like indigenous peoples context, what that how that intersects with indigenous law. And that was very interesting because it's something which I didn't actually think about that how those things sort of interact. But then there's a lot of things which I learned from multiple episodes. Cause the whole point of my podcast is I have no clue what that person does or, and I am the dumb one in the room. And therefore every, every episode is a learning one, right? Um, everyone is, yeah, everything you learn every time you learn something different. So it's a different style to. the way as well, it's two people having a conversation over multiple episodes, minus every time it's with someone new and you learn something new and yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And we have also different style. So the different style we do, I think, I think because we, we call ourselves Aroha movements because we are a movement of, of spreading around different programs and things. So you will see us in a festival. We set up our podcast and start conducting interviews from people. So that will be specific about the vibes and why people are attending, why people celebrating such things. If there's like a multicultural festival. So we want to understand why people are important to such things. And the story of this place is not covered by media, by mainstream media. That's why that's what we do what we do. But also the podcast, it's that was the first how we started, which has been a five year just joy, joy for me, you know. started from my personal why I wanted to talk, I wanted to speak out. There's too many rules, policies you sign up, you have to not. This was my place at least to talk about refugee sector, at least to when I was witnessing some other crazy problems, I can talk about it, is it not working for my communities etc. And that's how it's grown. Because I remember when you were just doing some little audio work where you were still part as the... at Victoria University as the coordinator for refugee. I remember back then that's when I met you and met some of the people of Voicifotoa and now you're everywhere. I see you in photos with Cricket Wellington and I see you in photos interviewing Tam with the pole and things like that. There's an amazing team behind me. Shout out to the team and there's amazing volunteers and protection teams. These people who make all the things you guys see So when we started, it was really okay, it's just a volunteer. I think we started twice in a month, something like that. And there was a lot of time we stopped and then COVID come. Actually, that was our blessing time because people were crazy. I mean, people were new for the things. Everyone's things frayed and et cetera, which is natural. It's a very new epidemic, right? And then we said, no, wait, let's increase our conversation but in different way. People were focusing on all the same repeated news. We brought the real stories, real people. We even tried to do international music festival, you know, because all the world was locked down to show solidarity. So all these things have added kind of, we need to think about the future. And every single episode, every single things we do, there's one person, two person is starting listening or following all the things. when these things happen, there's something is interesting to someone is bringing them back. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the mainstream media point which you said was very interesting, because one of the reasons which I wanted to sort of talk to experts, quote unquote, and learn about research was because, especially online, you used to see so many things of people with thousands and thousands of followers spreading almost nonsense facts as if they were true. and things which can be very damaging. And a lot of people in research and academia have been burned by journalists and media before. And they always tell stories of how whatever they had said, words have been twisted by journalists or have been taken out of context and then changed. And then I thought that this was a nice way to give them a platform to share their research exactly how they want to do. So one very good example, I don't know if this part needs to be like, oh, what do you say like? What's it called? Not, not censored, but if you, if you, some of the words, because we're talking about drug use here. So one of the researchers which came on was speaking about cannabis research, which he does. And he was talking about how he was looking at one specific type of cannabinoid, which is one chemical within cannabis and how it might help treat Alzheimer's, but he was using it in animal models and it was like very early stages, but the newspaper just published. or the Sydney Times just published, no matter what, I can cure Alzheimer's. And then all of a sudden, a lot of people are messaging him being like, did you say this, that the university is on his case? And he's like, I'm not talking to journalists anymore because you're not actually doing what you should and be like responsible. And and this I've heard other examples by lots of other researchers on as well. This is my favorite one because I found it very funny. And yeah, so that this way they have, they get to have the full conversation. If somebody listens to the full episode, they get full context because it's not that certain things can be good. It's like certain things have downsides and you need to know about those downsides, but then certain things are not necessarily all bad. And we need to understand that or certain concepts in life need to be understood a bit more. So I think another one, one of the episodes which I did was about self injury and the a little bit about the importance of understanding it because sometimes people do it to help and it helps them so you can't just take it away. You need to understand that it's understand how this works. There's a few examples. There's a lot more. Absolutely. So guys, we do have another four minutes. So we want to maybe talk about like, what is the next if you have any other thoughts, what are you going to want to do? What are the topics you want to talk about? So Thore, you mentioned that There's a three already recorded, right? So what is kind of the other topics you think you'll be talking with all the crazy things going in the world? I know, I know. And we really have to like, we really try to be conscious about what we talk about, because you can really easily get caught up in every single news story, but then it's very reactive. And we want to be very conscious about what it is that we're trying to achieve, why we've done this and how do we get there. So we're still... thinking of, like at this stage, breaking down those basic topics. Like I said, the first episode is about what actually does racism mean, what's the definition of racism. Episodes two and three are, talk about microaggressions. What is a microaggression? Why does it matter? We've got one that just needs to be published that is about, oh sorry, the one that, episodes two and three are about cultural appropriation. And we've got one coming up about microaggression. An episode, so we're just talking about these words that you hear all the time. What do they actually mean? Why is it important? Another thing that we're gonna bring in is just talking about stories that come up. So, if you spoke Arabic, you would have heard in my introduction. I'm the mother of Amal Moussa, my daughter who passed away. In that whole experience, there were snippets of racism peppered throughout. So talking about stories that happen to us directly and talking about this is what happened, this is why it's important. Like, actually you think racism doesn't exist. Here are evidence about it and how do we move through that? Um, asking the question about what are the next steps is also really interesting for me because something that I've been thinking about recently. is when you know when you have a podcast, as you would know, you've been on this journey for five years. And as you definitely know, you've got your merch right there. You guys are further along in your podcasting experience than I am. When you have a podcast, you want people to listen to it, right? How do you get people to listen to it? Social media. Okay. You've got a TikTok account. You've got an Instagram account. Now you've got to post. You've got to post regularly because you're competing against all these things. Then you get a good following. Okay. We've got a good following, people are expecting episodes every week. Okay, now they want two episodes every week. How do we do this? We can get funding for equipment, for salaries of some sort, but also we need to monetize. And I really don't like that. Like, I get it, it's necessary. But I just don't want to get caught up in this whole consumerism, capitalistic world that we live in. I feel like we all overconsume. And that's not just food and drink. That's also knowledge. That's books. That's you can like overconsume wellness. You can overconsume mindfulness. We just overconsume everything. And it's really good because it offers avenues for people to make a living out of. Um, it also offers avenues for places like this to exist that communities need it. Like, Oh my gosh, have I had this podcast to listen to when I was growing up? I would have loved it. But you need to be self sustainable and how do you do that? And I don't know, I really don't know. But I don't want to monetize, I don't wanna go down that path straight away, just yet. I need to think about it more. So the episodes, where it sits with me at the moment is the episodes will come when they come. It will reach audiences and listeners who need to hear it. when they're ready to hear it and they'll share it and they'll talk about it. My main thing about talking about racism, yes, this podcast is an avenue, but I don't necessarily need like 20,000 listeners a month. I'm sure you guys could like, are on the same thought process where you're like, if I hit one person that didn't think about this, that's enough. And if that one person. meaningfully engages with it and that one person talks to someone about it then that's another person that's enough for me I don't need a lot of listeners at this stage. We'll see how it goes Yeah, that's exactly no I agree because it's about Self-sustainable Self-sustainability because I do it on my own. I had mentioned before that it's all self-funded. I have a patreon In the sense I put it up there, but I did not want to put anything of the actual episodes behind paywalls because my entire point is Journal articles and things like that are always behind paywalls and you want everybody to be have the opportunity to listen to this That's why you chuck more money in to make sure it gets to every podcast network or whatever But then at some point you're like you have a life and a job and things and you need something to make yourself sustainable So you put a patreon out there and you hope that youtube ads and things will sort of cover it But you be very explicit being like it's not going the money's not going Oh, you're not being hidden if you don't have the money to. I want you to listen to it. And if you're kind enough, sure. All the merch, all of the money just goes to Youthline, Wellington. So none of the money actually goes to me, whatever's bought just goes there. Because it was... The whole idea of merch was decided, let's see if we can help people as much as we can from it. But yeah, it's that hard kind of battle off, right? Like you need to sort of be self-sustainable, but... and grow. You need time and money for it. But then also you don't, but you don't want to monetize things more than you need to. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. You know, I'm just for the audience. So when the three podcasters meet, that's why we go over time. Because we love to talk. It's just amazing. You know, we can keep going and talking for a lot of things. That's I think that's what I love on this podcasting story. It's like a... I spend all my time, 30 minutes, one hour with the people to talk and sharing experiences or learning new things. It's just a great, it's like you're reading a book, you know, you're reading a story, you're reading experience of lived people, lived experience from different perspective. This is great knowledge. And so thanks for the modern also technology. We need to use it for good, you know, this probably does YouTube. That is, there's a lot of crazy stuff as well there, you know. So why not we put some knowledge there? Why not we to? put some kind of code that some people will find themselves need some answers or just at least may change their day because we are also looking for that one change. Exactly. Now we can have many people can listen and about one of them can take a change, take some actions to reflect on their selves or their community around them. That's a big one. So yeah, I think look guys, we really want to go, but we have to wrap up. So do you want to do the voice of Aroha question first? Or should I? You can do your first. OK, so on our episodes, on this Woodrozer episodes, the final question we ask all our guests is if you had one piece of advice to give everybody, what would it be? And I can see you. I didn't get to prep. If you had one bit of advice to give to somebody, what would it be? Yes. Just live in the moment. I had to learn that the hard way. but you really want to just live in the moment. It's so easy to get caught up thinking about the future, being a perfectionist, especially, that you miss everything that goes by right in front of your eyes. Amazing. Oh yeah. Awesome. Great, so, Turei, because you've been first time on our show, so we do this tradition we did with Sahir as well, but we had other guests come in. So you never know who was the guest, it's not Sahir. Yeah, okay. He asks me enough questions. So then you will also have opportunity to write us a question and the things. So someone have wrote this question and it says, tell me something you are proud of. Just one thing I'm proud of so much. Something I am proud of is getting through war. I guess I'm still definitely still going through it. A really, really horrific tough time. this year with family, but also on a brighter note, launching the podcast, like actually putting it out there and having to be confronted with people calling me a podcaster and like, okay, no, I actually have to continue on with this journey. Yeah. It's about making you accountable. Yeah. Another person to hold me accountable, damn. Great, amazing. So I think this is us. It was just amazing conversation. This is one of collaboration we can do many more. Hopefully, yeah.