Nonfiction authors. Panel featured discussion on civil rights, education policy, Mississippi State history and the 2016 president ial election. Notable authors include john meachum. And former Senate Majority leader trent discussing book on political polarization, crisis point. Go to booktv. Org for the complete weekend schedule. Our cspan campaign 2016 bus is in chicago this week at the National Conference of state legislatures asking what issue is more important to you, your district, and your state. Probably the most important thing issue is education by far. All of the things that were top of the bad list and bottom of the good list is all because of lack of education. Weve got some of the general population in louisiana, and we need to do a better job to starting probably childhood education and going forward. My name is ryan, im from u. S. Virgin islands and the most important issue in my district right now is having the United States giving the Virgin Islands allow to vote. Currently we are allow today vote in the democratic nominations and republican nom nomminations. We think its right to have those heros celebrated by allowing us to vote for the president of the United States. Thank you. One of the most important issues to me is the economic issue and jobs and part of the problem of of people that are em poverish all over the country is they dont have a voice that worked. I am a union member and im a strong advocate for having that voice that works. We need to strengthen and enforce our laws an encourage people to organize and have that voice. Thank you. Im from colorado springs, colorado and the most important issue to me right now is criminal justice and criminal justice reform. We have been working in colorado on modifications to the criminal Justice System to incorporate restorative justice, a way for people accept responsibility and reform the harm. I have the good fortune of representing district 11 in the great state of louisiana and i am proudly supporting Hillary Rodham clinton to become the 45th president of the United States of america. I believe secretary clinton has all of the essentials necessary to lead us in such a time as this, in addition, ive asked level of experience, she also provides an outlet so that we will be able to tackle all the necessary evils of the day and as a result stronger we are better together. Voices from the road on cspan. We had hoped to bring you the dod form on veterans and suicide but technical difficulties are preventing this. We will tape it and show it to you later. Right now a discussion on voters and disabilities. Excellent. So i want to thank you and welcome you to our second panel of the day which is on not forgetting people with disabilities when planning events. Its very easy to plan an event at your home or another location that may not be accessible and people often plan events not thinking that they want to exclude someone but just not thinking about why they need to do to make sure they are inclusive of everyone who may want to participate and we found that on the trail as well with president ial candidates hosting events, a lot are fully accessible but sometimes theres a step to get in or the bathroom is not accessible or other issues keeping people with a variety of disabilities from even getting in and a lack of asl interpreter or captioning or other availabilities for people who might need those accessibilities. And so i want to introduce im going to introduce our first speaker today. Jennifer mentioned that there are several ada centers around the country and they are free and encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities that they make available. As the director of the mid atlantic ada center, one of ten Regional Centers funded by the u. S. Department of house and how many services, marian provides Disability Awareness training and seminars on the americans with disabilitys act. The center has developed online accessible meetings, events and conference guide that i suggest you all check out and a customer film called at your service, that provides guidance to ensure full inclusion of those with disabilities. Marian. Good morning. Its really my pleasure to be here to talk about something that we feel very strongly about and i hope you do too by the end of the presentation. As lauren mentioned, the ada National Network is one of ten Regional Centers providing information, guidance and training on the americans with disability act, ada. The ada just celebrated 26th anniversary of the signing of ada here in washington, d. C. Weve come a long way and many of us with disabilities now expect full inclusion in activities of all aspects including voting, participation in political campaign, going out to eat, work, worship and play. We sadly realize that still today, 26 years later, we have a long way to go and the regional ada centers are here to provide you the support you need to ensure full inclusion whether youre providing, hosting or attending events around voting this year. We are ten centers, we cover the whole United States and so we encourage you to go to our website adata. Org, find your regional center, connect with us, we answer any questions you have about the ada or disability issues and you could reach us at 18009494232. As was mentioned, we are funded by the National Institutes of disability independent living and research which is a part of the department of health and human services. And we are free service. I want to talk about disabilities and i want to make sure that we start about what is a person with a disability because theres still a lot of confusion to date. The ada protects people with all kinds of disabilities both physical and mental. So we are talking about folks likes mobility limitation, like myself uses the wheelchair, folks with psychiatric conditions, intellectual disabilities and Health Conditions and other disorders. We also cover people with communication difficulties, those that affect hearing, vision and speech. Im going to focus just a few minutes on physical disabilities because those are what people think about the most. You see the wheelchair symbol that emphasizes aspect of disability and a lot of feel have a tend ngy to feel that people with disabilities are basically the people that are worried about or concerned about. So you need to make sure your facilities are fully cessable, that you have ramps, 36inch clearance and walkways, accessible bathrooms with grab bars and easy access and a lot of people focus on that. We have tools on our website that provide guidance on how to make sure facilities are fully accessible. We have an existing facilitys checklist that makes it easy for you to determine to make sure facility is accessible. We find that people are much more challenged, though, when it comes to including people with communication disability. For people that are blind or low vision, im going to talk about respectful and helpful interactions. I want to talk about having courtesy. Identify yourself when you approach an individual with date abilities. Let them know that you are leaving, who you are, your name, if you have to pass somebody with a vision disability or come near their personal space give them a verbal alert that youre leaving, who you are and when you leave. We are probably familiar watching somebody who is blind or low vision guidance. So we want to make sure that you ask them if they would like guidance first and foremost and then offer them your elbow and give them guidance to and from locations if requested. Theres a lot of aids and services for people who are blind or have low vision. We want to make sure that all the materials that youre providing are provided in an accessible format and those formats are large print audio and electronic. We also encourage you to have qualified readers so that people who are on site will be able to read a document to an individual with vision disabilities. There are such things as secondary audio programming to provide the description of visual elements during televised broadcast. With your printed materials, you need to think about things before you print them. You want to make sure theyre design for legibility and reduce the need for format or individualized assistance for people with low vision. What does that mean . It means simple and easy to read fonts, fonts without the curly qs, bold and easy to read like areial. We want good contrast between text and the background. We dont want lots of watermarking and little subtle pictures behind which makes it more difficult for people to be able to read. You want to make sure the material are nonglare finishes and you want simple uncluttered design to make it easier for distinguishing of visual and written material. If somebody requests large print, you want to make sure that it is 18point font or better, thats considered basic large print. An individual may say i need 24 points or 30 points to make sure its usable and readable for me. These are easy to do. They can produce inhouse because we all have electronic formats, right, the materials we develop. You take that and you go on and determine the font and you print it out in a large format, sometimes 11 by 18 to make it easier to reproduce on a copier. If you only have the document in fingerprint, you can enlarge it on the copier to make sure that it is accessible for people making that print. Rail or audio recordings are another way to ensure full access. Rail documents are produced by specialized equipment and you need to make sure that you produce that material in a format that can be railed. This takes advance preparation, you need to know who the rail house is, what your time frame is so that when you tell somebody youll be able to get materials to them, you have a time frame and you know how long it will take to get to the rail house and get it back. Rail is a lot of people dont think that a lot of people with disability use braille. For those who use braille, you must be willing and able to provide braille to them to assure full access to your printed material. Also so many people require audio recordings, these are usually done by professionals but you can do them on your own if you do well plan material and resources to ensure you have highquality audio presentation of your materials. Most of us deal electronically, we send electronically or on our website. We want to make sure that the materials that we are providing with those with vision disabilities are accessible for those who are using screen readers. You typically hear the screen readers that provides or reads documents out live by converting text to mechanize speech. Many of us now are able to use verbal descriptions on our cell phones, smartphones, computers by going to google having it read to us as well. All of those are formats that people with disabilities can be using. Some of the accessibility features we need to be concerned about when we are providing materials for folks with vision disabilities, is make sure that we have alt pads, pictures or graphics and those are then read by the screen readers to tell people what those pictures are. You need to make sure that you have decryption for videos and captions for those that need it for hearing disabilities. You need to make sure that you have hyperlink that says what it is such as the midatlantic ada center instead of click here or the website name. You need to have consistent meaningful styles and simple tables that are easy to navigate. For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, you need to be prepared to provide written notes, printed materials, assisted listening systems and if requested, qualified interpreters either onsite like we have here today or through Video Remote Interpreting which allows somebody off site to be able to watch the interpreter on the computer and techniques such as computer aid and realtime transcription which we have in the room today and open and close captioning of televised broadcast or any audio visual presentations. Interpreters use sign language or manual systems such as hand codes or queues in order to communicate with folks that are deaf or hard of hearing. Now, about what American Sign Language is, asl, it is a language and distinguished from english with different vocabulary that makes it just like spanish, french or any other foreign language. There are other manual systems that are used by people or deaf or hard of hearing that arent languages but really just convey english word for word. You need to make sure when youre requesting when youve requested a sign Language Interpreter to ask the person what type of interpreter they do need. Once someone something for interpreter and we got a sign Language Interpreter and they were wanting spanish. It is a very important to communicate with the individual themselves and not with the interpreter. And thats very hard to do because i think a lot of us may be fascinated by watching the interpreter and want to look and watch the interpreter but you need to communicate directly with the interpreter or with the deaf person and the interpreter should be off to your shoulder and so the deaf person can watch both of you at the same time and get direct communication. I mentioned cart or captioning and theyre both similar because they use technology to display typed record word for word. The spoken communication and sounds that are in the room. Cart helps not only people who are deaf or hard of hearing, people with intellectual disabilities, people with learning disabilities and people with foreignlong challenges. So cart is a very useful tool for many individuals. In large rooms its very helpful if youre in the back of the room where you may not hear as well to be able to read the cart. Video Relay Service has transformed the way people who are deaf or hard of hearing can get communication and thats through the telephone. Instead of using now a tty we use video Relay Service which allows a person who is deaf access to the computer to be able to relay to an interpreter who will then sign language back and forth, then communicate with someone on the phone and then communicate that information back to the deaf person. Using asl instead of typed information, its much more organic and effective tool in communicating with people who are deaf or hard of hearing. I hope you all have the opportunity to use that in communicating with folks who are deaf and hard of hearing. Service animals, many individuals with disabilities use Service Animals. Most of us are familiar with guide dogs for those who are blind and in the last 15 or 20 years, the expansion of people who use Service Animals has been greatly enhanced. We now have people using Service Animals who have epilepsy, diabetes, deaf or hard of hearing, wheelchair users, psychiatric disabilities and neurological conditions. We have a number of useful tools on our website that we encourage you to use. We have meeting and events and conference guide that provides information on how to assure a meeting large or small, conference large or small, any kind of event both indoors and out be fully accessible by using our accessible Meetings Events and conferences guide free in our website to help you determine how to assure your meeting is fully inclusive. We have 20minute Customer Service film that is captioned, audio described and in spanish and theres a 20second preview im sorry. Twominute preview thatll show you what its all about. So the bottom line, be proactive, establish nondiscrimination equal opportunity policies and include an events promotion, materials, information about what you are doing and deadline for participants that will require individualized responses and remember to include your speakers, your guests, volunteers and others to assure full inclusion, train your staff, disability etiquette. If you have a question, contact us. The ada National Network is available 18009494232 and visit our Hospitality Initiative for more Customer Service tools at www. Adahospitality. Org. Thank you very much. Thank you, marian. We hope that everyone was able to hear a lot of wonderful how tos in terms of being able to ensure your events are accessible. At the ent there will be time for questions as well if you would like to follow up. First i would like to introduce everyone to rodney hood who is the Corporate Responsibility manager at jpmorgan and chase company. He work at the office of nonprofit engagement where he is responsible for managing relationships with National Organizations that assist the bank in strengthening communities, spurring Small Business development and providing Community Development, Financial Capability and affordable housing. Prior to joining Jpmorgan Chase, rodney hood was appointed by president george w. Bush and confirmed by the senate as vice chairman of the National Credit union administration. The regulatory body for Americas Credit Union system. While there, he served on the board of directors of neighbor works, maybe works america along with counterparts from fdic, occ, Federal Reserve and hud. Jpmorgan chase in collaboration with the Word Institute on disability recently launched the conference Accessibility Initiative which aims to fully integrate Disability Access issues into the content and enable people with disabilities to fully participate in Critical National discussions of Economic Opportunity and inclusion. Im now going to turn the floor over to rodney hood who is going to give an example of taking the accessibility to the next level. Great, thank you, everyone. Good morning. On behalf of Jpmorgan Chase, i am absolutely thrill today join you this morning at the respectability summit. Jennifer, hats off to you and your fine team for really this morning assembling some of the countrys leaders, advocates and supporters in the Disability Community. Jpmorgan chase proudly supports respectability and its mission to increase the independentence, independence and quality of life for the Disability Community. Our firm realizes that people with disabilities experience Economic Hardship at rates succeeding the National Average and face unique challenges with access to Financial Education and Financial Capability tools. At Jpmorgan Chase we believe the private sector has a responsibility and role to play in helping address economic and social challenges. For us it doesnt mean simply working alone or writing a check rather it means working in partnership with nonprofit organizations such as respectability that are actively engaged in the communities reserved. This morning i really am delighted and pleased that you all will allow me to come and join you today to talk about the initiative. Working in partnership with tom foley from the World Institute on disability, Jpmorgan Chase is providing physical access and subject matter integration and to ten of the countrys largest civil rights and Community Development conferences taking place this year. Some of the conferences, ladies and gentlemen, have already taken place and those have included the naacp and jennifer mentioned some of them earlier, earlier,naacp, housing Fair Alliance and the National Council of la raza and the urban league. Upcoming conferences will include the corporation for Economic Development and the group that lauren just mentioned, neighbor works america. Ladies and gentlemen, our goals for the Jpmorgan Chase conference Accessibility Initiative are twofold, first, we want to create more inclusive advocacy and development communities. And also we want to expand the way people think about diversity and inclusion. What are some of the highlights of our conference Accessibility Initiative . One, we will have a concierge service, there will be a booth, we had the booth at all of the events today. Also there will be integration to sessions, Panel Discussions and award ceremonies, that is subject Matter Experts on disability issues serving on the panels, presenters themselves with disabilities and similar to what marian was just talking about, we will make sure sponsoring events that theres closed caption, cart and asl interpreters. And also, ladies and gentlemen, one of the other components, we want to make sure that there are specific Panel Discussions on disabilityrelated topics. With this initiative, Jpmorgan Chase together with wid, World Institute of disability, inclusive of people with disabilities. Large civil rights and Community Development conferences set the agenda for Economic Opportunity. The conferences we select attract key Decision Makers for nonprofit, business and Public Sector communities. The Initiative Aims to fully integrate Disability Access issues into the conference content and able people with disabilities to fully participate in the Critical National discussions of Economic Opportunity and Financial Inclusion. To paraphrase one of our colleagues who is works with this, thats tom foley, hes excited as are we because the conference that is we are working will give people with disabilities a seat at the table. Im excited about working with many of you all in this room in the days to come and i would also encourage you to not only learn but apply to some of the scholarship that is may exist for the conferences coming up. Again, the corporation of Economic Development, neighbor works america, if you have all interest in applying for them please go to www. Wid. Org, again thats www. Wid. Org so that you too you can apply for some of the scholarships or share the scholarships with some of your network. With that being said, again, thank you, we are excited about this being the first year of us having launched the conference Accessibility Initiative and i look forward to keeping you all abreast on some of the efforts. Thank you, again. Thank you very much. I am now going to open the floor to questions. Keep your questions short and i will be repeating it for the benefit of viewers on cspan. [inaudible] the question is for more than description about the Conference Initiative. Yes, sir, when you go to the www. Wid. Org you will learn about the World Institute of disability and also a space on there that talks about the conference Accessibility Initiative and the Upcoming Conferences that theyll be supporting. This is wonderful, this Conference Initiative. Is this a oneyear thing or a Permanent Initiative and is the Conference Initiative a one year program . We will fine tune and it was Just Announced in march. So im please today say that we are already looking at how do we finetune enhance it for next year. [inaudible] suppose i was working a political event in a swing state, how would i go about finding an asl interpreter. Suppose i was organizing a political event in a swing state, how would i go about finding an asl interpreter, expanding a wide variety of accessibility . Thats a great question. For specifically finding an asl, American Sign Language interpreter, many states have an office for deaf and hard of hearing and either Governors Office or as a statewide office. That would probably be one of the easiest and fastest ways to find a qualified individual to provide asl. Another office would be to see if theres a Governors Office for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing as well as people who are disabled. Many Governors Offices have those as well. You can also call your local center for independent living, often their called fill and you can google that in the area that you will be working in, whether it be the State Capitol or another major city and you can google the center for independentent living and or go to ilru. Org and itll have a list of all the centers for independent living. And that would be a great place to find a local asl Service Provider to provide that interpreter service. For other types of materials and resources, they too would be a great one. You can also call the ada National Network and they will connect you with entities within your state to be able to find an appropriate Service Provider to assist you in making sure that that setting is fully accessible. [inaudible] the question is how do we address the issues of cost when an organization is asked to provide different accessibility features . Go ahead. Thats a really great question and we hear that a lot. For any entity we suggest that you build in to your basic budget an accessibility line item because providing accessibility can be somewhat expensive depending on what kind of accessibility request you have. For a nonprofits and government entities, there is no resource to provide that additional support. It needs to be built in and provided. For profit businesses specially Small Businesses, the ability to provide either asl or other forms of communication can be paid for with a tax credit or tax, yeah, tax credit available for Small Businesses and we have information for that on our website. But for businesses in general, Large Businesses and or state or local governments or nonprofit or volunteer organizations, there are not many supports available and at that point, depending on the type of entity it might be an undue hardship to provide some accommodations, but youre required to provide as much as you can and as fully as you can and, again, if you have a question or a concern about how to do that, you should call the ada centers and we can walk you through the resources. Many people say, oh, its too expensive and we cant afford to do it, without investigating and finding out what resources are available, you might be able to find someone that is willing to volunteer to provide those services in the community. So youre required under the ada to investigate all resources and one of the things that i would suggest is going back to the individual who is requested it and say, you know, do you have recommendations for how i can find goodquality resources to provide the support youre asking for and then to see if they know of alternate resources if, indeed, a lot of Political Action groups are volunteers and they have no political background or funding and theyre trying to do grassroots initiatives and there may not be any source of funding to provide information or resources for folks with disabilities. But that doesnt get you off the hook. You really need to investigate and provide as much as you can and explore all opportunities and some of the opportunities ive already talked about would be places to go to investigate that you are providing as much access as allowable on the budgetary constraints. I would just add for the conferences that i mentioned that Jpmorgan Chase is supporting, we are building that into sponsorship, so we are the ones incurring the costs for the cart, caption and asl interpreters, as you hold conferences in the future, i ask that you have line item for sponsors to consider support if youre doing events and things like that in the future. For us we recognize that its costly but its so critically important. One of our sponsors today is cca captioning and they give out small grants which we received one to pay for our cart here today. So they are available specifically for politicians who are going to be using cart for the first time and other small organizations, nonprofits who might be interested and so i would recommend looking and seeing that there might be other organizations out there that are really trying to push an agenda of inclusion that may provide a small onetime grant. Yes a lot of time you have church groups, social groups do programs, volunteers and dont have a great knowledge. Is there a checklist that they can go to to figure out how they can be accessible . I didnt know to go across the hall. Is there a checklist that they might be able to go to . So the question is about a checklist for ada accessibility which, yes, it does exist. You want to take that . Yes. The events conference and meeting guide that i talked about thats on our website does have just exactly that so it covers small meetings, it could be your communities to come and only ten people come but you want to talk about people need accessibility and then get them to ask it and it talks about how to do registration, how to outreach to the community, what the physical space should look like, how to secure asl interpreters, the materials and how to provide alternate formats, all of those issues are covered. So that would be exactly, i think, what youre looking for. Its not just a strict checklist. Its in different segments, so that you can enter it as a host of the meeting, as the planner for the meeting or as an attendee of the meeting. Yes. The conference that you mentioned, is it just accessibility like accessibility in the sense of money occasion or or does it deal with employment persons with disability . Im not sure exactly sort of what the topic of your conference discuss. The question is i believe youre asking what are the conferences that the Conference Initiative accessibility are, what specifically those conferences do and Pay Attention to. Okay, great. The conferences that we are highlighting this year are around Community Development, Financial Inclusion and civil rights. As you know, the naacp, National Council of la raza, these are all civil rights organizations that often times are discussing national issues. When we think about the Disability Community, many of them are disproportionately left out of the financial mainstream and what we were finding that at some of the conferences discussed, Financial Access and inclusion, people with disabilities were not there able to participate in this this National Dialogue and the agenda being set. We are creating the conference Accessibility Initiative felt that if we provided people with disabilities an opportunity to attend, they could keep issues of disability at the forefront. So when we provide the scholarships, the disability embassadors, when they are sitting in the Panel Discussions, they are asking the speakers, what are you doing around disability rights and advocacy, are you thinking about disability communities when youre looking at new Financial Products and tools and resources. So i dont want to imply that folks were not discussing those disability opportunities before, but what we are doing is we are keeping it front and center and we really want to make sure that folks never engaged are impacted in a meaningful way and we ask that they not only ask questions and interr interject questions but keep a blog of events. Something thats extremely important and so by including people with disabilities and conferences that are focusing on other issues of civil rights and disenfranchisement that maybe the inner section hadnt been discussed before. People from both communities can learn from each other and form agendas together. We have time for one more question . Does that answer your question, sir, in terms of making it front and center and also the integration into some of the Panel Discussions, again making sure that when possible there are even agenda topics around disability and things on that nature and things that never took place in the initiative . Would your conference discuss that . It could very well, it could be an agenda item without a doubt because we are having the opportunity to help set that particular i wouldnt say set the agenda, but we are able to encourage topics, if for instance, at the recent conference we hosted in baltimore with the urban league, they had a career fair and there was a disability booth there for folks who want to get Employment Opportunities with disabilities. So its a whole number of things that can be made available. And those are the things we hope to do because the National Conferences, they all address those issues. Im very thrilled and thank you. I share your excitement. Back there in the blue. [inaudible] can you say that louder . Is there limitation about any of the type of conferences that to attend the conferences . Well, actually for using our conference accessibility scholarship ifs you go to www. Wid. Org that gives you the opportunity to apply for one of the scholarship that is we make available and that covers your transportation and registration for the event. Other than that, the conferences are open to other folks who want to do the registration, but again, we are having a separate group of embassadors who get to go but, bless you, but all of the conferences, again, people from all walks of life can apply. I mean, you can register but, again, for our conference www. Wid. Org. Time for one last question. [inaudible] to make events accessible and do training. Its part funding but also the attitudes and preconceived notions on what doable and misunderstanding a lot of time about whats needed and im wondering, what can be done to try to educate people like that who have possibly the money but are having a problem seeing the importance of it or taking the time for it . The question is organizations that might have the money to pay for accessibility features but their attitudes, they dont think about doing it or are understand why. Right, you specifically mentioned boards of election or other entities and a lot of groups dont really consider people with disabilities as part of a group that they should be reaching out to and we want to change that dynamic and we want to make sure that people with disabilities are brought to the table and part of that is making sure that things are accessible so they can get to the table either communication wise or physically wise, one strategy to engage the Disability Community and have them actively request information and to be brought to the table, so talk to your center for independent living, talk to your commissions on disability in the community, talk to specific disability groups like united cerebral pulsey, the ms society, the National Federations of blind, the National Association for the deaf, all of these have chapters within your communities. Engage those communities to be able to request and demand the training to be able to be brought to the table and be part of that engagement so that they can really be active participants in voting and in community integration. It needs to be a ground swell from the bottom up and then actively talk to other entities, elected officials, making sure that theyre aware that people in the Community Want to be engaged and requesting that kind of engagement. So if theres any number of levels of people that can be involved but it has to be a commitment and a movement and you can start it. Each of us has the responsibility to ensure full inclusion. Thats how the ada works and thats how our democracy works. If we each take on that responsibility and that commitment to ensure full inclusion of people with disabilities. I love that, each of us has the responsibility to ensure full inclusion of people with disabilities, whether you have a disability or not, thats a wonderful way to close this panel. We are going to be taking a short break at 1 11 oclock, representative brad whose office helped us secure the room will be addressing the conference and following that, we have a wonderful panel of some really great journalists including eleanor of the daily beast, norman, Clarence Page of Tribune Media services and richard wolf of usa today will be talk about campaign 2016 and beyond insights on the media, campaigns, public policy, the Supreme Court and people with disabilities. So we will be taking a short break now and we look forward to starting up again at 11 00 a. M. , thank you. [inaudible conversations] tonight on q a mary, professor at Boston College law school, she talks about her book madisons hand which takes a critical look at the notes James Madison took during and after the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Q a airs at 7 00 p. M. Eastern time. Tonight on book tv prime time, memoirs, starting at 8 00 p. M. , juan thompson, stories i tell myself, growing up with hunter s. Thompson. At 9 00 p. M. , carly carlan, growing up with george. Stacey dash, there goes my social life from clueless to conservative. At 10 00 p. M. Diane guerrero. All of this tonight on cspan2. Next forum on combating isis. Representatives of religious nongovernmental organizations working to help refugees in iraq and syria were among the panelists in a discussion on helping religious minorities persecuted by the islamic state. Thank you very much, tom. Welcome to our panel on International Perspectives related to the threats to religious and ethnic minorities under the socalled islamic state. You know, before we begin the panel, i just want to remind us that this issue has very much a human face. Im reminded of a trip to the kurdish area in iraq a year ago and meeting with father who with his family of eight including many Young Children had spent 12 days on mount sinjar waiting for rescue and he was actually receiving aid through Catholic Relief Services and the local Catholic Agency when i met him. A sign of solidarity between christians there. I remember meeting with two Christian Brothers with their whole families, they were at a church comp pound where in a single room the two families lived and in this situation that was anything but normal, they insisted on serving us coffee in an act of normalcy in a situation that was totally unbelievable to us and i remember in jordan more recently meeting iraqy christian refugees. I remember a mother and father in particular. They had three daughters in their upper teens and early 20s and they fled for mosul in the middle of the night on that faithful night and they saw many other families whose daughters didnt make it through. And although they had now nothing and a rather dim future in many ways, they thanked god for the fact that their daughters got through safely and their family remained intact. So this has a very human face. Now, in the interest of full disclosure we will probably also talk about policy and i should at least tell you that the u. S. Conference of Catholic Bishop has been active on the issue and talked about Holistic International responses to the crisis in the region that we need to first confront the reality of religious persecution and name it for what it genocide and some have done that including the United States. We also need to recognize that the International Community has a responsibility to protect. But this should be done within the framework of humanitarian international law. Our conference of bishops has also said that we have to acknowledge that the problem cannot be resolved solely with a military response, it is critical to address political and economic desperation that often assists the recruitment efforts of the socalled islamic state. Fourth, we have to humanitarian assistance to host countries and trusted ngos. Fifth, we have to accept for resettlement here in the United States a fair share of some of the most Vulnerable People when return is not possible and finally, we need to build peace by vigorous investments when are liberated and wanting to make them livable to build inclusive societies in both syria and iraq that protect the rights of all citizens including christians appear other minorities. And thats going to require Something Like a Marshall Plan and we should be prepared for it. So i think its part of the holistic response that we have a wonderful International Perspectives panel put here. Im joined today by cent kent hill and christy, im going to introduce them briefly and then im going to pose two or three questions. I havent quite decided it. Two or three questions in which they will all have an opportunity to initially respond and then open it up quickly to questions from you. Kent is Senior Vice President for International Programs at world vision. Thats his temporary job and his next jobs is going to be executive director of the Freedom Institute as we learned earlier today. Before being at world vision, he served as Vice President for Character Development for the John Templeton foundation. I found that interesting. Hes an expert on issues of democracy, religious freedom and has extensive experience with both u. S. Government departments and agencies and also faithbased organizations and other ngos, sherry who is also with us, is president and cofounder of seed, a Charitable Organization that promotes development and social and humanitarian causes. She is an executive she was an executive with the challenge corporation and also served as a senior official in the u. S. State department for a number of years where she held a variety of positions. She has worked on and off related to iraq for the u. S. Government doing both development and humanitarian programming since 1998 including in baghdad in 2003, not an easy assignment until she moved into kurdish in 2012. Christine is director of the institute for regional and International Studies at the American University of iraq. Her research has focused on the disputed territories of iraq and the Kurdish Regional area of iraq and in particular she has published extensively. Done field work on politics and social organizations and many of her students, she apparently involves all of them in her research as well. They include christians, kurdish and arab and theyre assets in her wonderful research. So now for the first round of the lighting round of questions here. [laughter] what role can the International Community and local actors perhaps with International Support play in aiding religious and ethnic minorities specially refugees and internally displaced persons who have fled iraq . Well, i think the most obvious answer for ngos whether they are faithbased organizations or secular ngos is to respond who all who are in danger and even for an organization like world vision where ive been in the last few years, christian organization, 65 years old are humanitarian has never been to just assist christians. In fact, many parts of world there are its not mainly christians we serve. I think 27 of all the aid we give around the world is, in fact, in muslim situations. My assumption is that the vast majority of humanitarian organizations, their commitment, heartfelt commitment is to help all the victims on both sides of conflicts, wherever the victims are. I want to suggest that number two that if youre asking what we should do and what we can do is really to go beyond just providing assistance. We need to be thinking much more than we often do about the root causes of these conflicts. So although isil or isis is mentioned here, you dont have to study this part of the middle east to know that, in fact, a lot of the damage was being done ten years before and before that as well and, in fact, many of the christians who were in great trouble in iraq escaped to what they thought was going to be a much safer place, syria not realizing that in 2011, of course, that deadly war would be unleashed there. So there was extremism before isil, theyll be extremism after isil if we dont deal with the root causes both with majority and minority communities, we are not going to solve the problem. Number three, i would say we have to be ngos, et cetera, International Actors need to be strong advocates in the halls of power to insist that we not tolerate violations of the geneva conventions relative to civilians for humanitarian access. And role the international and local access. I will take his extra minute. They are in Iraqi Kurdistan and, and severed horrendous violence, and what we see among these, widespread trauma. Young children, and they suffered decades of persecution in genocidal campaigns. We have decades of violence and that has never been treated and we have essentially a Mental Health crisis. Very low capacity for many reasons to respond to the trauma. People in trauma need safety and stability, and many find safe refuge in curtis stand, i dont know if people will feel safe when isis is present and so close to us and their bloodlines are enslaved and so many of us, we have a story. We know what they are experiencing. Emergency needs, food, shelter and access to medical care. Only after these are met, we talk about healing, rebuilding. I wont talk about reconciliation yet, think about rebuilding their lives and dignity and reintegrating with their families especially the women who have returned, what my organization is doing is delivering comprehensive psychosocial services. To help people cope, start to heal, to deal with the trauma, particularly survivors of Sexual Violence. Livelihood training we already talked about, how can i assure you no one is coming into our sector for therapy, they want job training, they want to do something, get out of the isolation. They are looking for emotional support they might not be getting at home. And education and training. They are marginalized communities, they have a history of persecution, lack of access, our job is to build healthier communities. A couple closing points, justice can play a role and reconciliation is important. I have not heard any of their beneficiaries talking about justice and accountability. They are simply trying to survive and break up the pain they feel. It is important, we need laws to protect people but iraq does not enforce rules of law so our focus is on client care. Survivors of Sexual Violence need so much more especially the women who have escaped isis, they need to be embraced with all our services, many are heads of high school, they need livelihood training, they dont need to be on the news telling their stories, havent we heard enough stories of rape . Do we need to hear more about that, they need to be protected and i am concerned about the exploitation some organizations in a caring role are playing to tell an important story, but the story has been told. They need protection and longterm support by people that are skilled, trained, lastly men and boys, all the resources in this complex are directed to women and girls who have suffered so much, men and boys have suffered too, victims of torture, Sexual Exploitation of men. I have seen boys, some of our client as young as 6yearold boys held in captivity, they have been sexually abused, beaten, tortured and how do we work to end this cycle of violence in marginalized communities, we have to engage men and boys, Mental Health services and livelihood training, Recreational Activities that allow people to heal, we have to embrace the women and engage men and boys. We sure do. What role, International Community and local actors as well . Thank you for having me today. One thing that is very close to home is the university because at the American University we have graduated 20 students, one of them is here today, he was valedictorian, and we have several other students, seeing what these students are doing is important because they are gainfully employed in graduate school in the private sector. I dont mean to plug but for education, you talked about this, this is an important way to empower young women and minorities and i see that happening at the university. In terms of what the International Community can do, we can talk specifically about sin jar which is our example of the one Minority Community that has been liberated. It is not going very well and there are a variety of reasons it is not going well and there are things the International Community, to improve how sin jar is going i will save that, the us and International Community playing a secondary role, a role of leverage. This is clearly an iraqi project, the us wants this to be an iraqi project, something to do because local actors, local and state actors will not be able to resolve their issues on their own and that is what you see happening. You will see that happening in the minority communities as they are liberated so i would say we need to look at the structures in terms of security before this that allowed this attack and communities to be vulnerable because their are specific structures that can be addressed. Considering the new dynamic post isis, with a major security and political vacuum for the Iraqi Security forces who have to withdraw Kurdish Forces and this changes things, you cant go back to where they were before so we have to think about the new dynamics, what dynamics were like before and how we, the us and International Community can support accommodation, dealmaking and compromise rather than exclusive rules as existed in many areas in iraq and curtis stand before. I would say with that, what are we looking at . Accommodation with local forces among local forces and reviewing baghdad. When these mourn already communities are disputed territories that create a lot of problems before isis and will continue to plague these communities as they are pushed and pooled, and other places. We need to have local and Regional National resolutions and administrative places. A lot of minority communities have shifted in terms of identity and political identity, ethnic and social identity, they want more economy as we heard earlier today. How are we going to accommodate demands for autonomy with the nationbased system, administratively, politically and in terms of reconstruction, the biggest concern of people on the ground, that you hear consistently for the past year and a half is who will manage reconstruction . Is it going to be transparent . Last but most support and is security, the politics and administration, who will secure those areas . Under what circumstances will minorities and refugees go back . That is the ultimate goal if they want to go back and in sin jar you see huge issues with competing security forces, lack of dealmaking and accommodation, lack of administrative clarity and in the International Community can use our leverage to promote accommodation rather than maximal policies. Policies are key, dialogue will be key, the right kind of aid is going to be key and addressing root causes so we dont return to the original situation will be key too. From your perspective how would you evaluate the response to date . How would you grade the International Community and local actors and multiplicity, how would you evaluate their response to this . Let me summarize in a few words what i think. Many of the actors themselves and recipients would say the same thing. The response has been heroic, willfully inadequate, heroic but woefully inadequate. You have seen the statistics that would indicate there has never been a time you had so many refugees, 60 million plus. It is not just the middle east. The world would have to produce a lot of resources to address those problems and we are short of recesses if another crisis occurs. Think what will happen here in mosul. We saw it in falluja, there was nothing to help them, and you could have 10 to 15 times the number of people who escaped mosul and we are not prepared for that. You can build 5 new camps and that is a great start but i am scared to death about what it means. We have to be honest, the resources to deal with these problems have been more limited than we want. Im pleased with the pledging conferences but it is more than resources. Sometimes recipients complain the International Actors, the ngos are politically motivated to give assistance but if you look at what is happening we have tried, we dont work in isil areas very easily or not at all. In other areas there was often a condition they would let you do assistance there only a few would not do assistance in rebel held areas so the most desperate needs out there, the humanitarian organizations were in no position to meet or maybe you saw the Washington Post yesterday morning which reported that the Us Government has frozen, suspended 239 million worth of contracts because reputable ngos partnered with folks who took advantage of this situation and there was corruption including inside cooperation but you hate to see that when the needs are so great. We have to work on accountability but you have to be aware this is not easy. We cant send our own people into parts of syria where we do the assistance, we work through others and hope and pray and work that others are reliable folks to work on or take the situation in lebanon where they are not allowed to go to camps because they have refugee camps from the start of the state of israel with 3 generations of People Living in the camps near beirut. You dont want that to happen again. People flee there and thankfully have been generous enough to let them in but it is hard to deal with the problem is when you cant bring all your resources to bear. Take jordan for example which has done a tremendous thing but they are very poor country. Most of the refugees are not in camps but in those Host Communities. At the international players, careful that they assist the communities, not just those who move in and create ethnic tensions. These are the things we have to be aware of and i wont read the whole statement but we come in for some criticism by our ngo friends in syria. In preparation for istanbul humanitarian crisis, 75 different ngos made a statement, i read the first part, if you get a flavor for the feeling of not being helped enough, the failure to address root causes of the syrian problem in absence of an orchestrated plan of action led to an overall increased level of violence that saw escalation under weapons of mass destruction, chemical and discriminant use of force, response for the worst humanitarian crisis of our time has been completely inadequate. I understand the frustration but yet for reasons i identified earlier it is not an easy place to work. We have to go beyond the bandaids and tends, we have to spend more time thinking about root causes that produce problems before isil, produce radicalism in isil and will remain after isil is defeated. That is a sober thought. Your evaluation i could interpret it, heroic but inadequate. What is your evaluation . Let me say at a different way. So many people working so hard whether it is in the government or ngos but the challenges are so great it feels like a drop in the bucket compared to the need that exists. Let me talk about the context. I can only speak to curtis and was we have 1. 8 million misplaced, 27 camps under construction, only 40 of the displaced are in camp, 60 in the general population. I work in a small town with a population of 25,000 people, we have 70,000 displaced. Imagine curtis dan in a financial crisis precipitated largely by the cutting off of our budget, we dont have any iraqi resources from the central budget in a major part of iraq and four provinces in iraq, we have no Central Government resources so the impact of this displaced population largely assimilating into the towns and cities, and water and health services, when you have a big pledging Donor Conference like i had last week where resources are pledged to the Central Government in baghdad and we dont see them in curtis dan, how are we to educate the kids . The biggest gap that i see, there is Food Insecurity this morning, only 55 of kids are in school, what does this say about the future . Focus on longterm impact engaged in a humanitarian crisis, this is the Development Challenge of curtis dan. 1. 8 million people, i dont know how many kids, that is a huge gap, coordination mechanisms, the humanitarian crisis, the clientele we are targeting, genderbased violence, we work with all those in trauma and turn everybody away. As well as women and children, these coordinating mechanisms dont get down to the individual need, we are covering this camp, your camera in that camp, quality of services, the quality of services varies dramatically. Even in international ngos, and the local from the state department and others, everyone is around psychosocial, i dont know if everybody understands what it means. Mental Health Taking care of psychological needs but social needs. Imagine that you are raped in a community where this kind of violence is taboo. Imagine you are a woman running household in a maledominated society where you havent been working outside the home and have to provide all your children. When you are in an emotional state, you have been through trauma and torture, we need to think about Mental Health intervention, social dynamics, this is a community where women are used to putting their needs behind those of their family and their community. And to voice their needs, emotional support may not be available to other people in the home. We need to think about longterm changes in society and one of the areas, pluralism and tolerance. We have an emergency situation and have to think about how we address these, and tolerance in iraq. And challenges in their democracy, even if they are christian or jewish, there were other parts of iraq, you were not safe unless your group was in charge. They fear that, it is true and that is what we have to change which is tolerance. We can talk about how you do that. Before we do that, your evaluation. The phrase that stuck out to me was drop in the bucket and the need for coordination. I am not sure about that. I think thinking about an evaluation, international and us policy particularly, i would look at i dont speak exclusively about communities that spend this much time in these areas, i will use sins are and some of what i say applies to other minority communities, you see these consistently once, increased autonomy in the governing structure and in the security structure, the province region or whatever it is and work out administratively. From the us and International Communities we are not going to promote separatism for the end of the nationstate system, the reality of these demand with the reality of us policy and in the International Community. I dont think we are there yet. I dont think the us and International Community need to do more without getting in the weeds because we dont want to do that. We are going to have to do more because for now, our policy is focused on the humanitarian situation. Our partners in the war against isis working with the curtis dan Democratic Party exclusively is a big problem. There are a lot of minority communities that do not want exclusive return of these areas and willing to compromise and accommodate, we need in our policies to look at how we are going to balance and accommodate local independent forces which is supported by them. How are we going to take them away and reintegrate them into iraq or the curtis dan Regional Government depending on what they want . There is another big issue here not just about local forces compromising with baghdad, it is also about letting minority communities, do they want to live under the kurdistan Regional Government, there is not consensus and these need to be negotiated and compromised. People need to be consulted, advocating for an election in curtis stan and we qualify that, people want to have a say in this. Not unrealistic to say we will have the state of things are even though senegal is written in many places there. It wont happen there. People are willing to make deals and we need to promote this accommodation and these compromises while making this an Iraqi Kurdish project . That is quite the project. The root causes of the conflict, the rise of the socalled islamic state, political and social exclusion has played a role here and that is the solution, political and social inclusion that allows people to have a voice, it affects them and their communities, the sense of safety and ownership and is being negotiated in a way, what more can the International Community do, what new strategies should they employ, what should local actors be doing differently to create a more Inclusive Society where there is more Self Determination and greater sense of safety and not the exclusion and isolation, a breeding ground for violence, terrorism and Different Things . We have to simultaneously address two things that are difficult to address at the same moment. We have crises from folks in desperate need and dont have enough the right academic comes down, you need to do white papers and think about my heavens, we talk about a process that takes decades or generations. We know it is true but dont know how. One thing on the second issue. Where do you start . If you look at religious traditions we can usually find something more positive that may be manifesting itself. We have to encourage each other to find in our theological tradition that which knows how to deal with the other with respect. We have a way to respect, to live with them. There is a way to unleash those religious forces that push in that direction. And that brings up, terribly concerning to me. If youre going to have a conversation you need parties to participate. In the last few months, absolutely and totally disappearing there. If you look at all the idps, the christians, and christians 41 2 . Not a large group among that part, mainly muslims and other small minorities but they are not that big a group as a percentage, christians even less but you know what would happen, not just the fate of the christians, and the lost middle east, the last of the opportunity to have a multicultural, multireligious society and if you look at the history of the middle east and the contribution christians made to the islamic civilization, to take that out and produce democracy there is tough to do. We have a vested interest in christians surviving there. Do we have enough time to have root causes that would allow them to live in societys and other minorities do we have enough time before they are killed or must leave and many people in despair. That raises the issue, completely missing my notes. That whole debate about safe havens is a little off track. The jesuits, john courtney, it passes for disagreement, that is what i hear when they are debating the safe haven. The ones against the safe haven will collect this together and eliminate us all at once in iraq and syria. The question is what do you do in the meantime to give people enough time to survive as you produce societies in which minorities can live safely. We got to wrap our arms around this issue. Safe haven zones of protection, International Actors making sure there are some places in curtis stan, if we dont want to see christianity disappear and the precious minorities we have to we have a lot long time to think about protection in the short run as they deal with root cause issues. What more can we do to preserve the region . I hope i am not saying something grossly unpopular but this idea persists that all iraqis can live together and i think we need to realize the american melting pot concept, this model hasnt worked in iraq. We turned away a brutal dictator, lots of abuse targeted at other groups that kept a lid on violence and we see over a decade of sectarian violence, following what christine said we want to listen to what people want, the communities we work with, muslims and communities we are working in, none of them are focused on reconciliation. None of them focus on differences yet, they are as i mentioned focused on their survival and how to feed their kids and by firsthand accounts the women we work with have not talked about the foreign fighters, they play a big role but they are talking about our neighbors came and did this, came to the Christian Family and said you live next to us for 100 years and for that reason im going to give you and your family 10 minutes to go and kill you but if i come back in 10 minutes and you are here, the women who have been held captive by the guy in their communities, they all know each other. This is a rwanda type genocide where neighbors kill neighbors. Why would we expect people are eager to move back, maybe the believe this is their place but this is a multiethnic place, that people are eager to move back into their communities, still no protection for minorities. Curtis stan does provide a safe haven, people are much freer, the situation is much more tolerant, there is prejudice, we need to work on it and we need to get rid of Islamic Religious teaching in the schools and replace it with tolerance and world religion. I get annoyed because i am an employer and we have 1 million holidays, we have all the different holidays, that is a show that people care about respecting other perspectives and religion. We need to reduce prejudice but there is a lot of support even among the average person for what they have suffered through, openness to christians coming to curtis stan for well over a decade, to seek a better life. As was talked about this morning this didnt happen in a vacuum. The populations were subjected to persecution and marginalization and abuse and neglect for a long time. All the challenges in this community now we have an opportunity to engage when they are living in the disputed territory. Early marriage, forced marriage, lack of access to education and healthcare, we have a great opportunity to address these neglected populations but we have to respond to the fear, we have to respond to the reality. What we have seen in the camps that are segregated as they are much more peaceful. It may partly be to organize that way or people are choosing to be that way, to live among their own people where they feel safer, when they come to our center, they have to work together. Our center is multiethnic, our staff is from all the different we dont we have all different faiths working together harmoniously. In the beginning there were calls for different hours. We didnt do that and now people are working together. After a few months we stopped hearing that and people came to respect one another. This is a microcosm of the situation, one camp of 13,000 people, and an area of coexistence instead of necessarily thinking about how to reintegrate people with their torturers. We need to think about stability and stabilizing and protection and think about longterm solutions and how to have mutual respect. Final reflection and open up to the audience. When interesting point before, we have been talking about root causes, two points dimension, one is thinking about why people joined, not talking about foreign fighters but kurdish, arab, i did a lot of fieldwork around this question. One thing you get people talking about is power shifts from 2003 to 2014. That is crucial to look at in terms of moving forward and these are problems with baghdad and mosul about disputed territory issues, the competition, kurds taking more land, arabs losing power, the dynamics and marginalization, the fact this is competition, disputed territory, that needs to be solved. You talk about arab villages and kurdish muslim villages, that is an important thing to look into more, how can we prevent that with inclusive rules, will it be a region under baghdad . Will it be a province . The relationship continues to be strong, that is something we should build on and i would just say the final point, i wont going to this too much but since our has been liberated to the north for over a year now and there is a little bit of an embargo, you might have heard about sanctions and i talked to the governor about this, we will put sanctions so the supplies, that is understandable but it is affecting the entire reconstruction and my point with this is the humanitarian reconstruction, getting people back, one security force, reconstruction, politics are preventing that and the inability of local and central actors to come to political deals, and reconstruction, stabilization and very shortterm because it is local and herbal baghdad, i wont get into this but turkey, iran, syria, across the border play huge roles in this. We hear about political deadlock in washington. Politics, there are tragic results. Would like to open it for questions. The ambassador from france, we heard about french initiatives, would like to hear about that investment. In charge of what was organized by france last year, on the same topic. Might be of some interest, that i learned from the conference. What should be done in order to minorities, to go back to towns and villages as rated to be granted for civilization. International diplomatic contrast. And civil society. And a limitation is difficult to say certain things. Positively impressed by the documents we were able to produce, largely constituted, and others from the region itself, to solve testimonies we had today to raise awareness. To give hope, not sure of his name. Mentioned the importance to give a signal to the International Community. It is inadequate in some ways. And accept the fact that beyond necessity to protect all victims there is a specific need and emergency regarding minorities that for the reasons mentioned until everything is perfect everything is gotten forever and this was reflected in france and jordan cochairman with rather strong things, for the International Community to divest these communities. It is new to what we heard today, most of the surveys were tackled in the terrorist action plan drafted after long consultations. The good news is it worked well, most of it still had to be done, where some progress happened in weakness and political, judicial aspects. Some progress was made on judicial aspects for the state secretary and the un commissioner. Humanitarian work proceeded in difficult conditions and positive things happened. On the political side which i heard from everybody has been key, where most still had to be. It is clear such initiatives were prefaced and in that respect very thankful to have organized the meeting we have to go today. And thankful to the spanish government, not to lose momentum. We will open it up again. It reminds me of the words of albert, who faces this dilemma and a drop in the ocean and you are tempted to despair, perhaps we can do nothing about living in a world where children suffer but we can limit the number who do. You never know what comes from doing what you can, the momentum you can start to produce, that is what we who are involved in these activities in this room have to constantly remind each other of. It is important to take small steps in the right direction, you never know what that will lead to. Thank you very much. I appreciate that three part plan. That is the part, the panel and you would agree this means the most work at this point. I ask people to respect that we have a lot of people with a lot of questions so keep the questions as brief as you can and get to the questions as quickly as you can. In the middle your hand has been up the whole time. Can we send the mic over there . To new people. Thank you for your valuable perspectives. Earlier we heard about grandiose plans creating a safe haven or province when the focus needs to be on the short and medium term solution, sorry. And the next steps following off of the liberation plans. How do we work with Iraqi Civil Society representatives as well as diaspora for the critical needs that are going to be taking place. This is going to be the humanitarian disaster where we work to address these issues. Your question is about mosul in the wake of its liberation. What do we need to have in place . Anyone . From my perspective mosul has already started because the camp got 140 new families, expecting the same today from a shot up village. It has been a steady flow and that is already happening. We need the resources, shelter, food, electricity, all the same things with us in curtis stan. We know how it goes but we need more pledges and a plan to use those resources. The reality is you build camps because that is all you can do to house people. That is the beginning so we need to organize and get started. And get started already. That is the immediate humanitarian response was i will push that further beyond the immediate humanitarian response which is not just the rebuilding of infrastructure but the rebuilding of social fabric and rule of law and judiciary and policing. Are we equipped to do that . There are Remarkable Ideas out there. Dont know if you have seen alexander betts, social Economic Zones and his thesis is we ought to be working harder now with the refugees and the Host Communities to set up social Economic Zones. Amazing how many problems this will solve, make them less vulnerable, we ought to be doing more on economic reconstruction. A way to kill to birds at the same time and give people meaningful things to do now and have hope as a result. The second row here and come to the first row. Thank you. I will speak in arabic. Keep it especially brief. And lets introduce ourselves and identify yourself before you speak. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] that is going to be tough for me to remember all that. Give us the distilled version, we need to get the questions. I did my best. T. A. R. P. [speaking in native tongue] he is introducing herself as an exparliamentarian and chairman of the political identity that exists right now. I think what she is trying to articulate, shouldnt the liberating countries holds the responsibility for all the minorities displaced now and influenced by the big blocks of Political Parties which is not even recognized in the decisionmaking policy as a minority and should they be held responsible . Who should be held responsible . Anyone want to talk about that . Dont everybody jump in at once. Absolutely. We all take actions as governments or individuals and they dont always go where the want to go and to the best extent we can, mop up after ourselves if we have failed but there is a dilemma here and i tell you what it is. People look at the United States or other european countries, look at the bad things that are happening, do something about it. A big country might do something and realize they created a situation at least as bad as what they have. It creates a reluctance to get involved for fear they might make it worse. We have that going on in the United States. Awareness in europe and the United States, a complicated problem and goodwill isnt enough to improve it so that is another reason we need to think about root causes. You dont just attack and evil and end up with something better. I was impressed by specificity in his comments. If we do that more often we will be in better shape, and in the front row here we have a question, identify yourself and your affiliation. [speaking in native tongue] is somebody going to translate. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] is someone going to translate . All right. Directed to the moderator, in a visit with christians and the second, and several months ago. Do you want me to answer that question . [speaking in native tongue] a response from the International Community from a chemical attack. [speaking in native tongue] organization working on this. The large [speaking in native tongue] i lost that at the end. I just lost it. The basic point is us policy in recognition of the suffering, reaching out to communities serving them through various agencies. I can speak for Catholic Relief Services which is a development agency, every religious group and ethnic group in whatever areas they are serving. When i was i was only in the hook area, a very short visit but i will look for that next time i am in the region. Further questions directed at me. We are providing services where the concentration of the survivors of sexual and genderbased violence are. There are survivors everywhere all over curtis stan and that is why in the fall we hope to expand our services through mobile teams to survivors of sexual and genderbased violence all over, so we would like to take referrals if you have specific cases, women in need that we can support but we are not able to work in iraq so we are only working in the kurdish we are going to move over here, yes please. Identify yourself and your affiliation and ask your question. If i could ask everyone to be a little briefer with the questions we wont get to all the hands. I have a couple of affiliations but i am here as a human being. I am in a syrian, american and arab. But i am here is a person. My question extends to the two ladies because they touched on this topic. You both mentioned how in the breakdown of where people are going to be and where their affiliations are you dont believe an autonomous country is going to exist. However, you do continue to mention curtis stan as a place where different people are coming for a safe haven. The kind of impression you are seeing, iraq as a country will not exist and encompass everyone. We have multiple minorities. The kurds were a minority of one point, so my question where exactly do you both stand . Its confusing what you said. Clarify for her. For my part i dont have a view on another state or province or governor for minorities. The iraq utahs addition allows for the kurdistan region and it allows other parts of iraq to create regions. Im all for it. What form that takes, i believe in selfgovernance but i believe in selfdetermination. I think that if thats what minorities in iraq need, to feel comfortable and to feel safe and protected, that might be a solution. What i said is that i think political solution or little bit down the road because we need to care for humans. For people that are in Emergency Needs off back. Well, i [inaudible] i think we have the question, but thank you. So yes, i think large of the people attempted kurdistan are safe. They are sheltered and the african move around and get jobs. To the extent Public Services are available, they are free to access them. People have gone to a place where they can be protected. The u. S. Military is providing safety and security for kurdistan and it is a protected area. Suggest i think it is a safe part of iraq. If i can follow up on her comments. Actually i didnt say that about iraq so some of her that thats not what i said. I k