VOA-CONNECT
[AIR DATE: 02 16 2018]
[FINAL TRANSCRIPT]
OPEN ((VO/NAT))
((Banner))
Preserving Syria
((SOT))
“We wanted to start showing America the other face of Syria, the beautiful face of Syria.”
((Animation Transition)
((Banner))
New Wave Service
((SOT))
“My first engineering job out of college was working on smart bombs and missiles, and I actually, I felt bad about essentially making technology that was designed to harm and kill people.”
((Animation Transition))
((Banner))
The Lyricist
((SOT))
“I don’t allow certain words to be a part of my vocabulary any more. Those are simply the words ‘I can’t’.”
((Open Animation))
BLOCK A
((FACTOID/ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
((Banner: Leaving Syria))
((Reporter/ Camera: John Owens))
Since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011,
Some 5 million Syrians have fled the country,
nearly a quarter of the population
((Animated Map: Syria to Bakaa Valley, Lebanon))
((FACTOID/ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
Syrian refugees suffer through winter storms
Some have been in the camps for years
Others have just arrived.
((PKG)) SYRIAN REFUGEES WINTER
((HUSSEIN HASSAN, SYRIAN REFUGEE))
“To be honest, the weather has been bad and it’s rained a lot and we’ve been badly affected. We haven’t even got heating. I mean, we haven’t got the ability to bring warmth. Honestly, it’s very difficult with this rain and the tent floods on us. You can see for yourself.
((VOICE OF SCOTT CRAIG, UNHCR SPOKESMAN))
“The living conditions are getting worse. More Syrian refugees are living in poverty, and this is, of course, exacerbated at winter, when refugees have additional costs and additional challenges. It's harder for them to stay warm.”
((SCOTT CRAIG, UNHCR SPOKESMAN))
“It's harder for them stay dry. It can be harder for them to find work because, of course, much of the work for refugees is seasonal.”
((HASSAN FAHD AL RAJA, SYRIAN REFUGEE))
“The panels on the roof broke the wood from above, and the water leaked in on us into the tent. We left the tent and went to our uncle’s, and returned so we can remove the water from the tent, so we can live in it again.”
((SABHA HASSAN ABLA, SYRIAN REFUGEE))
“This winter’s been cold with the rain, and I haven’t got any money to buy any firewood, or money to buy fuel. This winter we haven’t received anything. Who helped me? The girls helped me. My girls helped me clear up. I don’t have anybody. All I have is God.”
((SCOTT CRAIG, UNHCR SPOKESMAN (in English))
“Last year UNHCR in Lebanon received 60 cents on the dollar of what it actually needed to provide help on the ground. So 60 cents on the dollar is not enough to enable us to meet the very substantial and, as I said, growing needs on the ground.”
((FACTOID/ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTION, PHOTO))
16 Syrians died in snowstorms trying to cross the mountains into Lebanon.
((MISHAAN AL ABED, SYRIAN REFUGEE))
“Their guide left them. There wasn’t anybody to help them. There are some people they didn’t find until later. My wife and daughter they didn’t find until the following day.”
((FACTOID/ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
Mishaan was waiting in Lebanon for his family to cross. He learned of the storm’s impact through Facebook. 6 members of his family died. His 3 year old daughter survived.
((MISHAAN AL ABED, SYRIAN REFUGEE))
“Thank God that at least somebody survived. Her situation is very difficult. She lost her mother and our situation isn’t easy. She’s suffered a lot, my daughter.”
((PKG)) SYRIANA CAFÉ
((Banner: Preserving Syria))
((Reporter/Camera: June Soh))
((Animated Map: Syria to Ellicott City, Maryland, United States))
((KHALDOUN ALGHATRIF, CO-OWNER, SYRIANA CAFÉ & GALLERY))
“The war in Syria affected us, really, in the heart. So, we felt that we are losing the country, we are losing people, we are losing history, we are losing the heritage. We felt there is a responsibility that we should have, is by at least protecting a part of it, the human part and the culture part.”
((FACTOID/ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
Khaldoun Alghatrif immigrated to the US from Syria in 2015, his brother Majd a few years earlier.
((KHALDOUN ALGHATRIF, CO-OWNER, SYRIANA CAFÉ & GALLERY))
“We wanted to start showing America the other face of Syria, the beautiful face of Syria, something they don't see in the news.”
((MAJD ALGHATRIF, CO-OWNER, SYRIANA CAFÉ & GALLERY))
“Artisans who work in the tourism industry mainly and with lack of tourism, there is no prospects for making the living and that was one of the main drives for people fleeing the country besides being attacked by the war itself.”
((FACTOID/ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
This 18th century building is home to Syriana Café & Gallery.
((MAJD ALGHATRIF, CO-OWNER, SYRIANA CAFÉ & GALLERY))
“This narrow street of buildings mainly built from stone around you resembles very much our hometown in Syria. It's called As-Suwayda. And the great sense of community in this area, very inclusive people, made us feel that this could be our home.”
((MARTIN VITERI, CUSTOMER))
“When I think of Syria today I think of it as like a war-torn country. But when I come to a place like this, and I get to see all the beautiful culture, like the cultural aspect of it, it’s really cool.”
((RASHA OBAID, CAFÉ MANAGER))
“All of our recipes are homemade and Syrian recipes. Very authentic way. And our workers in the kitchen are Syrian refugee women, and I try to train them to work in the business environment here.”
((GAYLE KILLEN, CUSTOMER))
“I love the rich ingredients. I love having authentic cuisine. And the artwork, the craftsmanship is beautiful.”
((MAJD ALGHATRIF, CO-OWNER, SYRIANA CAFÉ & GALLERY))
“Our goal is to expand our social mission to have wider social impact by sponsoring more workshops back home, employing more people, employing more refugees here.”
((MAJD ALGHATRIF, CO-OWNER, SYRIANA CAFÉ & GALLERY))
“Gallery captures the main heritage industries of Syria ranging from exotic mosaic work to mother-of-pearl inlays, damask textiles and brocade silk. They are all deeply rooted in our culture and they present generations of master craftsmen.”
((MAJD ALGHATRIF, CO-OWNER, SYRIANA CAFÉ & GALLERY))
“Syria is not just a war-torn country. It’s a beautiful culture with a lot of things to offer.
TEASE ((VO/NAT))
Coming up….
((Banner))
Disposable Drones
((SOT))
“DASH Systems does air to ground shipping. So essentially we make packages you can launch from an airplane and have it land within a few feet on the ground.”
BREAK ONE
BUMP IN ((ANIM))
BLOCK B
((PKG)) DISPOSABLE DRONES
((Banner: Drones to the Rescue))
((Reporter/Camera: Elizabeth Lee))
((JOEL IFILL, CO-FOUNDER / CEO, DASH SYSTEMS))
“My first engineering job out of college was working on smart bombs and missiles, and I actually, I felt bad about essentially making technology that was designed to harm and kill people. So I always wondered what else could I do with the technology of a smart bomb.”
((COURTESY CHYRON: “DASH Systems”))
“Something that can launch from an airplane and land within inches, and I thought why can’t I use that same technology to deliver packages and goods.”
“So many times, we found that during times of crisis or humanitarian need, it’s very, very difficult to get supplies into remote regions.”
((COURTESY CHYRON: “DASH Systems”))
“Food, water filtration, medicine, batteries for radios, the basic things you need after disaster like a hurricane. You can always fly an airplane overhead, so we help bridge that gap.”
“DASH Systems does air to ground shipping. So essentially we make packages you can launch from an airplane and have it land within a few feet on the ground.”
“We offer delivery services just like FedEx or DHL. Our big difference is, we take on and win contracts that they just refuse to service because they think they’re not profitable or they’re not successful. So, for instance, a delivery in South Sudan or Puerto Rico, often times every traditional carrier will say no. Organizations are willing to pay the fair market value for those trips. They just do not have a solution. It’s an unmanned UAV. It’s basically a UAV glider.”
((JOE CARAVELLA, CO-FOUNDER, DASH SYSTEMS))
“So, there are a variety of parachute type systems where you can drop things out of airplanes. We’re hoping to improve that whole operation both with deploying it at the right time and then guiding the package to where it needs to be, to be more accurate than anything currently on the market.”
((JOEL IFILL, CO-FOUNDER / CEO, DASH SYSTEMS))
“We can land in something as small as a parking space which lets us land in, say, the courtyard of a hospital. There is a guidance system in the tail and the guidance system uses GPS. Much like any glider or airplane, it will soar to its destination using GPS.
Essentially the body is all low-cost, recycled material like styrofoam, plywood, plastic, and what that lets us do is to have a cost-effective vehicle you can launch out of an airplane, and essentially not have to worry about recovery or trying to get it back to its home base.”
((PKG)) ROBOT ROOM SERVICE
((Banner: Robot Room Service))
((Reporter/ Camera: Elizabeth Lee))
((NATS))
“Kids love to come up and hug it.”
“They open the door and it’s always a ‘wow’.”
((STEVE COUSINS, FOUNDER & CEO, SAVIOKE))
“What’s new and really exciting is our new relay robots, Priscilla and Elvis. When we get busy, we’ll ramp up and have eight, nine, ten deliveries at once. And actually our attendants who make those deliveries will turn around and tell the front desk, ‘why don’t you have Elvis make a couple of these for us.’”
“Most commonly, it’s toothbrush, toothpaste, towels, newspapers but they’ll also deliver food and beverage. In the evenings, especially, between midnight and 6 am when your staff is minimal.”
((KARL KRUGER, GENERAL MANAGER, RENAISSANCE LAS VEGAS HOTEL))
“So you hire the robot out for a monthly basis. In a typical hotel it might be $2000 a month, something like that.”
“It’ll make beeps and whistles to kind of indicate what it’s doing. And then on its screen it tells you what it’s doing and that’s how you interact with it. We drive it around and tell it that you’re mapping now and it builds its own map. Then it navigates the building the way that a blind person might navigate. It has a mental map. It’s going through and it’s kind of feeling with the white cane to see where the things it expects are. In its case it doesn’t use white cane. It uses a laser that goes back and forth. We designed it with a very sophisticated 3D camera sensor to see the floor in front and make sure that there’s nothing in the way. Typically, hotels like that feature that they can see what the robot sees. But we’ve also, the cameras are here and down, so they’re not like, you know, monitoring people. They’re not going to take pictures of a celebrity with whoever he’s in the hotel with, right? They’re focused on seeing what’s in front of the robot and what might be blocking it.
It’ll go over bumps. It’ll go over elevator thresholds and carpets and that sort of thing, but if anything is bigger than about an inch (2.5mm), it’s going to go around instead of going over.”
((BANNER: It can even control the building’s elevators))
“We’ve been in FedEx for over a year bringing spare parts to people who are fixing things. FedEx has a business that does that. We’re also in a hospital and we’re going into a number of hospitals this year where we’re bringing either pharmaceuticals or lab equipment or lab samples, specimens from one place to another.”
“We’ve got these in Europe, the Middle East, Singapore, Japan. What happens is the robot makes you more efficient at your job. There’s not one person who delivers here and who’s going to be replaced by a robot. The guys who are doing deliveries in the evenings aren’t here at 3 am. The robot is here 24/7, so the robot augments that staff in a way that’s very powerful.
((NATS))
TEASE ((VO/NAT))
Coming up….
((Banner))
Ice Sculpting
((SOT))
“I have been creative my whole life. It is a little crazy but we live here. What are we going to do? Hole up for six months and not go out and have fun?”
BREAK TWO
BUMP IN ((ANIM))
BLOCK C:
((Banner: Winter))
((Animated Map: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States))
((PKG)) MINNEAPOLIS WALKWAYS
((Banner: Skywalking))
((Reporter: Brian Allen))
((Camera: Brian Allen and Arash Arabasadi))
((BRAD ROHLES, BUSINESS OWNER))
"We are in Minnesota, so it's really cold outside. Sometimes it can hit minus 20 degrees. And for a lot of people, that's probably a little too cold to be walking around in the elements."
((NATS))
((FACTOID BANNER))
The Minneapolis Skyway stretches over 18 kilometers connecting 80 city blocks in climate-controlled comfort.
((BRAD ROHLES, BUSINESS OWNER))
"It's almost like a city within a city. It's the best way to describe it. It has shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, connects you to your businesses. You can get your nails done and your haircut. Go get a beer with friends and grab a coffee with coworkers. So there are a thousand different things that you can do within the Skyway and never actually step foot outside onto the sidewalk."
((NATS))
((FACTOID BANNER))
The Skyway is the longest system of connected skywalks in the world.
((SHARRI MURPHY, Minneapolis Resident))
"It is convenient for everybody to get to places. I actually used the light rail to get downtown today, and then in the skyway. So I've only been outside for about a block and a half. It's an easy way to do it, to enjoy the city, and get to everything."
((BRAD ROHLES, BUSINESS OWNER))
"I think I step outside for about 30 seconds on any given day if I have to, unless I choose to, which would be go by the lakes doing ice fishing."
((PKG)) ST. PAUL ICE SCULPTURE
((Banner: Carving Ice))
((Reporter/Camera: Arash Arabasadi))
((DENEENA HUGHES, ICE SCULPTOR))
"I've been creative my whole life and this is just another creative outlet for me that I do in the winter time. It is a little crazy, but, I mean, we live here. What are we going to do? Hole up for six months and not go out and have fun? How can somebody get into this?”
“Well, first of all, you have got to have the passion to want to do it. And then, the unfortunate thing about ice carving is that it does require tools. For this stuff, you're going to have some really good quality chisels or chain saws or something that can get through the structure of the ice.
You just show up and you give it a go, and your next year, you go oh, you know what I learned? This didn't work, so I'm not going to do that. I saw that this worked, so I am going to do that. And the beautiful thing is both by watching, observing and then having the opportunity to do, to just go for it.
((NATS))
Because it's mostly men, it’s a pretty rare thing to be a female ice carver. There are a few of us out there in the world, and it's something that we can definitely do right alongside the men. We certainly need the guys’ help with muscling around 300 pounds (135 kilos), but we have equal carving abilities that they do. Because what's so beautiful about the sculpture ice is its clarity. I always see the beauty in it too. I love the way it looks when the sun goes through it."
((PKG)) UTAH LEGACY
((Banner: Utah Legacy))
((Reporter/Camera: Rafael Saakov, Andrey Degtyarev))
((KOLE NORDMANN, UTAH OLYMPIC LEGACY FOUNDATION))
“These are the hills we use. We call them our small hills. This is where the youngest of our athletes train. It’s one of our main tenets here, at the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, to provide training opportunities for kids and people of all ages.”
((KRISTIN BERRY, PARK CITY RESIDENT))
“Oh, definitely more people have started skiing here and the locals have a lot more of an opportunity to take advantage of the resources and the coaching is just mind-blowing. My son has a couple of Olympic athletes who are his coaches that he works with regularly, and they are such a huge influence on him.”
((MATTHEW SAPENEN, PARK CITY RESIDENT))
“They do a wonderful job of keeping the facilities active, usable. They are all profitable. They employ a lot of people and they are a great center for our kids to learn the winter sports discipline.”
((JONATHAN GREEN, UTAH OLYMPIC PARK MUSEUM ))
“I get to walk through here every day and check out these exhibits and kind of relive that excitement from the 2002 Games. We have a lot of interactive video screens and clips from the Games, so it’s a great way to keep that spirit alive."
((KOLE NORDMANN, UTAH OLYMPIC LEGACY FOUNDATION))
“With all of those changes over 17 years, we have to really take an inventory of everything we have here, and see exactly what we need to add to make it as modern as possible. But the beautiful thing is that since we’ve kept this up for 17 years, we don’t have to build new facilities.”
((DEREK PARRA, SPORTS DIRECTOR, UTAH OVAL))
“I think the perfect word is legacy. There are many venues now in countries where the Olympics were held, where after the Olympics, buildings like this were rebuilt or are empty. And there isn't the same kind of spirit or excitement."
TEASE ((VO/NAT))
Coming up….
((Banner))
A Family Legacy
((SOT))
“Growing up in the family I grew up in, evolved around music. It evolved around God, and it evolved around family."
BREAK THREE
BUMP IN ((ANIM))
BLOCK D
((PKG)) PEOPLE IN AMERICA: BeBe Winans
((Banner: The Lyricist))
((Executive Producer: Marsha James))
((Camera: Kaveh Rezei))
((FACTOID BANNER))
BeBe Winans is an award-winning gospel and R&B artist and a member of the renowned Winans family.
((BEBE WINANS, SINGER/SONGWRITER/PLAYWRIGHT))
Being a lyricist, I love to quote things. I don't allow certain words to be a part of my vocabulary anymore, and those are simply the words "I can't."
Growing up in the family I grew up in, evolved around music. It evolved around God, and it evolved around family. My father used to always say "One Winans win, all Winans win."
My writing has been inspired by poetry. I was in the fourth grade and the fourth-grade teacher said to the students, "I have a poem I want to read." She quoted The Wind,
"Why does the wind so want to be here in my little room with me, When he has all the world to blow about. But just because I keep him out he cannot wait a moment still, but frets upon my window sill."
And I sat there and said, “That's incredible. That's what I want to do with my songs.” There's nothing better, I think, than singing with your sibling.
The journey that Cece and I have had, there's a blend there I don't think you can find anywhere else. We wrote and sung things that we went through and that we experienced and so with me and Cece, I always believed that if it comes from the heart, it goes to the heart.
((NATS))
"When I found you, I found love."
((BEBE WINANS, SINGER/SONGWRITER/PLAYWRIGHT))
The musical started with a phone call with Roberta Flack. And right in the middle of the conversation, she detoured and said, "Bebe, when are you going to write that musical about you and your family? It's an American musical. It's a story. It's a film after that." And it goes on. Four days later, I'm at a hotel in Montreal, and I open up my laptop, and it was like a faucet came on. And right then and there, I wrote the first draft of what now is: Born for This.
It's been an absolute joy to see my niece Debra Joy and my nephew Juan, who are brother and sister, playing a brother and sister, who happens to be their uncle and aunt. I am just tickled, if I can say that, to see the talent continue within the Winans family.
I think everyone should travel. I think it is so educational, but beyond educational, it just causes you to care about people.
I want everyone that comes to see this musical and this piece, which is reality, to know that love is so much greater than hatred.”
((BeBe Sings))
NEXT WEEK
((SOT))
“You’ve got a beautiful countryside out here and some people would see it as beautiful countryside, but I think what if from the experience of active shooters….
((BANNER: PREPARING FOR THE WORST))
….a lot of these have secondary attacks plan, so what if we get everybody out here in the parking lot because something happens inside, and then there are shooters up on the hill side?? It might sound a little paranoid but you have to think about that stuff. What if ??”
CLOSING ((ANIM))
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SHOW ENDS
