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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephane

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Speaker 1: never told your production of I Heart Radio, all right, Annie,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if they ever talked about this. Did

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Speaker 1: you have a favorite club or organization that you are

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Speaker 1: part of at any point in time? Because I guess

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Speaker 1: because people are still a part of things now, I'm

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Speaker 1: not necessarily but did you have or an organization that

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Speaker 1: you love or a part of a club? So many things? Um, yes,

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Speaker 1: I think the one that comes to mind like Goofley.

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Speaker 1: I was a part of Humans Versus Zombies in college

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Speaker 1: and I loved it was so fun um. I won't

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Speaker 1: go into it, but it was very light time for

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Speaker 1: me because it will become a different podcast, but it

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Speaker 1: was a very very fun time. UM. And I was

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Speaker 1: also part of something called is SEC, which is French

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Speaker 1: and Stance or something that essentially is UM. It was

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Speaker 1: a kind of professional organization where the goal was cultural

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Speaker 1: understanding and exchange. So we would arrange internships UM for

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Speaker 1: people to go. I did a lot of them UM

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Speaker 1: in different countries. But we would also if people from

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Speaker 1: different countries were arriving on an internship, we would kind

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Speaker 1: of be there like here's where you should go in

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Speaker 1: Atlanta or somebody that they could talk to or help.

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Speaker 1: And and through that I did a lot of mentoring. Um,

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Speaker 1: I did a lot of I taught a lot of

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Speaker 1: classes and I got to meet a lot of really

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Speaker 1: really awesome, awesome people and dance a lot because that's

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Speaker 1: there's opening dance ceremonies. Oh my, do we have videos

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Speaker 1: of this? Because I need to I need someone to

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Speaker 1: tell me if there is. I'm gonna have to start

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Speaker 1: like looking at your friend groups from college to ot.

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Speaker 1: There are some videos out there. Um yeah, you know

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Speaker 1: what I thought about it, I'm like, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I've ever been a part of a club or organization

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Speaker 1: really and like as an adult, and I feel like

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Speaker 1: as sad, I was like, maybe I should be Maybe

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Speaker 1: I need to look at things. I had been asked

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Speaker 1: to be on boards of things. Is that the same thing?

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Speaker 1: But I realized later that being on a board meant

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Speaker 1: you pay in Oh yeah, And I was like, I

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Speaker 1: feel like this is a racket where you know when

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Speaker 1: they have the who's Who's look and you had to

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Speaker 1: pay an amount of money to have your name in there,

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Speaker 1: and there's like ten thousand names in there. I felt

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Speaker 1: like it was sort of that. But you know, I

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Speaker 1: digress because I can't remember much outside of the fact

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Speaker 1: that I was in a lot of religious organizations and

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Speaker 1: clubs and college and then in high school, I was

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Speaker 1: in a few for sure. I was in the Rotary

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Speaker 1: club and I was the president and I got a scholarship.

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Speaker 1: That's what I care about, I know, right right, I

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Speaker 1: think there was like three of us. I was still

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Speaker 1: okay with, still okay with. But why are we talking

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Speaker 1: about organizations and initiatives and clubs. Well, today we're switching

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Speaker 1: up a bit for our women around the world. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna stay time stamp this because things change, and new

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Speaker 1: initiatives come through, new organizations come through, and you know,

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Speaker 1: times a beast around here. So it is UH. Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's eleven, twenty three or November twenty three, two twenty one,

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Speaker 1: so really coming in close on the UH Thanksgiving holidays

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Speaker 1: for US in the US. Not when it's released, it

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Speaker 1: will be end of November, which is the last day

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Speaker 1: of Native American Heritage Month for the U S. And

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Speaker 1: we just wanted to go out with a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a bane. Although it's not necessarily in the U S.

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Speaker 1: UH is still considered within North America. So we wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk about a few of the organizations that are

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Speaker 1: happening and initiatives that have happened within the Canadian area

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Speaker 1: maybe part of the border as well. And yeah, just

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Speaker 1: in case you didn't know, we have been talking about

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Speaker 1: some phenomenal women who or individuals who are killing it

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Speaker 1: in the world of pushing boundaries, expectations and making change.

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Speaker 1: And again we wanted to bring attention to several connected

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Speaker 1: initiatives and organizations that have been doing the work and

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Speaker 1: the world of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and

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Speaker 1: two spirits. Um. Yeah, so today we want to look

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Speaker 1: at brind of Sisters in Spirit. It starts with us

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Speaker 1: and the Normal Silence organization in the Canadian area that

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Speaker 1: have been working to advocate for the Indigenous communities towards

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Speaker 1: the Canadian area and borders. So UM Sisters in Spirit

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Speaker 1: was founded in two thousand four, led by the Native

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Speaker 1: Women's Association of Canada or the n w a C.

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Speaker 1: The initiative was established to not only get more information

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Speaker 1: and data about the unknown statistics in regards to violence

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Speaker 1: against Indigenous women in Canada, but to also bring awareness

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Speaker 1: of the growing problems of the violence against Indigenous women

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Speaker 1: and the many continue to go missing and are hurt

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Speaker 1: or killed, but sometimes not acknowledge are investigated at all

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Speaker 1: by officials. This campaign was able to establish getting enough

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Speaker 1: attention by this initiative like making sure that people are

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Speaker 1: understand what's happening. So this helped get a government funding

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Speaker 1: to push forward with this initiative. So the Sisters in

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Speaker 1: Spirit received a five million dollar grant from the Status

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Speaker 1: of Women Canada to research and estimate a reliable number

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Speaker 1: of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. They're able

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Speaker 1: to share stories of the families of the victims, able

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Speaker 1: to problem solve issues and reasons for the continued violence,

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Speaker 1: and they were able to find solutions and increase ways

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Speaker 1: to keep those at risk safe. And they were able

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Speaker 1: to release the initial reports in two thousand and eight

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Speaker 1: with their first document titled Voices of Our Sisters in

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Speaker 1: Spirit or Report to Families and Communities, and soon published

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Speaker 1: a second one in two thousand nine. These reports were

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Speaker 1: able to give quantitative and qualitative data and analysis which

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Speaker 1: included stories shared by victims, families and friends, education toolkits

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Speaker 1: for communities with safety measures for Indigenous women, outreach and

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Speaker 1: support for the community. And though the initiative was disbanded

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Speaker 1: in due to the government deciding to not continue with

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Speaker 1: the funds, the initiative was able to release a new

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Speaker 1: report that gave a detailed history of how caluisation impact

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Speaker 1: Indigenous women and identified five two women and girls who

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Speaker 1: were missing or murdered at the time. Right So, when

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Speaker 1: they disbanded UH, they did a different type of initiative

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Speaker 1: with lesser funding under a different title, and many criticized

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Speaker 1: this new group, saying it was watering down the previous

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Speaker 1: works as well as what was needed to actually get

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Speaker 1: the correct number. So many were not happy, and this

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Speaker 1: initiative was able to lead to other community based groups

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Speaker 1: or initiatives, including the Families of Sisters in Spirit and

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Speaker 1: it starts with US as as well. So Families of

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Speaker 1: Sisters in Spirit is a grassroots program that started in

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Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, so quickly after the first UH it

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Speaker 1: was disbanded. But this program works to support the families

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Speaker 1: of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and

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Speaker 1: two spirits, whether it's supporting emotionally financially. UH they worked

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Speaker 1: to serve the families as they worked to also continue

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Speaker 1: to spread awareness within the movement and the victims through fundraisers, campaigns, events,

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Speaker 1: and so much more. And this was the answer to

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Speaker 1: the government discontinuing funds for the original Sisters in Spirit initiative,

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Speaker 1: literally taking it on themselves to fund it so they

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Speaker 1: are not getting any money and then trying to do

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Speaker 1: it as again grass Roots and continue to work in

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Speaker 1: shining light on the ignoring of the missing and murdered

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Speaker 1: women and girls and two spirits and they have teamed

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Speaker 1: up with it Starts with Us and No More Silence

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Speaker 1: to continue to push forward and finding solutions, data and

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Speaker 1: a way to support the Indigenous communities, as well as

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Speaker 1: tell the stories of the victims and their families and friends.

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Speaker 1: And just a quick background on these. No More Silence

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Speaker 1: was established in two thousand four to gather data and

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Speaker 1: the names of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

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Speaker 1: Co founder Audrey Huntley has been working to bring awareness

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Speaker 1: and addicate for the victims and families through this organization,

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Speaker 1: as well as documenting and interviewing families and friends within

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Speaker 1: the communities, including one called Traces of Missing Women, which

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Speaker 1: was a documentary of her research road trip where she

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Speaker 1: interviewed forty five family members of victims, right, and it

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Speaker 1: starts with us. I think it's the database that kind

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Speaker 1: of helped with all of these organizations as well, again

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Speaker 1: allowing for the family members and friends of victims to

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Speaker 1: come and tell and share their stories as they wanted.

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Speaker 1: So it's a really incredible group of people as well

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Speaker 1: as the size if you want to go and visit them,

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Speaker 1: it does have different documents as well as videos and

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Speaker 1: stories and personal accounts. Uh. And just a side note,

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Speaker 1: and I feel like we say this every time as

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Speaker 1: we are trying to find those people who are doing

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Speaker 1: such amazing work researching things interconnected groups. Was it a

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Speaker 1: bit difficult? Some of these sites may not may not

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Speaker 1: have been updated for a while now is trying to

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Speaker 1: get dates. But still we want to talk about them

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Speaker 1: UM and what they've been doing, as they have shed

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Speaker 1: a lot of light on the dire need of just

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Speaker 1: getting correct data. And you know, we are big proponents

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Speaker 1: on making sure that research is there and that research

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Speaker 1: is complete in who they are looking at and what

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Speaker 1: they're looking for UM and one report showed that in

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Speaker 1: the data they were able to collect by doing boost

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Speaker 1: to the groundwork was very different than the numbers in

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Speaker 1: the law enforcement database, meaning UH, it showed a vast

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Speaker 1: difference in what was being reported versus what was actually happening.

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Speaker 1: There was a bigger number when people were doing the

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Speaker 1: boots on the groundwork, uh than what was in law enforcement.

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Speaker 1: So that should tell you a lot. And again a

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Speaker 1: reminder that oftentimes that these cases are not even taken

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Speaker 1: seriously and most likely not in any government database. So

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Speaker 1: there's a lot out there that we don't know. And

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Speaker 1: I honestly, researching all of these numbers, my heart hurts

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Speaker 1: that it looked like some of the earliest amounts of

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Speaker 1: data came from two thousand five two four, when we

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Speaker 1: know since the beginning of what was what we know

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Speaker 1: as the US UH, there has been so many, so

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Speaker 1: many victims out there that are not accounted for. And

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Speaker 1: I will say that the families of Sisters in Spirits

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Speaker 1: Facebook is current, so I saw things that were posted

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Speaker 1: like like fifteen hours ago. Even so, they do have

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Speaker 1: a lot of things going on, whether they are doing marches,

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Speaker 1: whether they are doing protests, whether they're out there just

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Speaker 1: making conversation on what is happening, as well as at

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Speaker 1: least highlighting those who are missing that law enforcement may

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Speaker 1: not be doing anything about, just to put that out there.

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Speaker 1: Um So also with that, if anyone knows more on

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Speaker 1: these initiatives and organizations or things that are linked together,

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Speaker 1: please let us know. If you're in that area and

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Speaker 1: you know about them, you've been involved, or you at

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Speaker 1: least have heard what's happening and they have events, tell

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Speaker 1: us we want more, we need more information, yes, and

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Speaker 1: you can send that information to as at our email

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Speaker 1: or dress which is Stephitely, your mom Stuff at i

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Speaker 1: heart media dot com. You knows I find us on

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Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at stuff

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Speaker 1: and We Never Told you. Thanks as always to our

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Speaker 1: super producer Christina doing that work for us MM and

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Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You,

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from my

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows