Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

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Music 0:42
what's going on good

Dave Washington 0:47
day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. I have two exciting guests to be with us here shortly. However, I got a couple of remarks to make, one birthdays Eva Duncan and we got Miss Tanya Forson Margie cooks, Pat Glasper and Jackie Sidney again. Just wanted to acknowledge those folks who are having birthdays this month. And also Tony Marshall, our service, officer, 301-537-9465, again, you can't just walk in. You got to have an appointment to see him. And then two other birthdays I failed to acknowledge, with three, Elon, Miss Williams, Joanne bass, Carmen West and Greg, Dave. So just wanted to acknowledge those folks. And once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 chairs and more. Got Wellington with us and Miss Mimi. Wellington, would you please introduce Miss Mimi?

Wellington Jackson 1:54
Yeah. How you doing, Chief? So Mimi Chaco over she's a film director who directed a documentary film on six of our alumni the Bay Area utmp program, and she has extensive knowledge and experience in filmmaking as well as journalism as well. And we met about 13 years ago, and from that came our documentary film.

Dave Washington 2:21
All right. Great appreciate that, Mimi. Hold on, because I'm going to go back to Wellington now. Wellington, give us a little bit about your background and what was your inspiration in starting this program that we'll tell our listening audience more about in a few minutes. Please. Sure.

Wellington Jackson 2:36
I was a firefighter for 26 years with the Alameda County Fire Department. I recently retired eight years ago, and currently am running the Bay Area utmp program full time as their executive director. We are in our 23rd year of providing free education, basically EMT and fire training, education to inner city youth in the Oakland Bay area.

Dave Washington 3:05
Now you were inspired by whom to do to get this program going.

Wellington Jackson 3:10
So I graduated from the EDI executive development institute for the program that basically provides chief officer training to black firefighters throughout the country. I graduated from there in 2007 and the first year that I attended, I had I was in a module called Community Education with at the time, there was a captain Brent Burton from Alameda, oh, sorry, from Los Angeles County Fire Department, and chief Kwame Brown, he was a battalion chief for LA City. Cooper, yes, yeah. Farming. Cooper, yeah. Sorry. Cormac Cooper, and they taught a they taught a module on community education. They were teaching EMT to inner city youth out of the Compton Community College. And I was extremely I was expired, inspired to the point where, when we got home, within six months, we were teaching our first class by Oakland high school kids.

Dave Washington 4:06
Wow, that's great look. And for clarity purposes, the Carl homes executive development institute was started by blacks for blacks, but everyone comes now, and we think it's an important program, and it helps to inspire people train them. And one thing that I recall about Dr Holmes, if a person went from firefighter to engineer, he was as as excited as he would be for someone who went from a deputy chief to fire chief. But the bottom line is, it's about training encouraging and inspiring. And I am so pleased to hear that you got inspired by some of the things that you learned there at the Carl homes executive development institute, Miss Mimi. Now, yes, this program, and I want this listening audience to know that I was Brent, made me aware that I had never heard of the film festival in Santa Barbara, California, but when I saw it, I'm like. In and then, when Brent told me how in Wellington as well, how he got inspired to do this, I said I got to go down and see this. I got to see it for myself. And I know that the gentleman that I was with or that I invited, since my wife couldn't come. Terry savinsky, he asked you, why did it take 11 years to do the documentary. And I can tell you, just from my mindset, in my quick assessment of it, it was so appropriate, because everybody don't get through a program, and it's always successful. You know how sometimes a movie might show everything in it in hunky, gory everybody was happy Well, in that 11 year period, and as it showed in that documentary, some folks didn't make it. But anyway, just give us how you got involved and why you thought it was so important to push to get this done. Yeah,

Mimi Chakarova 5:48
you know, I was very happy to meet you the other day. I was such an honor, and I so appreciate you coming out to to see the film. We, you know, we're so just, we're so happy that we got to have the world premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, because it has been now at this point, it's been 12 years in the making, just finished a couple of months ago. So to your question about why? Why even begin this project. Why even begin this film? I think, in the place where we live, in the Bay Area, Oakland, California, you know, you know about it. You hear about it, and often, you know the press that Oakland gets. It's, it's, you know, it's about corruption, it's about crime, it's about, you know, it's all the bad news, absolutely. And so I heard about, you know, 12 years ago, I heard that there is this amazing program in Oakland that trains kids how to be EMTs and firefighters and first responders. And, you know, the idea was, well, when people are on the ground doing this type of work, they're the unrecognized heroes. No, they don't have time to be in the spotlight. They don't have time to be interviewed. They're not even that interested in cameras. They're way too busy trying to work, in fact, exactly, doing the work. So I, I approach Wellington, and I remember the first time we had this conversation about making a film. And you know he wasn't, to be honest with you, he wasn't even interested. He just,

Dave Washington 7:29
wait Mimi. Wait Mimi, so you approached him about doing this, not he you well

Mimi Chakarova 7:35
there, there is a colleague of his, Randall West, who introduced the two of us who, at that time, was a firefighter and working with Wellington and and so he introduced us, and he's the one who said, you know, if, if you, if you want to make a film about

Dave Washington 7:52
Wellington, please go mute. Please go mute Wellington. I just heard, yeah, go ahead. If, if

Mimi Chakarova 7:59
you would like to make a film about unrecognized heroes here in Oakland, I know the perfect person for you, so he's the one who set up our first meeting. And I was under the impression that, you know, Wellington was, you know, that he had been prepped, and that he was interested in having a documentary filmmaker. So we met up for dinner, and, you know, I was waiting for him to kind of tell me more about the kids in his program, and tell me more about why it's important to have this kind of film. And within, I don't know, five minutes, it was very clear that he had no interest in having cameras follow him around or, you know, and the other thing that he made very clear to me was that the kids in the program, the young people in the program, are never going to let me into their homes. And, you know, allow this kind of intimacy, which, you know, to make a documentary film, you need to spend a lot of time with people, as you saw in the film, you got to wake up, you know, you got to sometimes I would show up at five in the morning. I would, you know, people would still be sleeping. You know, you need to have this kind of access. So Wellington said, there is no way in hell they're going to let you show up and film them. So I think for me, you know, I hearing that, I thought, well, you know, but they haven't even met me yet. So why would you shut this down before it's even started. So I think that the beginning of the documentary project, I knew from the very beginning that is going to take time. And it did, because you one of the questions that you asked me the other night was, you know, what's one of the biggest challenges? And I think one of the biggest challenges for making a film is trust. People have to trust Absolutely, and in a way, you're asking for unconditional trust. You're asking to be in people's homes. You're asking to be in people's faces. You're asking, I mean, you saw in the film, there's some really vulnerable moments when, you know, when people are at their lowest, and you're still there, you're still filming them, you're still asking. Asking them questions. You're still in their presence, absolutely.

Dave Washington 10:02
And Mimi, Mimi, and to you. And back to you, Wellington, let me tell you something when, when I saw this young kid, he wasn't even 30 years old. He's, he's the age of my grand, some of my older grandchildren. You, you got four. Do you ask? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? But let me, let me go back to Wellington, because I want him to go back mute after he answers this question, what is the criteria to get into your program, Wellington

Wellington Jackson 10:29
effort? I mean, with you, I mean, you know, we have our our 18 to 24 kind of age range, but I mean, for the most part, you just got to want to, you got to want to change who you are, and we're in your circumstances, you know, train who, change who you want to be, and have some heart and have some some you know, just put put forth some effort. That's really the only requirement that we that we ask

Dave Washington 10:52
but, but I'm sure I would imagine minimally high school education.

Wellington Jackson 10:58
Yeah, so, I mean, you know, the state has a requirements. You have to have a high school diploma or equivalent. You have to be at least 18. And you know, there are the legal things that you know, there are certain legal issues that would would preclude someone from participating. But even even with that, we still, we partnered with the East State Community Law Center to help with the Clean Slate program, which you know helps to to seal records and reduce felonies and misdemeanors and things that would allow you to actually work as an EMT. So, right, yeah, there are the state requirements that are, you know, basically, but in terms of just people, yeah, we don't just, it's pretty rare that, yeah, it's pretty rare we're turning somebody away. Okay, great.

Dave Washington 11:42
Look, I'll come back to you in a moment. Mimi, but I want to say this, a lady came up to me and she said, You know, I got a like a godson. He really wants to get into the fire service, buddy, but he got into some trouble. And I told her. I said, You know what? I don't know if you know the law here, but your governor signed a bill about three, four years ago. If you have been, you've been trained in wild land firefighting, which a lot of prisons have been, you can, if you haven't been convicted of a heinous crime, murder, rape, kidnapping, those types of things, he will expunge your expunge your record, and you got a shot. So with that in hand, I told, I said, he got a shot now, so make sure he just said, but back to you, Mimi, I want to know, and I trust our listening audience would want to know, how long have you been involved in this field, and where's your training from?

Mimi Chakarova 12:34
I've been involved in this for 25 years now, and my training is I was a photo journalist before I did film. And so everything that you see, everything you saw the other night, I'm self taught. The filmmaking part is all just learning by failing, failing and trying again and getting up again and trying again and so on. How I learned.

Dave Washington 13:00
I want to say this real quick, because getting old and I lose my train of thought. But the previous show, the previous Saturday show, I had Oscar Robinson. He's a producer, director of theater and and we, we coined him as Dr Anthony Browder. He don't have a PJ you don't have an honorary, but this guy has done phenomenal work in in what he called it archeology, when you do the digging over in, in Africa and in the work, and he's not even training this. So I just had to say that, because when God gives you a gift, and obviously you have a gift and a driven purpose to do this with no training yet you've able, you were able to pull it off. So God bless you. Now go ahead with your point.

Mimi Chakarova 13:48
Thank you. Thank you for your kind words. But yeah, I think you know, there's so many people in our society that history has overlooked, that society overlooks, continues to overlook that. You know, it's important for us as storytellers to pay attention to, you know, who do we want to serve as I'm a filmmaker, who? Who am I? Who am I working for? So for me, working for those kids that you see in the film, making sure that their story gets out there, get seen, gets recognized. I mean, just yesterday, we had someone from falls in prison contact us a therapist asking, you know, can you guys come up and show the film? Because, you know, it will give a sense of hope and purpose to a lot of, a lot of these cats that have been locked up for a long time. That's right. And so, you know. So it's, you know, like, think about it. This can be in high schools. This will be in high school, colleges, universities, public libraries, juvenile institutions, where a lot of kids either lack purpose or, you know, feel like they're in a in a dark place and, and, you

Dave Washington 14:56
know, that old thing, me, me not to cut you off. But you know. You seen that thing where they it was real popular years ago, where they do this, what they call Scared Straight in the prisons. Well, this is, this is even this is more appropriate because it gives an opportunity for kids to see, or young people to see that there's a way out of this. And I can tell you that you, you mentioned several different places, and I can tell you, Wellington, if I know, I trust you're still listening in Mute. Look, yeah, me and Brent have already talked about it, man, we want to have a showing, and we may not be able to get it this year, but for sure, next year, one of our goals will be to have you in the evening programming show, because it wasn't our community about 90 minutes or so, 9494 right on time. That would be perfect, because we in our evening sessions, we do it, we do a two hour program. And I'm telling this will be so appropriate, because once again, it's to me, when this is you guys are planting seeds, and those seeds will be cultivated by others who have the same kind of gumption and get up about the loss of our humanity and not you know, and we forget about people because they're down on their luck. People have no idea the trouble I got into when I was in the military. People have no idea. Well, I've told people because I don't care if they know. They should know I was court martialed. I spent time in a stockade. But you know what? It told me a lot of things about me. And also, we went down and visited South Africa. The first time we went to South Africa, I didn't want to go to Rockland Island. I thought I would be angry and want to, you know, throw rocks through through a window or something. But when we finally went back the second time, I was more calm than I thought I would be seeing that little bitty sale that President Mandela spent those 28 years in. But anyway, I'm kind of rambling, but what you guys are doing it to me, it's gonna point more to our lack of humanity, and we need to get back into our amenity as people. I'm talking about black people, white people, or Caucasian, because white is a construct that was put in to have us fighting against one another. It's so ignorant, and I'm going to do my work to stop using the word white and call people Caucasians. You know, Europeans came from anyway, I'm rambling, but go ahead, make your point. But see, when I get riled up and fired up about something, I want to do the work that God has given me this platform. That's why I knew I said, Man, I sure hope I can get them on ASAP, because I'm hot and I'm thinking about it. So go ahead.

Mimi Chakarova 17:24
Something? I go ahead. Wellington, do you want to say something?

Wellington Jackson 17:28
No, no, I was just going to say that. I mean, it's something that we talk about a lot in class. So one of the things that separates our program from most EMT programs and the fire academies is kind of like what I said earlier. I mean, we're trying to build people, and we spend so much time just talking about being better, being a better person, and not only for yourself, but for your family and your friends and your community. So we it's, it's we have conversations and we and we expect them to when you go out into the community, to when you, when you, when you wear that badge and you have that title of a civil servant, truly be a servant to others. And so, you know, to echo what you were saying, I mean, it's just about just being, just being kind.

Dave Washington 18:13
That's right, because we've, we've lost our humanity, and that's that's such an important issue, man, even here in Las Vegas, we have so many homeless people, and they pass certain ordinances that's gonna that's gonna really hurt them even more, while we should be trying to build some facilities for folks. And I know, you know, as a military veteran, I know I'm a Vietnam era veteran, at 73 didn't go to Vietnam. I feel very blessed at not having to go. There had two former fire chiefs on the show last week, and they talked about, well, one talked about, he's Caucasian. John talked about the experience that he had when he went over it, 1819, years old, to Vietnam. When he came back, he said he didn't want, knew, he didn't want to go back over there, and also he knew that he felt like he was 35 he grew so much. And it's important for us to talk about those kinds of things. Mimi, a question to you, and I know it would vary. How many people, staff people did you have to put this thing together? Just a ballpark figure. And I know it would vary from from one documentary to another,

Mimi Chakarova 19:16
sure. Yeah, you know, Chief Washington, I like to keep my team small. I It's small and I we trust each other, we respect each other, and we were also very scrappy. So each one of us ends up doing the job of four or five people. So I work with I have you saw at the festival our composer Gavin Templeton, who handles everything, not just music related, not just composing the music, but everything that's audio, sound, sound mix. And he works with a colleague on mastering. So we don't really, we don't really work with large production houses. We are all independent. It's important for us to stay in. Pendant. We work with artists as well. You saw that there were parts in the film that are animated, animated illustrations. So I worked with remarkable artists. Go ahead,

Dave Washington 20:09
you know what? And that's what I want to speak a little bit about. That was so cool, where you did the animation part, and see when you show the part where three of the students had got through the program, and then you show the shadows, or whatever you want to call it, whatever they call it in those terms, they didn't make it and see what was important to me about it, just, it, just, man, it was just, it was great. And then to find out you weren't absolutely trained to do this, you you're self trained to do it. Oh, God has blessed you, young lady for sure, to do this. And I, and you know, with Terry, and I'm asking this of Terry zabinski, and he's working on, he's working on a documentary for NFL, on some things that he thinks important to get out there. What would you say to him if he asked you that question in terms of getting it done? And I know, again, yours took 11 years, and I know that a time frame may not necessarily be the most important thing. It's about getting the accomplishment done of whatever the project is. So the time could vary. Yeah.

Mimi Chakarova 21:12
I mean, I would say to him, You got to have tenacity. And you there is going to be so many days when we wake up and we feel like just quitting, because it's always for me, at least, I'm sure in your field too, but often you feel like it's uphill. And I'll tell you something. You know, with filmmaking, I've made many documentaries, and people assume that the more films you make, the easier it gets. And that is not true, right? It doesn't matter how many films you have. It doesn't matter how many awards or accolades you've gotten. It's always uphill, because you were in people's at least. I'm talking about documentary filmmaking. You're in people's lives. And people's lives change over time, and for you to really capture that change, like think about all the footage. And your friend asked me that the other night. He said, How many hours of footage Do you have? Because he was talking about, you know, his project too, right? And I said, you know, countless. There's drives and drives and drives of footage that we have. And so think about 11 years. How do you condense this much information into an hour and a half? Wow. That is phenomenal. So there's, there is the visual challenges, the content challenges. How do you edit this? How do you put this together? How do you create something that is poetic, that is beautiful to watch, where you sit that in your seat and you forget that an hour and a half has passed because you're so deep into people, other people's lives, and other people's reality.

Dave Washington 22:39
Yeah, that's so interesting. Wellington, your thoughts, my friend, in the time that it took, like you said, Mimi, for people to allow you into their homes, man, because I'm seeing this stuff all on in this documentary, I'm like, Wow. Man, that took some work, because everybody's not going to allow and that trust that you talked about Mimi, I think it's so important. Wellington, yeah, it's,

Wellington Jackson 23:05
it's, I'm still kind of speechless that that, I mean, we're getting the kind of the recognition. I mean, when I say we, I'm talking about not just the film, but just the program, and, you know, our alumni, it's, you can't see that in, you know, in a year or even five years, the fact that you know these kids, now, I call them kids, but you know, they're in their 30s, but, I mean, you know, they're married and they've bought homes and they have families and they're promoting and these are just things you can't see in a years or two year time frame. It just, I mean, it takes a long time for these things to develop, and especially with the demographic that we're working with. I mean, you know, they need a lot of support. So, you know, they're, I mean, where they were 15, 1415, years ago, when I first met them, to where they are now. I mean, it's just, you want to talk about a blessing. I mean, it's, it's, you know, and Dexter said it perfectly in the film, he said, I've been given more than I've asked for. And that's one of the strongest things. That's one of the strongest parts of the film for me is when he says that. Because, I mean, when you reflect back on where he was, you know, in camp Sweeney juvenile hall, to owning a house and having a family and promoting to engineer, I mean, it's just, it's, you know, like I said, you can't, there's, there's no way to show that in in a one or two year time frame,

Dave Washington 24:24
right? And man, you could see the smile on his face, how he felt, you know, even though I didn't, the one kid they had, the the blended family, where they he had three, and in his in his wife had three, and he became a success. I talked to him, I said, Look, man, how are you? He said, I'm 32 I say, Well, if you still have that drive to become a firefighter, I say, I trust that you're making pretty decent money driving that big truck, but I bet that firefighter money is more. And he starts smiling. I said, Man, so don't you know, give it another swing, man. You're still healthy. Go for it. And Mimi, to your point on the I talked to the. Gentleman with and I said, What role did you play? You say, you know, I put all the music. I said, Man, the music was really cool, man. So those parts these, there's so many, you know, I've done so many things in this community to include, I support. It's called the West Side art gallery, not West Side art art center, where they do the summer programs, and they get students, mostly black, but other ethnic groups to include Caucasian. They come and they participate. And I can tell you that with all them, won't go into the arts, but the discipline that they learn, and that's what I saw partially in what you guys were doing. Wellington, so anyway, with the with the with the the music part, and there was another guy, and I didn't get a chance to ask him a question. He was a black guy. What was his role? Meaning, he had on a little he had on one of them little hats.

Mimi Chakarova 25:51
That's, uh, Julius, Julius Canada. He's one of our producers. Okay, so Jules would, would come with me to in this last year, we would go, you know, the footage that you saw in the present day where, you know, you see going to the different going, going on calls, right and then going to the tenderloin in San Francisco, just following. He was, he was my second camera, and he was also, he's street smart. He is well rounded, and in fact, he even graduated from the bay EMT program. Oh, cool. He understands the program, understands the mission, absolutely, it's very important for me. You asked earlier about the team, the team like I like I told you it needs to be people that I know, but also people who are interested in telling these kinds of stories, and people, most importantly, who come from the community.

Dave Washington 26:47
Absolutely, we got about two minutes to go, Wellington, won't you give some closing remarks, and then we'll come back to you. Mimi, go ahead, Wellington, give us some closing remarks, please.

Wellington Jackson 26:58
Well, first off, on the Thank you, Chief. I mean, have, I've always respected you, and from the first time I met you at EDI. I mean, it's this is a more than a privilege to actually be on this podcast with you and to see you the last week at the screening was amazing and truly looking forward to bringing the film to EDI and showing them exactly what's possible when you have some hard and some drive Absolutely.

Mimi Chakarova 27:27
Mimi chief, it was a pleasure to meet you, and we would love to invite you to come out to Oakland in September. We're going to show the film at the Grand Lake theater, and it's going to be 600 people, firefighters, paramedics, I just think for you to see, to be in that kind of space and to hear the reaction from people would be really good, and you can see it a second time, all right. And like you, like you said, humanity just keeping up with humanity, especially in in the world that we live in today, and the importance of second chances, not giving up on people.

Dave Washington 28:01
That's right. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and Moore had Mimi and Wellington, they did a dynamic job with putting together a documentary of an EMT training program that Wellington has put together out of his inspiration from attending the Carl homes executive development institute. I love and appreciate you. Appreciate you guys, and we'll get you back on again to tell us about further things that you guys are doing with with regards to this particular program. Thank you so much for your time. You

Music 29:02
Oh, all the smoke in the air till they hate when they stare, all the pain that we bear, all you wear.