Journalists throughout Europe have been sounding an alarm about the trends of increasing conglomeration, censorship and diminishing freedom of the press. Where does the Czech Republic stand in terms of media freedom? How do independent vs. corporate media outlets fare? Is there room for human rights journalism in the current media environment? These are some questions I am seeking to answer, seeing them as relevant to my fellowship with the Dženo Association, which is partly a media organization with a history of magazine publishing, broadcasting and training journalists.

In its 2007 report surveying media freedom in the European Union, the Association of European Journalists found that freedom of the press is relatively unrestrained in the Czech Republic:

The Czech media enjoy a comparatively high level of media freedom and independence, reflected in the relatively mature media scene and the lack of high-profile violations of the media’s ability to report on events in public life. Reporters Sans Frontieres, in its Press Freedom Index for 2006, ranked the Czech Republic in 5th place out of 168 countries assessed.

However, the Czech Republic’s press freedom rating has since plummeted to the 24th place. Also, the report raises several concerns, among them subtle pressure sometimes exerted by business and political interests to influence reporters. Also among the report’s criticisms is the problem that “Czech journalists sometimes fail to demonstrate the independence of mind and professional rigour needed to report adequately on sensitive issues,” and that they “have shown a lack of independence and determination in questioning politicians and their decisions.”

The concerns above are echoed by media expert and Czech journalism professor Jaromír Volek, who writes:

The continuing influence of the state on the public service sector is an. . . issue. This has been de facto “privatized” by the parliamentary parties and used as a megaphone for their own political ambitions; in effect they use the media to shut off individuals not affiliated to a political party from the public debate.

Regarding the rigor needed for reporters to question authority and provide alternative angles, Volek asserts that Czech journalism exhibits “a surprising degree of conformity in approaches, which, in turn, results in the campaign-style promotion of social agendas and collective media interpretations.”

This reality is compounded by the fact that three of the four largest-circulation dailies “pursue a center-right political agenda,” while the vast majority of journalists themselves subscribe to center-right political views and reject the Left. In fact, a study by the media monitoring group Hermes of the most widely read daily, MF Dnes, showed that left-wing political parties were presented less favorably than the right. Mainstream Czech press is thus clearly slanted ideologically, which has an impact on minority rights and social issue coverage. Pertinent to my fellowship is the fact that although a formal survey of the political preferences of the Roma community has not been carried out, the general assumption in and outside the Roma community is that the Roma are overall a left-leaning voter constituency.

The Association of European Journalists shares Volek’s view about the declining journalistic standards, which “tend to encourage passivity and acceptance of the status quo instead of vigilance.” The level of political debate and focus in reporting, says the AEJ analysis, is often “characterised by populism and an excessive focus on personality” and dominated by “dumbed-down” content.

But why this substandard quality of journalism in the Czech Republic? Both Volek and the Institute of Democracy for All, a media monitoring group, have argued that this deficiency is caused by the consolidation of ownership and commercialization, even “tabloidization“of the media.

After the fall of communism in 1989, a rush to privatize all state assets ensued. The Czech media were no exception.

“The Czech Republic,“ writes Milan Šmíd in “Media Ownership and Its Impact on Media Independence and Pluralism.”, a 2004 Peace Institute report, “was the first country in Central and Eastern Europe to award a nation-wide broadcasting license to a private person, and to allocate a complete network of frequencies formerly used by public television to private television. . . (By 1993), there were no state media in the country. Three former state media outlets, i.e. Czech Television, Czech Radio and the Czech Press Agency (CTK) already operated as independent public service companies. . . All other media companies were in private hands.“

Now with more than eighty percent of all state-run enterprises privatized, the Czech Republic, with a population of just over 10 million, has the highest concentration of foreign-owned press in Central and Eastern Europe after Poland.

Although 87 percent of Czech print media outlets are foreign-owned, with German and Swiss companies owning 80 percent of Czech newspapers and magazines, the media monitoring group Institute of Democracy for All asserts that commercialization, homogenization and a trend toward infotainment have much more of an impact on today’s journalism than the nationality of the media owners.

Volek expresses a similar analysis:

Unable to reconcile their former role with the demands of the new technology and economic pressures, journalists have gradually been “de-intellectualized” and reduced to administering the machinery of communication. The “new type of journalist” as a “media employee”, whose existence depends on respecting the dominant logic of infotainment has, for now, won out over the traditional role of the journalist as reporter and interpreter of events.

He continues: “Most of the Czech media have adapted to the economic realities of the market: the media is just one more commodity forced to adapt to market imperatives as it comes ever closer to being little more than infotainment.”

If mainstream journalists are so beholden to economic, and sometimes political pressures that content starts to become uncritical and tabloid-like, the role of independent media is even more important in terms of investigative reporting and of presenting of stories which may not have commercial appeal or mainstream political endorsement, but may be crucial to the understanding and reforming of the current political and social landscape in the Czech Republic. Such is the role media organizations like Romea, a Prague-based Roma news service, and my host organization Dženo which plans to launch an international, multilingual satellite broadcast on Roma issues and culture. The question is always that of funding and funding priorities.

“Media publishers and broadcasters support investigative journalism only exceptionally,” writes media analyst Milan Šmíd in the Peace Institute media study,” not because of its contentious nature, but because it is an expensive, time consuming and costly affair.”

The current economic crisis is creating yet another excuse for those with the purse strings to divest from social services and causes. Perhaps there are still those funders who see the value of independent media and are willing to support the voices of the underrepresented for the long haul. Media freedom and diversity as well as independent and probing journalism are signs of a healthy democracy.

“I am very upset,” says Milan Kováč, who is visiting the Dženo Association office.

“You need to try harder,” one of my office mates jokes sarcastically and we all laugh, but the laughter is tinged with a sense of letdown.

Mr. Kováč, holds a college business degree, knows five languages and has many years of professional experience in settings ranging from the non-profit and government to the private sector. He has, for instance, worked as Project Manager at both, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the non-profit Athinganoi, an organization specializing in supporting Romani students in obtaining secondary and post-secondary education.

Since losing his job eight months ago, he has been searching for work. He has applied for more than sixty positions and has gone through an average of seven job interviews a week to no avail.

Recently, he applied for the position of Local Coordinator at the governmental Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities, which employs only one Roma of the total of twenty-five staff. As a strongly qualified applicant and a Roma himself, he was convinced his chances were high, especially considering the fact that the role of the agency is to promote the integration of Roma in socially excluded regions in the job market, among its other missions.

Upon successfully completing the first phase of the interview process, Mr. Kováč was verbally invited back. However, soon he learned he was not selected for the second round of interviews.

Mr. Kováč’s experience is not unique. A multi-country study by the European Roma Rights Center, conducted partly in the Czech Republic, found this to be the case:

The most prevalent incidence of employment discrimination against Roma is at the job search stage and in the recruitment practices that companies apply. Raw, direct discrimination prevents applicants from even reaching the phase of the interview. Many companies have a total exclusion policy regarding the employment of Roma and practice across-the-board unmitigated discrimination against Romani applicants. As a result, Romani job-seekers are eliminated and excluded from the application process at the very outset; regardless of education, qualifications and competences for the job.

In his appeal letter, sent to the agency which rejected him after the first round of interviews, Mr. Kováč wonders whether the organizations in charge of eliminating barriers to equal participation in Czech society facing the Roma are truly “pro-Roma.“ He writes:

The Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities was founded to advocate for the social inclusion of Roma . . . One of its roles is to promote the inclusion of Roma from socially excluded communities in the job market. There is also a whole host of non-governmental and non-profit organizations which present themselves as “pro-Roma.“ They champion an open attitude on the part of employers towards the Roma under the generous support of the European Social Fund. Are these organizations themselves actually open to employing the Roma and are they in reality practicing what they preach?

When the fact that not a single Roma advanced to the second round of interviews was criticized, Michael Kocáb, commissioner on human rights, who chairs the Monitoring Committee of the Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities, responded that he was not aware that there were any Roma applicants interviewed to begin with. Mr. Kocáb has in the past said he is committed to increasing the number of Roma employees in the governmental agency. Additionally, Mr. Kováč was promised an appointment where he could present his case, but this meeting never took place. Instead, in the hall of the Office of the Government, in passing, he was told by the agency’s director that he was not chosen because he lacked the necessary qualifications, although he was clearly selected as a promising candidate earlier.

Many a study, including a 2008 report prepared jointly by the Government of the Czech Republic and the World Bank, conclude that the barriers for the Roma in the job market are largely due to a lack of skills and qualifications. But what about the Roma who do possess the experience and skills that match the position sought?

The above-mentioned 2006 ERRC study, Systemic Exclusion of Roma from Employment, states:

The mass-unemployment of working age Roma is most often perceived as a labour market supply- side issue and the high level of unemployment is attributed to Roma’s inability to find employment because of their low levels of education; out-of-date work skills and detachment from the labour market. Also because large segments of the Romani community lost out during the economic and industrial restructuring that occurred during the transition from Communism. Undoubtedly, these factors create very real barriers that reduce employability and exclude many Roma from work but there is another dimension – discrimination – which significantly aggravates the situation and causes systemic exclusion from employment for vast numbers of working-age Roma.

Mr. Kováč touches on the very issue of anti-Roma discrimination in his letter:

I want the society to know that the Roma are continuing their education, raising their qualifications, applying for quality work, but that still barriers, factors and influences exist which make it impossible to achieve success.

Unfortunately, both cronyism and racism still play a determining role in key decision-making in this country. Those with whom I have spoken who have been active in Roma rights advocacy for years confirm this reality, which the ERRC study enumerates and Mr. Kováč’s story illustrates.

One way to combat discrimination in the job search and recruitment stage, suggests ERRC, is to mandate the collection of data disaggregated by ethnicity and to monitor and respond, in a structural way, to inequities based on this data in order to improve job access for qualified Roma applicants. This is currently not done. The ERRC states:

There is strong evidence, from countries with the most effective measures to combat racial discrimination in employment, that workforce monitoring, including the collection of data on ethnicity, is a key means of obtaining statistical evidence to support positive actions to address under-representation of ethnic groups in the workplaces and more generally in specific occupations and sectors of the labour market. Monitoring, recording, reporting and responding to the ethnic composition of a workplace are key factors that guarantee the effectiveness and efficiency of equal opportunities policies.

More on the topic of data collection as a tool to combat discrimination in a later post.

The Czech government is currently undergoing a major transition. In the May 28-29 parliamentary elections, left-wing Social Democrats narrowly won, but center-right parties captured more votes overall. Of the 200 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Parliament, 118 new candidates were replaced.

One of the pressing concerns for many activists in the Roma community is that the post of the Minister of Human Rights will cease to exist under the new administration, because it was established by the outgoing coalition. A number of Czech human rights organizations have joined together to lobby for the preservation of the role. The human rights leaders argue that the funds spent on the position are minimal and that if eliminated, the result would be “the weakening of the broad agenda for protection of human rights.”

Currently the post closest to that of Minister of Human Rights is carried out by the Human Rights Commissioner, Michael Kocáb, who was assigned this role by the Prime Minster after resigning from the post of Minister of Human Rights and Minorities under pressure last March. Even in this capacity, the commissioner serves an essential, government-level function in advocating for the marginalized communities in the Czech Republic. The Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Communities, in existence since 2008, for instance, is a governmental agency in charge of coordinating integration activities in socially excluded regions, in cooperation with the commission on Human Rights and Minorities and under the leadership of the Office of Government.

Regarding the recent elections, the most significant development was that the voters, for the first time outright rejected the country’s two largest parties, which formed every government since the early 1990s, in favor of smaller parties. The campaign was the longest in Czech history, launched in the fall. The campaign was expensive as well, costing over 20 million dollars, with the top two parties spending nearly ninety percent of the total budget.

Of the 5,050 candidates running, only one was Roma. Lucie Horváthová ran on the Green Party ticket. The Greens did not make the minimum 5 percent margin of votes to qualify for a Parliamentary seat, however.

The three conservative parties which received the most votes have formed a right-wing coalition. These parties are: The Civic Democrats, TOP 09 and Public Affairs (VV). The newly elected lower house of the Parliament convened for its first session last week. The internim Prime Minister resigned and a new, conservative Prime Minister, Petr Nečas, was just named by President Václav Klaus yesterday.

The new government coalition stresses reducing the state budget deficit as one of its primary goals. However, the measures and concrete steps which will emerge from the current coalition talks must not sideline the human rights agenda. The battle for eliminating poverty and structural barriers to equitable education, health care, employment and affordable housing, must continue with the government taking a strong stance of support. The marginalized communities need a government-level representative to continue lobbying for their cause.

This video, featuring the Dženo Association’s founder and chairman Ivan Veselý, provides a very good overview of some of the issues facing the Roma community in the Czech Republic and in Europe at large. The video was created by Christina Hooson, 2009 Advocacy Project Peace Fellow with Dženo.

This week, the Czech Republic is officially taking over the rotating presidency of the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015, an international initiative whose goal is to improve the living conditions of the Roma across Europe.

The initiative brings together the governments of twelve European countries along with intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations “to accelerate progress toward improving the welfare of Roma.“ The parnter organizations include the World Bank, the Open Society Institute, the United Nations Development Program, the the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Council of Europe, European Roma Information Office, and the European Roma Rights Centre.

According to the Decade of Roma Inclusion website, “the Decade focuses on the priority areas of education, employment, health, and housing, and commits governments to take into account the other core issues of poverty, discrimination, and gender mainstreaming.“

Now midway through the project, the reactions among Roma activists and community members vary, but veer on the side of skepticism.

Today I spoke to Ivan Veselý, head of the Dženo Association and member of the Decade of Roma Inclusion steering committee. Mr. Veselý has been with the intiative since its planning phase and has been so invested in the Decade that he calls the initiative “his child.“

“The initial aim of the Decade was two-fold,“ says Mr. Veselý. “One goal was to demand that member governments change their policies toward the Roma minority. The second major goal was to jumpstart a Roma rights movement across Europe.“

When asked about the effectiveness of the the Decade, he curses, expressing deep disappointment. He feels that the intiative was implemented without the necessary preliminary capacity building and that the efforts towards Roma inclusion are mostly conferences, declarations, reports, and more words; not enough action.

The goals for each country that is part of the Decade have been outlined, measurable indicators set, but, so far, there are few results.

“The main problem,“ says Mr. Veselý, “ is that no money has been allocated by the Czech government to achieve the Decade’s aims.“

During Czech Republic’s presidency, the priorities are: inclusive education (contrary to the current practice of unjustly segragating large numbers of Romany children in schools for the mentally handicapped); children’s living situations and their rights; the empowerment of Romany women; the implementation of local-level integration policies; and improving the image of Roma in the media.

The action plan for the Czech Republic comprises objectives such as providing Romany students equal access to pre-school as well as higher education; training educators in multicultural teaching methods; preventing residential segregation; increasing access of low-income Roma families to affordable housing; and boosting the employability and employment rates of the Roma through training, incentives and investment aimed at the creation of Roma-run small business enterprises.

What many, including Mr. Veselý, would like to see and have been advocating is a systemic change which begins with a firm, sustained, long-term committment on the part of the government. Such committment must take the form of allocation of a sufficient amount of money, so that the carefully crafted action plan can be implemented in all key sectors and throughout all regions.

The Dženo Association, where I am a fellow, is an organization whose central focus is the emancipation of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe. The Prague-based association’s main goal is to disseminate information on an international scale in order “to promote Roma human rights and an end to discrimination and racism.” Dženo, as per its website, has a sixteen-year history of “influencing international actions concerning (the) Roma and increasing global awareness of Romany issues.”

Projects the Dženo Association has spearheaded, under the leadership of its founder and chairman Ivan Veselý, include a monthly Romany socio-cultural magazine Amaro Gendalos and the first Roma internet radio station in the world, Radio Rota, with the goal of challenging discrimination and “advocating and promoting the Roma ethnic culture.”

Dženo has also, among its many projects, provided legal advice and assistance to Roma people in various arenas, and especially to those who’ve experienced racially motivated violence. Additionally, Dženo has authored reports for organizations such as UNESCO and the Czech government on topics ranging from housing discrimination to discriminatory lending practices–or usury–affecting the Roma. The association has run programs which provide support and education to Romany youth and train Romany journalists.

Dženo’s current projects are Project Second Chance, which provides workplace training for unemployed Roma, and Project Roma Assistance, a project that provides technical assistance and consultation, preparing Roma NGOs to seek funding for and implement programs financed by European Union structural funds.

In the works is the transition and expansion of Dženo’s multilingual internet radio broadcasting service, currently on hiatus, to digital satellite capacity. This would greatly enlarge the broadcast’s audience, much of whom at this time lacks access to the internet.

Part of my job this summer will be helping to secure funds to help make possible the vision of Dženo operating an international satellite broadcast station. This station is seen as “a tool for fighting against racism, promoting diversity and information in order to upgrade the social situation of Roma.” It also has the capability of connecting “Roma individuals and organizations throughout Europe, a process which will open new possibilities and ways of cooperation between Roma in Europe.”

Czech Radio has a very informative article on the history of the Roma in the Czech Republic.

The article speculates that the arrival of the Roma to what is now Czech Republic may have been as early as the 13th century. However, “solid proof of the Roma’s residence on Czech territory is actually (a letter) of protection, which was issued on April 17th, 1423 . . . by the Holy Roman Emperor and Czech King, Zikmund.”

Many historians refer to the 15th century as the “Golden Age of the Roma in Europe,” because the Roma were at that time often “received by aristocrats and. . . given letters of protection and other privileges.” In the 15th century, however, the persecution of the Roma began when they were observed by the Catholic Church to not be “servants of God.” The Roma were also suspected of being spies for the Turks.

The article details the types of persecution experienced by the Roma in Medieval and Renaissance Europe:

Rulers of individual countries began to issue decrees by which the Roma were ordered out of their territory. With the persecution, the Roma were exposed to torture, bodily mutilation, and then execution. The greatest persecution in the Czech Lands came after 1697, when the Roma were placed by Imperial decree outside the law. Anyone could shoot, hang or drown them, and killing Roma wasn’t considered a crime. . . The Roma’s life was never easy, they were always among the poorest population groups

In Central and Eastern Europe, if they could find work, the Roma were most commonly employed as builders and blacksmiths.

In mid-18th century, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa issued a decree which forbade nomadic life and the use of the Romani language. The Roma were also “forced to wear different clothes, and children were taken away and placed witn non-Roma families for re-education.” At that time, a sizable population of Roma settled in Czech territory. As Czech Radio reports, “the settlers were mostly bricklayers, tinkers, blacksmiths, trough-makers, road-menders, musicians.”

Further restrictions and assimilation efforts continued in early 20th century. Then during WWII, the Nazis rounded up, deported and killed approximately ninety percent of the Czech Roma. After the war, most of the Roma coming to the Czech Republic were Slovak. In 1965, a law was passed “concerning the procedure of dispersing the gypsy population, through which Roma from eastern Slovakian Romani villages had to move to Bohemia to work.”

Not covered in the Czech Radio piece is the fact that during communism, and continuing through at least 2003, Romani women were coercively sterilized as part of a state policy to reduce their population. The Roma experience systemic discrimination in housing, health care, the justice system, and education as a result of past and current state and social practices.

The Czech Radio article concludes with a very important point in understanding today’s dynamics between majority and minority population, the former of which often blames the Roma for being too dependent on the state:

In state social policy, the Roma were dealt with as a socially backward group of the population, and the state’s remedies were confined to various forms of social support, which helped the Roma survive, but also taught them to rely completely on the state.

As a final note, I do want to point out that it is important to be critical of the view that the Roma have been completely reliant on the state, because there are multiple, innovative ways in which communities, including the Roma, find to survive despite the discrimination and poverty they experience. These ways may be invisible or unrecognized by the majority community. However, as a documentary I recently watched points out, the old adage “necessity breeds invention” is quite pertinent in the Romani community. My next post and future articles will show just what I mean.

When I announced to my Czech father that this summer I am coming to the Czech Republic, where he lives and where I grew up, to help advocate for Roma rights as an Advocacy Project fellow, he asked: “Will you be going out into ‘the field’?”

I replied that I most likely will and that I hope to do so, although I will surely be spending quite a bit of my time in the Prague office of Dženo Association, the Roma press agency I will be working for. (The truth is, of course, I don’t know yet, because I have yet to start.)

My father’s next response was: “Well, I can take you out to the field. I know some activists who can take you around. Then you’ll really see how those people are.”

The tone of his voice implied a sentiment I’ve heard from my fellow Czechs too many times to count: there is nothing that can be done unless the “unruly,” “problematic” Roma minority assimilates into the white Czech majority population. The commonly held belief is that most Roma people live in ghettos (and yes, housing segregation is a real issue); that they are “unconforming,” rowdy, lazy people prone to a life of crime, poverty and misery. But these stereotypes must be challenged and questioned.

[government-funded anti-racism campaign poster: "together against racism"]

Just today, Amnesty International UK released a report, which condemns the breaches of the human rights of the European Roma. As the German press agency Deutsche Welle states:

“The report identifies systemic discrimination against Roma communities in several European countries: substandard schools for Roma children in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, forced evictions in Italy, Serbia and Macedonia, and assaults and murders of Roma in Hungary.”

The list of barriers the Roma face across Europe is overwhelmingly long. The issues are outlined well by the Hungary-based European Roma Rights Centre, an international public interest law organization working to combat anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of Roma. The issues are:

- increasing racially-motivated violence, often lacking adequate prosecution
- rising extremism, driven in large part by extremist political parties and politicians who “have sharpened their anti-Romani rhetoric and actions, creating a climate in which rights violations are more likely to occur with impunity.”
- discrimination in access to health care and social assistance
- coercive sterilization of Romani women
- widespread residential segregation
- evictions due to gentrification and a lack of affordable housing
- lack of coordinated response to discrimination from governmental bodies

All of the above are symptoms and manifestations of institutional racism, prevalent all across Europe, and strongly present and visible in the Czech Republic.

My goal as an AP fellow is to help inform international audiences about these issues and to help illuminate not only best practices combating these barriers, but also the resilience, resourcefulness and strength of the Roma people and their allies as they work to create a more equitable society.

And as for battling the prejudice that surfaces in my interactions with the majority population in the Czech Republic, including my family members, I will see. I can’t remain silent, but I may have to find a way to make brief, strong statements and conserve my energy, which instead of hitting against wall after wall, would be much better spent on directly supporting the advocacy work of the press agency I will be with.

The Advocacy Project Peace Fellowship sprang into my life in one beautiful, stunning moment of synchronous convergence. There is a bit of magic in all this madness. But first things first.

For my entire professional life after college, I have been an educator, working primarily with immigrant and refugee populations in my US home state of Oregon. My focus, as an immigrant myself, has been on empowering immigrant communities by teaching language and relevant, practical employment-related skills as well as history, literature and creative expression through writing and drama.

For some time now, however, I have been longing to have a broader, yet more tangible impact in the areas of racial and social justice–locally in the city of Portland and in my country of birth, the Czech Republic, which I left at the age of thirteen.

Even though I moved away from the Czech Republic as a child, I have kept a solid connection with my family, a large part of which still lives there, and with my culture. The issue that I have felt the strongest about in my original home country has always been that of discrimination against the Roma people. Why?

Romani flag

I am white. I have not had any close friends from the Roma community. I have never been to the home of a Roma family. But still, my heart breaks when I hear the racist comments and slurs that many Czechs, including my friends, relatives and politicians, utter. I shutter with fear when I read personal accounts of racially-motivated violence. I am dismayed and angry at the discrepancies between the conditions of most white people and those of the Roma people in Czech society. The results of a long history of institutional racism are, in many cases, blatant: inequities in education, employment, housing, health care–in short, in every sector of society.

This needs to change.

So, here is where a bit of magic comes in. Wanting to forge a deeper connection and to find a way to make a difference, I wrote up a mission statement for myself and found images–post cards, book covers, photographs– that represented the kind of work I envisioned immersing myself in to help advocate for the Roma community “back home.” I created a sort of a visual collage of these, which I displayed in my room, thereby declaring my intention to the world. This after years of keeping abreast of and occasionally blogging about the issues and the political climate in the Czech Republic.

Next, I typed in a few related key words into Google, and voile: the AP Summer Peace Fellowship with Dzeno Association in Prague popped up on top of the search list. The deadline for application was the following week. The fellowship description fit perfectly with the kind of work I was hoping for: working in conjunction with a community-based, minority-run press agency to create content to raise awareness about Roma rights issues internationally.

So, here I am, with my sleeves pulled up, ready and thrilled to do the work.

The adventure begins.