PUSHBACK Talks

The Singapore Solution - Housing for All

• WG Film • Season 8 • Episode 9

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What if public housing could be a solution, not a symptom of urban inequality? Singapore offers an alternative to the traditional narrative of state-sponsored housing. In this episode, Fredrik, Leilani, and National University of Singapore Professor Kwan Ok Lee unpack an extraordinary housing system that defies global expectations. By transforming apartments into instruments of social cohesion, Singapore has created a model that challenges everything we know about urban living, community development, and civic belonging. Learn how one city-state turned housing into a strategic national asset that integrates, empowers, and connects its diverse population.

Learn more about Kwan Ok Lee's work as Associate Professor and Dean's Chair at the Business School and Deputy Head in the NUS Department of Real Estate.

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Kirsten McRae:

In many parts of the world, public housing is often seen as a last resort, a system that concentrates poverty and perpetuates social divisions. But Singapore tells a strikingly different story. Here, 80% of the population lives in public housing, not out of necessity, but by Design. Today, we're exploring how a small city state with no natural resources turn housing into its most powerful national asset. Fredrik and Leilani are joined by Professor Kwan Ok Lee, an associate dean at the National University of Singapore, whose research has mapped the intricate connections between housing, urban planning and Social Policy. Quan brings both academic rigor and deep policy expertise to her conversation with the filmmaker and the advocate. How did Singapore build a system that avoids the pitfalls of poverty, concentration and ethnic segregation? What can other cities learn from an approach that sees housing not just as infrastructure but as an instrument of social harmony? Listen in as Fredrik Leilani and Kwan unpack a housing model that challenges what we know about Public Housing, Community Integration and the relationship between citizens and their government, this is pushback talks.

Fredrik Gertten:

I'm Fredrik Gertten and I'm the filmmaker,

Leilani Farha:

and I'm Leilani Farha and I'm the advocate,

Fredrik Gertten:

and this time, the filmmaker, he's in Amsterdam at the huge International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. It Fauci, the place where we showed push for a lot of people, and I was also here last year showing breaking social for an amazing amount of people, together with Rutger Bregman, amongst others. And it's nice to be back

Leilani Farha:

in that beautiful what's it called Fredrik, that beautiful theater,

Fredrik Gertten:

the Carré, Royal Theater, Carré in Amsterdam. It seats 1400 50 people. So it was like a luxury for a filmmaker to meet such a huge audience. And now, when I'm around, a lot of people come up and speak to me about breaking social but also about push, push kind of stayed in people's minds. And everybody asks about Leilani. How is she doing? And I normally lie and say, You're doing fine.

Leilani Farha:

That's right, you don't tell them about my tears and anguish. No, no.

Fredrik Gertten:

I mean, if they know that you are a Canadian Arab, they could guess that you are angry right now, but you are not the only one being angry about what happens in the Middle East right now. So no, you are with friends. Today. We're going to shoot out from North America or Europe or the you know the place as well. Last Last episode, we were in Nigeria, but now we're going to Southeast Asia, the booming part of the world, and we have an amazing guest from Singapore who's a professor at the National University, and we're going to look into something that is quite unique, the Singapore housing system. So welcome to push back talks. Professor Kwan, hi,

Kwan Ok Lee:

hi Fredrik and hi Leilani. Thank you for inviting me to the show. I'm very excited to talk about Singapore's housing and also some of my experiences in Singapore for 13 years.

Fredrik Gertten:

And Leilani, you and Quan met at the conference somewhere. I don't know where, so, but in Rotterdam,

Leilani Farha:

we did, ah, and it was a total delight for me, because Singapore is often referred to as, you know, a place that kind of gets it right, where markets are concerned, and where the financialization of housing is concerned. And I had never actually had the opportunity to speak with an expert from Singapore, so it was a total delight. And then I knew we must have Kwon on our podcast. So here we are.

Fredrik Gertten:

No it's happening. The interesting thing is, Singapore is a very small state. It's a small island. It's a city state, and it's one of the richest places on the planet, I think, after Hong Kong, or something in in wealth per capita. So it's it's a very special it normally would be a place where speculation is totally dominating and making life very difficult for the people who have not but Singapore has find some kind of way to protect their citizens. So it'd be nice to understand how it's working.

Kwan Ok Lee:

So I think the central sort of component for this, you know, when you talk about, is actually housing. So Singapore is very well known for its public housing. So about 80% of its population live in public housing. So when I say the population, it is the citizens and then permanent residents, excluding the foreigners. So Singapore public housing has begun after its independence, mainly in 1965 when Singapore became independent from Malaysia. So the famous Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has a prioritized housing as a cornerstone of nation building. So basically, the founding principle of Singapore. So, you know that Singapore was very poor at that time. It didn't have natural resources. You know, it's a very small city state. How can we possibly secure these people? They will have some sort of royalty to the country. Otherwise, you know, no resource, nothing. You know, they can just always leave the country. What if there is a war? I mean, I don't want to talk about war, but you know, what if, right. So what was kind of interesting is the effort of Lee Kuan Yew, as they're creating the stakeholding society with public housing. So basically, it's really home ownership. You own your home in the country. You will fight for home when there is a war, not for the country. So that was the, basically, the idea behind which has continued, you know, for the decades, and it has been very successful. So I think that sort of, you know, home ownership oriented public housing is sort of very key policy that makes Singapore very unique compared to other developed countries, yeah, and

Fredrik Gertten:

it's 80% it's a lot, it's a lot. And I was recently in Malaysia where my last film was showed the breaking social in a tour around different states of Malaysia, including also Singapore, even if it's not a part of Malaysia. And I was there also with push in 2019 at this amazing freedom Film Fest. But I was both in Kuala Lumpur and in Pennine, and those places all compared like also in Bangkok, you can see the housing speculation is so brutal. There's a lot of dark towers wherein people buy apartments that stands empty. I mean, that's almost like the sign of most cities in the Far East right now, or far whatever. How do you define far anyway? I'm just got stuck in his colonial language. So I think it's interesting that the richest country in the region found a way to protect its citizens. I think that's really cool. Don't you think so

Leilani Farha:

it's very, very cool. I have many questions, so I'm going to, if you don't mind, I want to ask so 80% of the population is living in what's called public housing. But I think in the West, we have a different idea of public housing, because in Singapore, a very wealthy or a relatively wealthy person would be living in this public housing. Whereas in North America, when we talk public housing, we think of the lowest income people. So my question is, in Singapore, do the lowest income people afford the public housing? If you're making less than, I don't know, I think your poverty line is about $1,900 per month, something like this, would that person or household be able to afford public housing?

Kwan Ok Lee:

So Singapore public housing is mainly owner occupied, as I mentioned, and then the income eligibility for this public housing purchase directly from the government, is$14,000 Singapore dollars a month, which is about, I think, 12 or 11,000 USD, which is not small per month, or it's a household income, right? That's for the purchase. But for very, very low income households, we also have rental housing, which is about 5% of all public housing stock. So for those very low income households, they do not have resources to purchase housing, obviously. So we offer the option to rent directly from these public housing authority, and they will pay very, very small amount for their rental fees, and then there is even subsidies for, you know, the very, very low income households. So that's how it works. So

Leilani Farha:

is there any homelessness in Singapore?

Kwan Ok Lee:

No, there is no homeless. Amazing. In fact, what's kind of funny is that Singapore is a very good weather condition for homelessness, because it's a year round the very warm weather, maybe too warm, but in the night time, it's a little bit breezy. But anyways, there is no homeless and there is no ghetto. That's another, I think, a very distinct kind of feature for public housing in Singapore as Leilani. You know, maybe everybody knows in the. US history, public housing has been a very big failure because it has concentrated poverty and all the minorities and this place became like a ghetto. Singapore doesn't have any ghetto, because these public housing towns represent the majority of the population, which are the middle class, not the poorest households. Also, maybe I have a chance to explain this a little bit further, but you know, we really try to prohibit the ethnic segregation. So there is this ethnic integration policy for each public housing block. We need to maintain certain percentage of different races to avoid ethnic segregation, right? So, with this kind of policy, the whole sort of idea of a multiculturalism, harmony, you know, societal harmony, have been very much achieved. Along with this public housing policy, it's very

Fredrik Gertten:

interesting, and it's that it's been on for such a long time, also, I could kind of when I see how this the idea was also versus Swedish system. Once upon a time, I think that was the same kind of policy that we didn't want to create any ghettos. And Sweden is also like Singapore, a nation very much built by immigration because we needed a lot of of workers to come and work. And of course, that has changed over time. But I think it seems like the Singaporean system is still in function. Ours is little bit on its way down. The protection is not so good anymore. And the social housing, which is not social housing, but let's say the public owned housings are now more and more in some areas, more of a ghetto, even if wouldn't, we wouldn't use that name. But it's, it's not that kind of mix of people that we had before. So it's, it's interesting that you've been able to keep it, but I guess it's not so easy to get into Singapore as a refugee or a migrant anymore. Yeah.

Kwan Ok Lee:

In fact, after COVID 19, and more recently, even before COVID 19, a little bit, the government has sort of tried to make the higher bar for sort of immigration. So even myself, I've been here in Singapore for 13 and a half years. I have no permanent residents. Actually, I have applied for the permanent resident and then they rejected the reason they do not provide but I think my husband is not around in Singapore, so I think that may be the biggest reason. But we have increasingly, sort of a lot of people wanted to immigrate into Singapore, whether they are the low skill or the high skill people. And then the government has raised the bar a lot. It's not only income. They consider multiple factors, like, how long they would expect these people will stay in Singapore? Can they be assimilated into Singapore? And, you know, in fact, I talked about the ethnic integration policy for public housing. They also apply the similar kind of criteria for immigration. So they want to maintain the current ethnic profile of the Singapore, which is about like 75% of Chinese, 15% of Malay, and, you know, another like 10% of Indian and others, they want to maintain these ethnic quota. So for people like myself, I'm a Korean, which is belonging to others, you know, I'm not a Chinese. So it's extremely small percentage quota. Then, you know, it's becoming very difficult to get the permanent resident, whereas I think the trainees have a little bit higher probability, but now they really try to offer more of these long term visas. And you know the permanent residents, you know, to those who have a very stable jobs and a little bit higher income jobs.

Leilani Farha:

Do you qualify for this public housing?

Kwan Ok Lee:

I am not, because I'm not a permanent resident, I'm not a citizen, so I cannot be qualified for public housing. So this is basically to protect the Singapore citizens and then the permanent residents for housing affordability, so the foreigners are not eligible for public housing, sorry,

Leilani Farha:

Fredrik, one more question, and then I'll give it back to you. But does a public unit always remain a public unit, or can I purchase it and then sell it on the open market, on the free market? So

Kwan Ok Lee:

that's interesting, because Singapore public housing is a very much hybrid of these two things. So basically, you purchase most of the public housing is owner occupied. Only 5% is rental. That means, when we say owner occupied, it's a 99 years lease. Okay, so. 99 years are quite long. It can cover two generations. So once you purchase directly from the government, you have 99 years lease on your apartment, your flat, then you need to have a five years of the minimum occupation period. And after this minimum occupation period, you can sell it back to the market. So it's a free market. It's really the price is determined by the demand and supply. So this is a really great separating opportunity for a lot of these home purchasers, because usually after these five years, the price goes up. When the government first sort of sell these new flats, the price is heavily subsidized, as you can imagine. And then after five years, because the price is determined by the market demand and supply, usually the price goes up, and then all the profits, basically, you make out of this home selling is gonna be your asset for future housing purchase. And

Fredrik Gertten:

then the buyers of these apartments on the free market are then the people who don't have a residency. No,

Kwan Ok Lee:

cannot, only the citizens and permanent residents can buy. So I cannot buy, basically. Oh,

Fredrik Gertten:

so you and other people working in the financial sector there, you have to rent, yes,

Kwan Ok Lee:

or we can purchase private housing, which are three or four times more expensive than public housing,

Leilani Farha:

because you do have a hot housing market in Singapore, or it's cooling down now, I think, but it goes hot, and then it cools down, and it goes hot and cools down, is the the heat in the market in this 20% is that where most of the speculation is happening, in the in the non public housing 20% that's

Kwan Ok Lee:

a Good question. In fact, yes, obviously, a lot of investment, especially by foreign investors and higher income investors, are happening in this 20% of the in fact, if we look at this housing stock itself, it's 25% okay, 75% housing stock is public housing. 25% of housing stock is private housing. We call it condominiums. So a lot of investment actually happen in this private housing sector. However, as I mentioned, because even for public housing, after five years, you can freely sell and buy in the open market. So there are always a spillovers between these two markets. These two markets go in parallel. In fact, they affect each other because local Singaporeans and permanent residents, they can participate in both private and public housing markets, right? So they have an option to choose between these two markets, and definitely there are the spillovers between these two markets. So in fact, right now, Singapore housing markets are very, very hot after COVID 19, and then housing price has gone up. In fact, after COVID 19, in the public housing a little bit the resale we call it resale market. So resale market, open market, price has gone up significantly after COVID 19, because a lot of people work from home. They do not have to leave a very close to central area. And many of these public housing units are located farther away from the central area and more affordable, obviously, and more spacious. For the same budget, you can buy larger flats. So these larger flats in the suburban location have seen an increase in housing prices after COVID 19, but at the same time, the foreigners still demand this private housing in the very prime locations. So both markets are quite hot right now, especially with some delay after COVID 19, some delay in construction in after COVID 19. I think

Fredrik Gertten:

I read a story in in the straight times your daily about the golden visas, and we have talked about that is also something mentioned in my film breaking social, about this company called Henley and partners who are like helping super rich people to get these golden visas. And they that they are really active in Singapore, that's a lot of people coming in from Hong Kong, where they don't feel safe and happy anymore. And so the rich people then get help to get into Singapore. Is that something you're talking about? Because it's, I guess, that's also inflating the market a lot. And maybe these guys are also buying themselves to a position that you are not, because you have been waiting for 13 and a half year. But these guys might get their permit. It's, they just buy. It is that something you talk about?

Kwan Ok Lee:

No, actually, the golden visa is also not. It's not a permanent residence. It's still similar to myself. I have a long term visa, you know. So I have no problem of working in Singapore. It's just that, you know, housing purchase is a troublesome because what happened is, I can always buy private housing, but private housing itself is very expensive. Not only that, the government has imposed very, very high stamp duty for foreign home purchase, especially with this housing price increase after COVID 19. But

Fredrik Gertten:

is the golden visa part of this heating up the market? Yes, I

Kwan Ok Lee:

think they will definitely hit up the market, but what I'm saying is they will not be eligible for public housing, or, you know, they are same position as myself, you know, which is, you know, we have to always be in the private market. Plus, because the government has imposed a new regulation, new stem duty, additional STEM duty of the 60% if you are the foreign owned purchaser, you have to pay 60% additional STEM duty. So if you buy $1 million housing, you have to pay $600,000 just for additional STEM duty on top of regular stem duty, right? So that's a lot. So you know, maybe for those golden visa holders, they do not really care about this 60% of housing price, you know, so they can still participate in these transactions. And you know, that's why the market is continuing to be very hot people like me, you know, we were crowded out, you know, out of this market. Yeah,

Leilani Farha:

right. So it curbs the small time investor, but it doesn't probably curb these billionaires and companies who can purchase

Kwan Ok Lee:

exactly because for them, no matter how high the stem duty is, they will still be able to afford all these housing units, right? And then they will crowd out the others, you know, those are small investors, or, you know, you know, we are sort of demand purchasers, like me.

Fredrik Gertten:

I mentioned before that I was recently in Malaysia and in Thailand, and, I mean, Leilani and I, we were also in Korea when we shot push. And I guess you have a bigger out view of the region. How do you see the development? Because we see the dark towers in so many places. Sometimes you kick out whole neighborhoods or poor people, then you build condos for rich people who don't even stay there. I was in Penang and I was in Kuala Lumpur. You can see that, and it's it's a very sad sign, and it creates a lot of stress in the local population. Is this development that just keeps going? Can you see that from your perspective? I

Kwan Ok Lee:

think these are happening more in developing countries. You know, I know China has been experiencing the ghost town issues, you know, for a while. You know, as you mentioned, Malaysia or, you know, some cities you know, like, you know, Thailand, they have faced similar issues. I think this is a lack of policy measures right in Singapore. On top of this foreign home Chase, they also impose a very significantly higher stem duty for the multiple homeowners you know, which are considered as speculators, even though they are locals, right? So once you own multiple homes, that means you are likely to, probably you can rent, but you are likely to also empty this house and wait for the price to go up, right? So I think these are sort of endogenous to the policy measures. You know how strict government is about these housing speculation, and then, you know, sort of those multiple home ownership

Fredrik Gertten:

so it basically means that if you have an apartment that stands empty, you have to pay an extra tax to keep it. Is that the model

Kwan Ok Lee:

no in Singapore, I think the relevant policy will be the property tax. So if you do not occupy housing, right, then you have to pay higher property tax. So that includes renting it out, or, you know, empty, keep the housing empty. So both cases will be applied for the higher

Fredrik Gertten:

Is there a visible effect of that? Can you see that there is a lower amount of empty apartments? There is

Kwan Ok Lee:

a very, very low vacancy in Singapore because rental demand is very high. So I think what happened in Malaysia or China, ghost towns, you know that we are talking about, they do not really have a rental demand at the same time, even though there is demand, maybe the rents are very low, so they do not have incentive to rent it out. That's why just, you know, they just keep the unit empty so that they can just wait for the price appreciation. But I think if there is a strong rental demand and then the renter high, there is no reason. To just keep the unit empty, right? So I think in Singapore, the rental demand is really, really strong. So there is almost like a no case keeping the unit empty. In fact, rental growth have been even more stronger than the home price growth in Singapore after COVID 19. You know, with all this influx of the foreign, foreigners from Hong Kong and other countries. And also, because of the construction delay, there has been some local demand, you know, coming into this rental flats. So the rental demand is really, really strong, and at least, I think, a 40, 50% increase compared to pre COVID. So no way for the landlords to just, you know, vacate their units and wait.

Fredrik Gertten:

Belani, do you think this is like a medicine for other states to have this kind of the vacant that you have to pay extra you have a vacant department? Yeah.

Leilani Farha:

I mean, some places have started to charge tax on vacant homes. Vancouver, in my country, has done that. My own city actually does that. And we every year, we now get these papers, and we have to declare if we have a vacant home, and if we do, then we have to pay certain tax only certain homes are covered by this, but it does raise a lot of money that is then or can be used for affordable housing or to put back into housing. I think Singapore is often looked to as a model for other countries, but there is many things that are unique about Singapore that cannot be replicated. The history, for example, that this dates back to the 60s, to a notion of building statehood through housing and through housing people well, but what I really love about Singapore that I often draw on when I'm talking to other governments, is the interventionist aspect of government. And I read this morning this quote, I think it was Desmond Lee, Singapore's minister for national development, and he said this, if we don't take early preemptive measures, we may see investment numbers, both by locals and by foreigners, grow, and that will add stress to Singaporeans who are looking to buy residential property, principally for owner occupation, and you never read a quote like this from A housing minister in the West, you don't see housing ministers really caring, with due respect to all the housing ministers out there, you just don't see enough of this caring for the occupant, right for the tenant, for the local resident. And so I think that's one of the things we draw from Singapore, is you can be interventionist as a government, and you can protect your people and the local residents so that they can lead happier lives, right? If they have housing. That's how you build a nation. I

Fredrik Gertten:

also like that he is using this word stress, because this is what's happening now around the world in I mean, Canada, US, Europe, of course, around Asia and Africa. I mean Latin America, the stress is so high on people now, because the salaries are not going up, but the rents are, the cost of living are causing a lot of unhappiness, you know? So could you then call Singapore a happier place?

Kwan Ok Lee:

That's the fical question. So at least, you know, there is no homeless and there is no ghetto, like I say, I think really the unique kind of feature is that it really supports young people. So, you know, I think it is tied with, directly with family planning for young households, you know, because we are talking about declining birth rates every corner of the world right now, Singapore also has experienced this decline in birth rates, but at the same time, it's not as fast as like countries like my country, like Korea, so I think the public housing has contributed well to these sort of supporting the younger households, so that they can form the households with stable owner occupied housing earlier and, you know, give a birth. And also this asset building strategy, because they can sell these housing back to the open market, and they can accumulate wealth which they can use for their retirement, right? So this whole kind of system is very supportive, I think, for the life cycle of most of the households. I think that that is good, and then what I can feel is that is a little bit lower level of intergenerational conflict because of this equitable housing distribution. Because in a lot of other countries, I think intergenerational conflicts are coming from the real estate market. A lot of seniors occupy very large housing in the primary. Because usually the younger people, the immigrant you know, migrants. It doesn't have to be only immigrants. Migrants are from the rural areas. Are the ones who suffer from housing affordability, and they are angry about this. And you know, those who own housing, they keep sort of growing their wealth, while others, you know, they have no chance, right? But in Singapore, at least 90% of its citizens and permanent residents, they own housing, meaning that they can grow together for their wealth when the market is booming like current time, and then they are happy with all these right? I'm the only one who got stressed out because housing is too expensive, but I think the others would be happier. So I think in that sense, housing plays a very important role to the entire society and welfare.

Fredrik Gertten:

So that was the answer about happiness, but then you included that you as a non citizen, don't have the same rights after 13 and a half year, I think that's complicated. Then it's hard to make Singapore into some kind of ideal paradise, because I think all people are equal, and if you live in a place and work in a place, you should have equal rights. I think that's a complication, but it's Leilani. It still seems like there are some attitudes that could be transformed also to our

Leilani Farha:

governments. I think that's right. There are other complications in Singapore, which Kwan can probably speak to as well, around migrant workers. That was a big issue. It was sort of revealed during COVID the conditions that migrant workers were living in. I happened to recently write a report with my team about worldwide conditions of migrant workers. It's not unique to Singapore. The housing conditions for migrant workers tend to be pretty awful. Maybe the difference in Singapore, though, even there was once it was really brought to light and the government was pressured, they did start taking action to implement better housing conditions for migrant workers. So again, it's that you don't always judge a place on how poorly they do. Sometimes you can judge a place on how they respond when it's brought to light how poorly they're doing, and if there is a positive response, then you have to give credit. We can always improve. So Quan, if you wanted to talk a little bit about what's happening with migrant housing, migrant worker housing, yeah,

Kwan Ok Lee:

so you're right during COVID, the migrant worker housing, we call foreign workers dormitories, they have been a hot spot for COVID 19 because they are overcrowded. You know, you're exactly right. The Singapore government is very fast in responding to the shock. They have changed the regulation so they have relieved the overcrowding of dormitories a little bit. So, you know now the sort of capacity for each room is smaller. And I think also they try to make it you know more. You know the ventilation and all these kind of things you know better. The question is, who pays for this, right? Because usually the business owners, or, you know, contractors, they are the ones who have to pay for these dormitories. And then, obviously the government cannot always pass all these cost burdens to the operators. So I think there has been a little bit of back and forth between the government and, you know, those business operators. But you know, obviously the government has sort of make it more stronger for these dormitories. So I hoped, you know, there has been a stronger interest in this. But after COVID 19, people forgot about this, basically, because now we do not have any more COVID 19. So people just literally forgot about this, right? So, because the issues should be sort of over the face, you know, then that's how the government is responding to these issues. And they have all the measures they can use, you know, the monetary measures, whatsoever. But I think because after COVID 19 faded out, the public interest, both locally and globally, have faded out also, so I think has been a little bit less discussion on this now,

Fredrik Gertten:

wow. This is like, I love having this podcast opportunity to learn more. This is like little treat for me, Leilani, and hopefully for our listeners to kind of suddenly meet very interesting and knowledgeable people from around the world, so Wow. Thank you very much for giving us your time. Professor Kwan, it's like it's I learned a lot, and we will have something we can use when we talk to other influential people around the world. What do you say? Leilani,

Leilani Farha:

yes, I've wanted to do more podcasts from Asia, because it's part of the world that we don't reach as. Easily, even just because of the time difference and Quan you're so articulate and helping us to understand the Singaporean model. I hope a lot of listeners pick up on this, because there's a lot of myths also about what happens in Singapore. And I think there's an interesting tension between I mean, some people will say, but Singaporean society is too rigid. But with rigidity comes this ability to intervene in markets. And you know, and when I'm looking around at the terrible housing crisis in my country, terrible housing crisis one of the richest countries in the world, I think, come on, we need some of this intervention. So thank you, Kwan for enlightening us.

Kwan Ok Lee:

Thank you so much for having me today. I think this sort of global perspective of different markets and the cross city cross country lessons will be extremely important for housing affordability. So I also look forward to your future podcasts to learn. Thank you so much.

Fredrik Gertten:

Thank you very much. Thanks. Leilani, yeah, super interesting and fun to do this podcast because, I mean, sometimes we are a little bit stressed just before because how we're going to handle this, but it always works out. I think our curiosity and the quality of our guests, it's the trick. I think that's really

Leilani Farha:

cool. I agree, amazing guests. And

Fredrik Gertten:

we told people before that we love our listeners and we would love that our listeners also showed us some love by commenting and rating the podcast, because in this kind of world of algorithms, it helps. And of course, sending the podcast to friends and colleagues and so on, we will really appreciate that. And then, of course, you can support the podcast financially, because we don't have any funders, and you can do that by going to patreon.com and look for pushback talks. And we actually got a new patron coming in who said she would like to give us $40 a month. Wow. Period, wow. And I think that it's really it touched me deeply, and I remember all of you out there, any kind of amount is also a sign of appreciation. And love is important in this shaky world, we need to support each other, and we need to keep, you know, the smiles up. So true, so true. But of course, we also need to pay bills, so it helps with support. Leilani, what are you up to know I'm going out in the rainy city of Amsterdam and walk by the canals and to meet some colleagues and try to find money from my new film project, which is always a challenge. So that's what we're out doing all the time.

Leilani Farha:

I've got a big blue sky in front of me and a dog to walk. So I shall do that. I'm writing a presentation that I'm giving on December 1 for a radio show here in Canada, CBC, ideas, and I have to write another paper about Gaza recovery and reconstruction. So lots on my plate today. So a walk in the woods will do me fine.

Fredrik Gertten:

That's good. I wish you a beautiful day, my dear and and see you soon again. See

Leilani Farha:

you soon. Bye, Fredrik.

Fredrik Gertten:

bye Leilani.

Kirsten McRae:

Pushback talks is produced by WG film. To support the podcast, become a patron by going to patreon.com/pushback talks follow us on social media at make underscore the shift and push underscore the film, or check out our websites, maketheshift.org, pushthefilm.com, or breakingsocialfilm.com