In this world there are
thousands and thousands
of people working to
make a difference,
working to help
other people regardless
of creed, religion,
or political affiliation.
And it is of those people
that Goodness TV
wants to talk about.
Halo, kind viewers,
and welcome to today’s
Good People, Good Works
featuring the first
in a two-part series on
Internet television station
GoodnessTV which airs
inspirational programs
on noble individuals and
groups who are uplifting
our world through
their sincere efforts
to better humanity.
The station’s founder is
Laurent Imbault,
a noted Canadian actor
and comedian.
Mr. Imbault starred
in the Canadian television
drama “Watatatow,”
a long-running series
that addressed
important social issues
faced by youth.
He has also appeared
in films produced both
in Canada and the USA.
What inspired
Mr. Imbault to
create GoodnessTV?
Surprisingly, he realized
the need for such a station
after speaking with
his elderly mother.
My mother, she’s now 95
and three years ago
she broke her hip and
I spent a lot of time
at the hospital with her.
We talked a lot.
At some point she said,
“You know, I’m happy
I am going to die soon,
and I am not going to see
all of this anymore.”
And I asked,
"What are you talking
about, Mama?
What is all of ‘this’?"
And she said “You know,
all of this violence and
all the bad news
in the world.”
She said, “I am tired of
seeing this; I don’t see
that there is hope.”
And I thought,
"Wait a second, Mama.”
I said, "There’s hope."
And then I realized that
we live in a world
where we’re lacking
positive input.
There is no place where
I can just relax and
see good news,
and think that maybe
we’re going to make it
as a human race!
So I came back and
I told my wife, “Why
don’t we do something?
Why don’t we start
a television station of
good news,
only good news?”
And it turned out that
it was easier to do it
on the Internet.
So I met some
young programmers and
I talked to them about
the project, and
everybody was really
enthusiastic, so we
started Goodness TV.
What is the mission
of Mr. Imbault’s
television station?
Basically, the mission is
to talk about people that
are working to make
this world a better place.
It’s really dedicated
to good news.
The people I meet,
the people I meet
in my everyday life
are good people.
And basically there are
millions of good people
working to help others
and working towards
the good of others.
So GoodnessTV
is basically about those
people, whether they are
individuals, whether
they are working within
the frameworks of
non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) or
the United Nations
or Oxfam, or
whether they are working
within societies.
A lot of corporations
are totally involved in
their environment and
help people in all kinds of
projects, and
we never hear about
these corporations.
We never hear about
these people because
there’s nowhere that
you can hear about them.
With the help of
several professionals who
generously volunteered
their time and expertise,
Mr. Imbault developed
GoodnessTV and
quickly got the station
up and running.
The official launch
was last September,
so September 2009.
And we launched the
official French website.
The English website was
launched the first week
or second week
of January 2010.
We’re about 10 people
now around the table,
and I am totally amazed
because nobody
gets paid.
Everybody’s working
volunteer and pro-bono.
And everybody shares
ideas, everybody is
really enthusiastic, and
hopefully, as it grows,
it’s just going to grow
by itself.
All are welcome to
introduce their work
to the world on
GoodnessTV.
How does one get
their show broadcast
by the station?
There’s three points of
entry for GoodnessTV.
Individuals, you and me
and anybody that’s
watching, can come and
create a profile exactly
like on YouTube, and
upload videos that
they feel are important
or significant to them.
One very important thing
is that all the videos on
GoodnessTV
have to be watched
and approved
by my people.
We will not broadcast
everything; it has to be
within the framework
of the mission of
Goodness TV.
So individuals can come
in and create profiles
and upload videos
they feel are important
to them, and they want
other people to see
and share those videos.
NGO’s, foundations,
non-profit organizations
can come
and create profiles.
And those two points
of entry are free
for everybody, so it’s free
for individuals and
it’s free for NGOs and
non-profit organizations.
Corporations,
on the other hand, can do
exactly the same thing,
but at the same time they
have to have a profile.
So for instance,
a car company could not
just advertise on
Goodness TV.
The car company has to
have a profile, and
the profile has to be
within the mission of
Goodness TV.
After this brief message
we’ll return to our
fascinating interview
with Laurent Imbault,
founder of GoodnessTV.
Please stay tuned to
Supreme Master
Television.
Welcome back to
Good People, Good Works,
as we continue
our program featuring
Laurent Imbault,
a noted Canadian actor
and comedian who has
started a unique Internet
television station,
GoodnessTV,
which focuses on
the goodness in life.
I am basically
a media person.
I’ve always been
in front of cameras.
I’m not afraid to be today
in front of a camera,
and I’m quite at ease
with cameras.
We’ve produced theater;
we’ve produced
small videos
on all kinds of things.
So it’s
a whole experience
for me to be able to
finally put together
all these experiences.
So GoodnessTV for me
is the sum total of
all my experiences as
an actor, as a producer,
as a human being.
The GoodnessTV
website is in French
and English, but plans are
in the works to make
the site more accessible
to a global audience by
adding other languages
as well.
The programmers have
so far created a template.
So now we can add
a language very easily.
I would love to have
at least Spanish, Russian,
Chinese and Arabic,
which are the six
official United Nations
languages,
but we can have video.
Somebody wrote to me
the other day and said,
"Could we have videos
in Quechua?"
which is the language
of the Indians
in Northern Peru.
And I said,
"Well, why not?
If somebody watches
those videos in Quechua,
I can certainly broadcast
videos in Quechua."
We’ve added recently
the Hindi category, so
we have videos in Hindi.
We have videos
in seventeen languages
but the website is
only officially
in two languages.
But we’ll add languages
as they come along.
Mr. Imbault’s next
GoodnessTV project
involves producing
his own original shows
about benevolent
individuals and
organizations that are
contributing towards
the progress of
humanity and the world.
So what we’d really like
to do is also produce.
So we want to have
a daily broadcast.
We want to produce
videos with NGOs
(non-governmental
organizations).
A lot of NGOs treat
the Internet as
a reading media and
not as a cinema.
To me
it’s a cinema media,
it’s a new media.
A lot of NGOs
don’t have the capacity,
the knowhow or
the personnel to produce
for this new medium.
It’s a brand new medium,
with an attention span
of four, five minutes
maximum.
I find that NGOs
are not quite there yet.
They don’t know how to
use this medium yet.
So, hopefully,
what I’d like to do is
produce also a lot of
videos for NGOs,
in order for them
to spread the word about
what that they’re doing.
I am going to Africa
in the summertime
and we’re visiting
four countries in Africa.
And really what I want to
do is go in the field and
ask those people,
“What is working?”
If I see a smile of a child,
if I see happiness,
I know that you’re
doing good work.
The response to
GoodnessTV
has been remarkable,
with viewers from around
our globe watching
the posted videos.
We have all kinds of
viewers, and again I am
totally flabbergasted.
Sometimes I wake up
in the morning and
look at my Google report,
and I have people from
a hundred countries.
I would never have thought
in my wildest dreams
that I could reach out
and talk and
communicate with people
from a hundred countries
that I don’t know.
Sometimes I get people
from Yemen, I get people
from Saudi Arabia,
I mean they’re
foreign countries to me.
And I go “Wow,” I got
somebody from Japan,
and people from
Southeast Asia.
They come because they
find something there
that relates to them,
that talks to them.
And that’s how
I know that my idea is
a universal idea, and that
the site exists beyond me.
Our world is increasingly
getting closer
through the advancement
of communication
technologies.
Laurent Imbault
feels strongly that this is
a wonderful trend that
can only mean
great things for us all.
I truly believe that
we are the generation
that can put an end
to extreme poverty.
The human race today
is at a point where
it’s never been before.
We have never been
connected like this
in the whole of history.
We have never lived
the way we’re living now,
with the capacity
of touching people
hundreds, thousands of
miles away,
of communicating,
picking up the phone.
And my son is traveling
now in India and Thailand
and I can see him.
He connects
on the Internet.
The technology today
is unique in the whole
of the human race,
of the development
of history.
How did the station
help a teacher in India?
How was it able to bring
together the people
of India and Bolivia?
Find out by joining us
again next Sunday on
Good People, Good Works
for part two of
our engaging discussion
with Laurent Imbault.
Many thanks
Laurent Imbault and
dedicated, kind-hearted
associates for starting
GoodnessTV, which
brings happiness
to viewers and
makes our world a more
beautiful place to live.
For more details on
GoodnessTV,
please visit:
www.GoodnessTV.org
Our appreciation
enlightened viewers
for your company
on today’s program.
Up next is
The World Around Us,
after Noteworthy News.
May we all enjoy
abundance, friendship
and joy
each day of our lives.
My name is
Laurent Imbault.
I am a 62-year-old
Montreal (Canada) actor
and I decided:
1) I had enough of
the catastrophic view
of the mainstream media.
2) It was unfair
that only rich people
could be philanthropists.
So I'm
a poor philanthropist.
Halo, loyal viewers,
and welcome to today’s
Good People, Good Works
featuring the conclusion
of a two-part series on
Internet television station
GoodnessTV which airs
inspirational programs
on noble individuals and
groups who are uplifting
our world through
their sincere efforts
to better
the human condition.
The station’s founder is
Laurent Imbault,
a noted Canadian actor
and comedian.
Mr. Imbault starred
in the Canadian television
drama “Watatatow,”
a long-running series
that addressed
important social issues
faced by youth.
He has also appeared
in films produced both
in Canada and the USA.
As Mr. Imbault explains,
one of GoodnessTV’s
objectives is to connect
people and organizations
through its programs,
and thus accelerate
constructive change
around the globe.
The idea is to hopefully
create a network
of people sharing ideas,
sharing know-how,
knowledge, experiences,
so that things
can move a lot faster
than they’re moving now.
Because it seems to me
that every time people
want to do something,
they start from scratch.
They go in villages
and start from scratch,
and they never
share experiences
about what works,
what doesn’t work;
what has been done
in one country,
could work in another one.
But the ideas
are not shared because
there is no platform.
There is nowhere
where people can
share those ideas.
So GoodnessTV
really wants to become
‘goodness network’
where people can
exchange all these ideas
and grow faster.
I just recently
came back from India
where I spent three weeks.
And I met a lot of NGOs
in India.
And there are
a lot of good people,
a lot of good work
being done there.
For instance,
I met an organization
called Pragya,
and Pragya works
in the upper Himalayas,
10,000 feet and higher.
And my wife was recently
in Bolivia, and she met
a similar organization
in Bolivia which is called
Mano a Mano and
they work in the upper
Andes (mountains).
And when Pragya saw
the video that
my wife shot in Bolivia,
immediately they went,
“Wait a minute, we should
talk to one another
because we have
the same network,
framework of working.
We’re working
in the same conditions
more or less,
so maybe we have
developed know-how
that they can use.
And maybe they have
developed know-how
that we can use.”
Mr. Imbault, who realizes
that technological advances
provide a fantastic way
to bring people together
and give them hope,
shares his plans
for broadening the scope
of GoodnessTV.
And 10 years from now,
things are going
to be very different.
And things are going
to be very integrated,
where people can talk
and communicate.
And we’re working now
to develop web streaming,
like instantaneous
web streaming.
My wife was in Copenhagen
for the (climate) summit
in December,
and with the iPhone
she can suddenly capture
Desmond Tutu
doing a speech,
and we can broadcast it.
And it’s fantastic, and
the more it’s going to go,
the more people are going
to be able to streamline
and tell us what is
happening in the world.
And ultimately what
we wanted really to do
is to have
an actual television,
where you come
every morning and there’s
an anchorperson saying
"Hi, welcome to
Goodness TV,
this is Tuesday.
Today we’re having
people in South Africa,
there’s this happening
in South Africa,
there’s this thing
happening in Nairobi,
there’s this thing
happening in India," and
to have young reporters
in the field
in these countries
telling us every day
what is being done today.
What is good,
what is happening,
what is the good news today
in your part of the world,
tell us.
And we have
a newscast every day
with an anchorman saying,
"Well we have good news
coming from this place
and that place
and all over the world."
Because we need hope;
if the human mind
doesn’t have hope
he will not survive.
Why do we need stations
such as GoodnessTV?
Viewers may be inspired
by watching stories about
the kindness and nobility
that exists in our world
and wish to create
the very same spirit
where they live.
We live
because we have dreams.
If the human mind
could not dream,
we could not exist.
We are all, you and I,
and everybody
that’s watching this,
the product
of someone’s dream,
the product
of millions of dreams.
I personally go back
to the beginning
of the human race,
because somebody
dreamt of having a child,
and that person
dreamt of a better life
for his child or her child,
and I am the result
of all this dreaming.
And we need to dream
that we’re going to make it.
We need to dream
that the human mind
and the human spirit
will evolve into
a higher consciousness,
and that we’re going to
live in a world of peace.
When we return,
Mr. Imbault will discuss
how GoodnessTV is
helping a sincere, humble
Indian schoolteacher.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
Welcome back to
Good People, Good Works,
as we continue
our intriguing interview
with Canadian actor
Laurent Imbault,
founder of GoodnessTV.
Mr. Imbault believes
that media outlets
such as his can truly
benefit our world
in large and small ways,
and shares a recent
experience in India.
I think people need
to be happy.
I created something
while I was in India.
I had an idea, because
I met this wonderful guy
who invited me and my son
into his house.
HHHHhhhe comes from
a very small village.
He was very, very poor.
And through working
very hard at night and
trying to make money
he got a master’s degree
from a university.
And now he’s working
for a big, I think,
British corporation.
Anyway, he’s making money
and he’s well off.
And he, on a regular basis,
goes back to his village
and teaches French and
English to the children
in his village for free.
And I said, “Sunil,
what can I do for you?
Can I help?
Can I give you money?”
He says,
“I don’t need money.”
He says,
“But I will need pencils
and I will need erasers.
And I will need
school books.”
And I thought,
“Wait a minute.
There are probably,
hundreds of thousands
of people doing this
that don’t need money
that will need books
and school supplies.
So I’m going to
create something called
“Micro Goodness.”
And it’s going to be
a special area
in GoodnessTV where
you can go and say, “Oh!
This guy needs 12 pencils.
I can go to the pharmacy;
I can go to the store
and easily buy 12 pencils,
put them in an envelope,
put his name on it and
mail it. That I can do!”
It’s not a big thing.
But for him, it’s major.
There’s people in Africa,
there’s people in Asia,
there’s people
all over the world
trying to teach other kids
that have
absolutely nothing.
They have no blackboard,
they have no chalk,
and they have nothing.
I can certainly
help those people.
And ordinary people
can read this and say,
“Hey! What is 12 pencils?
What is CAD$10
of school supplies?
I can go to the store
and buy that, and
put that in an envelope,
put a name on it
and mail it.”
And we need to get a sense
that you and I
can change things.
There’s so much more
we can do
that will give us a feeling
of accomplishment,
a feeling of
having done something.
Today I did something
for another human being.
I helped somebody today.
And that
makes me feel good,
makes them feel good,
and it helps the kids.
Although GoodnessTV
has only been on the air
for less than a year,
Laurent Imbault
is encouraged
by the response
he receives from viewers.
I get a lot of feedback.
I get people
who write to me and
thank me for doing this.
People will post comments
on the website.
We created a blog
about two weeks ago;
while I was in India,
I started to write a blog,
and now we’re going
to add a forum to this.
To Mr. Imbault,
running GoodnessTV
is an act of love,
and is similar
to creating a work of art.
I am a professional actor.
I am an artist,
and I approached this
the way an artist
would approach it.
An artist wants
to create something;
he doesn’t want
to create it to sell it.
He wants to create it
because he has
an immense urge to create.
This was done
the same way;
It’s not a question
that I am creating this
to make money,
I am creating this
because I am an artist
and I think that
it’s my need to create it.
Devoting his time, energy
and personal finances
to this worthwhile
and praiseworthy project,
Laurent Imbault views
GoodnessTV
as his gift to the world.
To me this is my legacy
to the world.
I am not very good
at caretaking, I could
never go out in the field,
like people
that go to Haiti and
go to Africa and help.
I am not very good at that.
I know that.
But this is what I can do.
My little contribution
is Goodness TV, because
I am good at that.
I am good with producing,
I am an actor,
I can talk to a camera,
I can do narrations,
I am good with people,
so that I can do.
So this is my legacy,
Goodness TV.
This is what I am giving
to the world.
May Providence bless you
Mr. Imbault and
dedicated associates for
your kind-hearted efforts
to improve
and uplift our world.
We wish GoodnessTV
great success
in the future, and
may many more people
benefit from
its refreshing programs.
For more details
on GoodnessTV,
please visit:
www.GoodnessTV.org
Thank you
for watching today’s
Good People, Good Works
here on
Supreme Master Television.
The World Around Us
is next,
after Noteworthy News.
May we all forever enjoy
inner peace and tranquility.