Seventeen-year-old Nosa Akol was born in Sudan and moved to the states when she was 5 years-old. Akol says throughout her childhood and teens she was teased because of her dark skin. The taunts ate away at what little self-esteem her tumultuous life had permitted.
In response, she folded into herself and tried to disappear into the crowds at West Middle School, then Binghamton High in New York. The sharp barbs shaped her personality. “It made me really insecure when I passed by large groups,” she said.
But when she discovered the opportunities open to her through the 4-H Club, and Nosa, then a high school freshman, threw herself into one project after another. As National 4-H Council has named Nosa the 2015 recipient of the 4-H Youth in Action Award, she seems well on her way.
“Through the work that I will do in my life, I want to be known as the person who saw an issue, became the change, and did something about it,” Nosa stated.
Nosa will receive a $10,000 scholarship and was honored on April 23 at National 4-H Council’s sixth annual Legacy Awards in Washington, D.C., but while Nosa look forwards to her bright future, she also remembers where she came from.
Before she graduates from BHS she’ll have partnered with 4-H alumnus and rising food star Lazarus Lynch to spearhead a Hunger Banquet and Poverty Simulation that will aim to encourage the community to help end world hunger.
“I was a shy hermit of a girl,” Nosa said, “and now I’m trying to make a difference.”
article via clutchmagonline.com
Posts published in “International”
Sanga Moses is a passionate social entrepreneur. Six years ago the Uganda native started a remarkable journey to launch a clean and sustainable energy initiative in his homeland.
In an audacious move, he quit his accounting job with just $500 in savings to find a solution to Uganda’s over reliance on wood-fuel for cooking, which was causing deforestation and socio-economic issues in his impoverished community.
In an interview with UrbanGeekz, he says he was inspired to take action after he witnessed his 12-year-old sister skip school to carry firewood to their family for fuel. At that moment he knew he had to do whatever he could to find an alternative source of fuel, he says.
“When my sister saw me, she started crying and told me she was tired of missing school to gather firewood,” he says. “This troubled me so much because I was paying school fees for my sister and wanted her to get an education.”
Moses spent a year researching possible solutions until he figured he could turn farm and municipal waste [sugarcane waste, coffee husks and rice husks etc.], which was abundant, into eco-friendly cooking fuel, that’s cleaner and 65 percent cheaper than wood-fuel.
By April 2010, Sanga launched Eco-fuel Africa. “I had to sell most of my belongings, including my bed, to pay for the launch,” says Moses, who’s a Business Administration college graduate. “Even so, Eco-fuel Africa [EFA] introduced its first products in November 2010, less than two years after I saw my sister carrying her bundle of wood.”
Eco-fuel Africa trains farmers to turn agricultural waste into char powder, which is used as a substitute for wood-fuel. The non-profit serves more than 115,000 people on a daily basis and demand for their fuel exceeds supply. It uses its proceeds to plant trees. The target is to plant at least a quarter of a billion trees in Africa by 2020.
“Fewer forests are being depleted and there are more jobs for women and farmers since Eco-fuel Africa began,” he adds, “ We have also seen more girls enroll and stay in school. Currently, 4,209 marginalized girls in Uganda are able to go to school consistently because of our project.”
“Now that we have found an effective formula, I am determined to expand the system and replicate it to other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa,” Moses says.
In fact, Eco-fuel Africa is the 2014 recipient of Verizon’s 2014 Powerful Answer Award, a global challenge that rewards ideas that leverage cutting-edge technology to create solutions that deliver social good.
To read the rest of this story, click through to: urbangeekz.com
In the middle of 54,000 runners at last week’s Paris Marathon, Siabatou Sanneh stood out. Carrying a 40-pound (20kg) water container on her head and wearing her race number 64173 on top of a multi-colored traditional dress, Siabatou wanted to make a statement.
It was the first time the mother of four had ever left her country, Gambia, but this didn’t deter her from wanting to raise awareness about the difficulties African women face in accessing clean drinking water. Siabatou was there on the behalf of Water for Africa, a non-profit which builds boreholes in her village.
“I came to Paris to do the marathon to raise awareness and help the African women get clean water for their domestic use – for drinking, cooking, washing and gardening to grow agriculture,” the 43-year-old told IBTimes UK, speaking through a translator.
“In my country, you grow what you eat and you eat what you grow, but you can only do that with sufficient water.”
By walking the marathon with a plastic barrel of water on her head, Siabatou is hoping to send a message to the leaders at the 7th World Water Forum – which runs until April 17th in Daegu-Gyeongbuk, South Korea. Her statement is simple: she does not want to be drinking water from wells any more.
“I want them to help us dig bore holes, a sustainable water source, but not only more holes, I want more sustainable ones too. That’s all we need. I don’t want my children to be collecting water from dirty wells when they are older,” she said.
In Gambia, Water For Africa estimates between 200 and 300 water pumps would be necessary to supply the population and overcome the 40% to 60% of wells or pumping systems that are crumbling.
Siabatou, who lives in the small village of Bullenghat, which has a population of 300, first started collecting water when she was just five-years-old. “I wake up in the morning, and go and collect water from a well. I have to walk 8km there, and back. I do this three times a day at least.”
It was the first time the mother of four had ever left her country, Gambia, but this didn’t deter her from wanting to raise awareness about the difficulties African women face in accessing clean drinking water. Siabatou was there on the behalf of Water for Africa, a non-profit which builds boreholes in her village.
“I came to Paris to do the marathon to raise awareness and help the African women get clean water for their domestic use – for drinking, cooking, washing and gardening to grow agriculture,” the 43-year-old told IBTimes UK, speaking through a translator.
“In my country, you grow what you eat and you eat what you grow, but you can only do that with sufficient water.”
By walking the marathon with a plastic barrel of water on her head, Siabatou is hoping to send a message to the leaders at the 7th World Water Forum – which runs until April 17th in Daegu-Gyeongbuk, South Korea. Her statement is simple: she does not want to be drinking water from wells any more.
“I want them to help us dig bore holes, a sustainable water source, but not only more holes, I want more sustainable ones too. That’s all we need. I don’t want my children to be collecting water from dirty wells when they are older,” she said.
In Gambia, Water For Africa estimates between 200 and 300 water pumps would be necessary to supply the population and overcome the 40% to 60% of wells or pumping systems that are crumbling.
Siabatou, who lives in the small village of Bullenghat, which has a population of 300, first started collecting water when she was just five-years-old. “I wake up in the morning, and go and collect water from a well. I have to walk 8km there, and back. I do this three times a day at least.”
At a time when tens of thousands of American students are getting turned away from their first, second and even third college picks, Harold Ekeh, of Long Island, N.Y., has an enviable quandary: deciding which of the eight Ivy League colleges he will attend next year, according to CBS New York.
For all his hard work and accomplishments, the Elmont High School salutatorian was no less surprised when the acceptance letters arrived.
“Absolutely shocked,” Ekeh tells the television news station about the acceptances. “It was as though I was hit repeatedly. I was stunned.”
Ekeh, whose family immigrated to the city eight years ago from Nigeria, tells the station that he credits his academic success with his family’s humble beginnings, thirst for education and a strong desire to make a meaningful mark on society.
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“I am just thanking god for what he is doing for my family in the life of my son,” Harold’s mother Roseline told CBS News. She works for a human resources agency in Queens, N.Y., while his father Paul works in the traffic division of the New York Police Department.
“I am overwhelmed,” Paul tells the news outlet. “To say that I am proud is not enough, it is awesome.”
Although Ekeh spent most of his high school years focused on complicated biochemistry experiments, he volunteered on social justice campaigns, served as a mentor and participated in sports. He was also elected to Elmont’s homecoming court and honor society.
“Kids would say, ‘I want to be a firefighter or a police officer or a superhero.’ I would say I want to explore the human body, what makes us who we are,” he said, “I would like to be a neurosurgeon when I grow up.”
As for which school he’ll pick, he leaning toward Yale, but plans to visit the other schools in upcoming weeks.
“I am very humbled by this,” he said. “I see this as not an accomplishment for me, but as an accomplishment for my school, my community. Because I really see this as my mission to inspire the next generation.”
Visitors to the United Nations headquarters in New York will get a powerful reminder of the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade and its enormous impact on world history through a visually stunning new memorial that was unveiled last week in a solemn ceremony.
There were speeches intended to touch the emotionality of a system that operated for hundreds of years, killing an estimated 15 million African men, women and children and sending millions more into the jaws of a vicious system of plantation slavery in the Americas.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called slavery “a stain on human history.”
U.N. General Assembly President Sam Kutesa said slavery remained one of the “darkest and most abhorrent chapters” in world history.
It was only fitting that the ceremony take place at a site surrounded by the looming skyscrapers of New York. Slavery was the economic engine upon which American capitalism was built, providing the seed money for United States businesses to create the most vibrant economic system in the world. The enslaved Black person (whose gender is purposely vague to represent men, women and children) lying inside the dramatically shaped marble memorial, which is called The Ark of Return, is a symbol of the millions whose deaths led to the building of those skyscrapers, the visual emblems of American capitalism’s enormous financial windfall for the white beneficiaries of slavery and their descendants.
During his speech unveiling the memorial, Ban Ki-moon spoke directly to Black people in the Americas and the Caribbean who are descended from the enslaved Black people who were sacrificed.
Claudia Rankine, the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College in Claremont, California, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry for her book Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, 2014).
Rankine’s poetry recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Citizen is her fifth published poetry collection.
Earlier this year, Professor Rankine made literary history when she was the first author to have a work nominated as a finalist in two categories in the 39-year history of the National Book Critics Circle Awards.
Professor Rankine is a native of Jamaica. She is a graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and holds a master of fine arts degree in poetry from Columbia University.
article via jbhe.com
Trevor Noah, a South African comedian with a low profile in the United States, will inherit one of the most-watched pulpits in latenight TV: Jon Stewart’s desk on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show.”
The Viacom-owned outlet said the comic’s debut as host would be announced at a later date.
The Viacom-owned outlet said the comic’s debut as host would be announced at a later date.
In choosing Noah, a 31-year-old of mixed-race parentage, Comedy Central is banking that following a tried-and-true formula will keep the program that is arguably the linchpin of its schedule top of mind among its core audience of young male viewers. Twice now, executives at the network have identified an up-and-coming talent, and we’re rewarded on both occasions with a higher profile for the show. Noah will be only the third host of the program, following an early stint by Craig Kilborn and Stewart’s well-chronicled reign.
Noah has “such a unique and powerful voice,” said Michele Ganeless, Comedy Central’s president, in an interview Monday morning. Executives feel he is “a gifted comedian and storyteller,” she added. “He was not a new face to us, but he will be to a lot of people.” Stewart himself was involved as an “adviser” in the selection process, she said.
Noah has the kind of experience that would seem to be de rigueur for a host of “The Daily Show,” which, under Stewart has not only made fun of headlines of the day, but also of the news outlets that deliver them. Noah has hosted numerous television shows, including his own latenight talk show in his native country, “Tonight With Trevor Noah.” And he is no stranger to analyzing controversial topics. Born in South African to a black South African mother and a white Swiss father, he once told an audience, “I was born a crime,” according to a 2013 report in the Wall Street Journal.
With that sort of willingness to discuss sensitive topics head-on, Noah would appear to fit the bill being written under Kent Alterman, the network’s president of original programming. In the recent past, Comedy Central has sought people able to articulate a unique world view. The network has found success with programs featuring comedienne Amy Schumer as well as Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, a duo who star in the program “Broad City.”
Set to make its New York premiere tonight, March 29, 2015, at 9:30pm, at the New Voices in Black Cinema Festival, at BAMcinématek in Brooklyn, NY, is “Black Panther Woman” – director Rachel Perkins‘ documentary on the little known Brisbane chapter of the Black Panther Party, which was directly inspired by the American Black Panthers.
To pre-purchase tickets, visit http://www.bam.org/film/2015/black-panther-woman.
Central to the film is Marlene Cummins (photo above), who was introduced to Australia’s Black Panther Party in 1972, when she met and fell in love with its leader, beginning her education into the Black Power movement.
This Australian chapter of the Black Panther Party adapted the politics and style of the American Black Panther Party, from the clothing to their defiance, attracting the attention of the local authorities. Yet, unlike their American comrades, who numbered in the thousands across America, the Australian chapter comprised of just 10 members – young Aboriginal people who staged educational theatre shows, kept watch on the police on what they called ‘pig patrols,’ and were at the forefront of demonstrations, including the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
According to director Rachel Perkins, what began as a straightforward story, recounting the Black Panther Party in Australia, slowly revealed itself as something more. The tensions around the movement and her personal life tightened around Marlene, and finally led to the break up of her relationship with the party’s leader. Marlene filled the vacuum with alcohol and quickly spiralled into a cycle of addiction that left her vulnerable on the streets. Her vulnerability and her belief in the movement made her a target for black men in power. Marlene recalls the incident of her rape, by two Indigenous leaders, after which she made the difficult decision to stay silent. Dedicated to the cause, and distrustful of police, she, like other Aboriginal women facing abuse, chose to stay silent to protect the movement from criticism.
According to director Rachel Perkins, what began as a straightforward story, recounting the Black Panther Party in Australia, slowly revealed itself as something more. The tensions around the movement and her personal life tightened around Marlene, and finally led to the break up of her relationship with the party’s leader. Marlene filled the vacuum with alcohol and quickly spiralled into a cycle of addiction that left her vulnerable on the streets. Her vulnerability and her belief in the movement made her a target for black men in power. Marlene recalls the incident of her rape, by two Indigenous leaders, after which she made the difficult decision to stay silent. Dedicated to the cause, and distrustful of police, she, like other Aboriginal women facing abuse, chose to stay silent to protect the movement from criticism.
Léopoldine Doualla-Bell Smith vividly remembers her first flight at the tender age of 17.
“I was yelling and screaming and [the other flight attendant] was telling me to calm down,” she recalls, laughing at the memory of the first time she’d experienced soaring amid the clouds in an airplane. “I kept thinking, ‘what if I die?'”
Doualla-Bell Smith had no idea that first flight – as terrifying as it seemed – would mark the beginning of an illustrious aviation industry career that would ultimately span nearly five decades and earn the honorable distinction of being known as one of the world’s first black flight attendants.
In celebration of their 40th anniversary, the Black Flight Attendants of America recently honored Doualla-Bell Smith, 76, now retired in Denver, for her years of service at the Flight Path Museum at the Los Angeles International Airport.
“When I heard of Mrs. Smith’s generous humanitarian efforts and spirit of volunteerism, I knew she had to have been a woman of substance of whom we all should be proud,” explains event chairperson Diane Hunter. “Everyone should know of her ‘journey’ to become the first black flight attendant in the world: on every continent and particularly in this country where we were emerged in a historic struggle for equal civil rights under the laws of the [U.S.] Constitution.”
History buffs may know that Ruth Carol Taylor is on record as the first African-American flight attendant in the United States. Her initial flight was reportedly February 11, 1958 on a Mohawk Airlines flight from Ithaca to New York. Unfortunately her career abruptly ended six months later due to a common practice among airlines of the day of releasing flight attendants who got married or became pregnant.
As a stewardess with Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT) Doualla-Bell Smith, who was born in the West African nation of Cameroon, actually took flight for the first time the year before Taylor in 1957.
“When I was young there were only white men and women working on the plane,” she remembers. “I was one of the first blacks to be hired and it was a big deal; everybody in my town was talking about it. It was even in the newspaper.”
Her aviation career took off early on when Doualla-Bell Smith, a princess of the royal Douala family of Cameroon, accepted an after-school job as a ground hostess with UAT (which later merged into the Union de Transports Aériens or UTA), the airline that, along with Air France served, France’s African routes. She stayed on for two years and after graduating from high school in 1956 at the age of 17, Doualla-Bell Smith was recruited and sent to Paris for flight training by Air France.
She joined UAT a year later as an “hôtesse de l’air,” what flight attendants were called then. By 1960, she was recruited by Air Afrique, a Pan-African airline mainly owned by many West African countries created to serve 11 newly independent French-speaking nations.
In fact, her stellar credentials as an African with French aviation experience helped her stand out so much she became the airline’s first official hire (in fact, her employee identification card literally read “no. 001”). It didn’t take long for her to get promoted to Air Afrique’s first cabin chief position.
Mo’Ne Davis just gave us all one more reason to love her. The history-making teen athlete is pairing with M4D3, a social enterprise that collaborates with organizations and personalities to raise funds and help create social change. M4D3, which stands for Make A Difference Everyday, is currently joining forces with Because I Am A Girl, “a global initiative to end gender inequality, promote girls’ rights and lift millions of girls – and everyone around them – out of poverty.”
Through the new partnership, Davis is designing her own line of sneakers to aid girls who are victimized by poverty in developing countries. The limited edition kicks are running for $75 a pair, and 15% of all sales will go to Plan International USA’s Because I am a Girl initiative—a campaign to lift four million girls in the developing world out of poverty.
Mo’Ne Davis by M4D3, the designer’s collection, is quite stylish too. The sneakers are currently available for pre-order in three color options. They are lace-up suede and canvas, and feature symbolic baseball stitching. What’s super cool is each sneaker is marked with a fine “Mo’Ne” signature print on the sides.
“I never thought at the age of 13 I’d be a role model, but having young girls look up to me is pretty cool,” Davis said, according to Clutch. “If I can inspire them to reach their goals, that would be even cooler. Designing shoes with M4D3 is exciting and I wanted them to support Because I am a Girl to help girls and give them a chance at a better future.”
Well, there you have it. Mo’Ne Davis is officially one of our favorite humans on the planet. The sneakers are available in women and kid sizes.
article by Essence Gant via blackenterprise.com
Through the new partnership, Davis is designing her own line of sneakers to aid girls who are victimized by poverty in developing countries. The limited edition kicks are running for $75 a pair, and 15% of all sales will go to Plan International USA’s Because I am a Girl initiative—a campaign to lift four million girls in the developing world out of poverty.
Mo’Ne Davis by M4D3, the designer’s collection, is quite stylish too. The sneakers are currently available for pre-order in three color options. They are lace-up suede and canvas, and feature symbolic baseball stitching. What’s super cool is each sneaker is marked with a fine “Mo’Ne” signature print on the sides.
“I never thought at the age of 13 I’d be a role model, but having young girls look up to me is pretty cool,” Davis said, according to Clutch. “If I can inspire them to reach their goals, that would be even cooler. Designing shoes with M4D3 is exciting and I wanted them to support Because I am a Girl to help girls and give them a chance at a better future.”
Well, there you have it. Mo’Ne Davis is officially one of our favorite humans on the planet. The sneakers are available in women and kid sizes.
article by Essence Gant via blackenterprise.com