Ten current and former African first ladies joined former U.S. first lady Laura Bush and Cherie Blair, wife of the former U.K. prime minister, today at a Pardee RAND Graduate School-organized forum focused on becoming more effective leaders.
The first ladies had a rare opportunity to meet with peers in a private, facilitated discussion that covered the opportunities and challenges of their unique roles. The conversations were designed to help first ladies become champions of change in their home countries on issues such as women’s health, girls’ education and women’s economic empowerment.
Posts published in “International”
Ten current and former African first ladies joined former U.S. first lady Laura Bush and Cherie Blair, wife of the former U.K. prime minister, today at a Pardee RAND Graduate School-organized forum focused on becoming more effective leaders.
The first ladies had a rare opportunity to meet with peers in a private, facilitated discussion that covered the opportunities and challenges of their unique roles. The conversations were designed to help first ladies become champions of change in their home countries on issues such as women’s health, girls’ education and women’s economic empowerment.
Oprah Winfrey poses with the graduates on her arrival at the inaugural graduation of the class of 2011 at Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls on January 14, 2012 in Henley on Klip, South Africa. (Photo by Michelly Rall/Getty Images)
The Oprah Winfrey Network will premiere a television special on October 14 following the journey of the first graduating class from Oprah’s Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. The two-hour special, The First Graduating Class: Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, will give viewers a look into the challenges and victories the 72 girls, who were only twelve and thirteen when they left home to enroll in the school, faced during their time at the academy.
Maud Chifamba, middle, started her studies in accounting September 10 at the University of Zimbabwe. Aged 14, she is the country’s youngest ever university student.
(CNN) — She grew up in grinding poverty, losing both her parents at a tender age but 14-year-old whizz-kid Maud Chifamba has defied adversity and hardship to break academic records. Against all odds, the extremely bright teenager has written history as last week she became the youngest ever university student in Zimbabwe — as well as the whole of southern Africa, according to education officials.
Supermodel, former refugee and UNHCR Refugee Advocate, Alek Wek at a way station with UNHCR in Juba, South Sudan dancing with children. UNHCR/B.Sokol/July 10, 2012
Supermodel Alek Wek has come far, her journey from her native Sudan to the realm of high fashion rendering her a star. “I think the most important thing especially is that fashion should celebrate women,” the world-renowned beauty said of her profession walking runways and gracing magazine covers. Yet, the fairy tale ending to Wek’s arduous trek from Africa to London has not dulled her memories of the war that uprooted her family. Wek spoke to theGrio after journeying back to her region of birth to help those still suffering from that conflict’s aftermath.
Mark Tonderai goes over a scene with star Jennifer Lawrence in Relativity Media’s thriller ‘House at the End of the Street.’ © 2011 HATES, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Photo Credit: Albert Camicioli
House at the End of the Street hits theaters today just as Halloween season approaches.
The horror film, which stars Jennifer Lawrence of The Hunger Games fame, tells the story of a mother and daughter who move to a new neighborhood only to learn that a young girl killed her parents in the house next to them. Lawrence, who plays the daughter, Elissa, becomes friends with the surviving son and finds that the mystery has only begun to unfold. Oscar nominee Elisabeth Shue stars alongside Lawrence as her mother Sarah.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wphg2Rx9RQY&w=560&h=315]
The director behind the psychological thriller is Mark Tonderai. He first made his debut as a director in 2008 with another horror film called Hush, which received a lot of praise and was nominated for a British Independent Film Award.
Figures inside the African Burial Ground museum, depicting a burial. (Amal Chen/The Epoch Times)
NEW YORK—The African Burial Ground National Monument, a hallowed resting place for slaves for more than a century and from which 419 remains were exhumed in the early ’90s, is set to reopen after renovations finish in October. The burial ground is on the corner of Duane and Elk Streets, just north of City Hall.
IATP Food and Community Fellow and vegan chef Bryant Terry was named a member of the American Chef Corps, part of the State Department’s Diplomatic Culinary Partnership. The American Chef Corps will create a network of more than eighty culinary leaders dedicated to sharing the diverse culinary traditions of the United States by hosting meals for diplomats and providing cooking demonstrations at home or abroad, among other opportunities.
IATP Food and Community Fellow and vegan chef Bryant Terry was named a member of the American Chef Corps, part of the State Department’s Diplomatic Culinary Partnership. The American Chef Corps will create a network of more than eighty culinary leaders dedicated to sharing the diverse culinary traditions of the United States by hosting meals for diplomats and providing cooking demonstrations at home or abroad, among other opportunities.
In this 1996 photo released by Ana de la Merced Guimaraes, bones from African slaves sit in boxes after being recovered by Guimaraes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Ana de la Merced Guimaraes)
RIO DE JANEIRO — Wearing full-skirted white dresses and turbans, the religious leaders chanted blessings and sprinkled water on the concrete floor of a modest house near this city’s port. Beneath their feet were the remains of tens of thousands of African slaves who had died shortly after arriving from their horrific sea voyage. The bodies had been dumped into a fetid, open-air cemetery, often chopped up and mixed with trash. With the 15-minute ceremony this week, the Afro-Brazilian priests were finally giving the slaves at least the semblance of a proper burial centuries later.