My aspiration is to be one of the builders of a world of equality, a world where diversity is respected and value for people's lives is paramount. A world where religion and culture are not used as weapons of dispute and destruction, where leaders serve and not steal, where everyone does not pretend to love each other but does so straight from the heart.
You will be missed Sindi Medar-gould.
You have inspired many. You have touched endless lives (mine
inclusive). A wonderful leader, an ardent feminist, a committed
change-maker. Am glad we passed through each other's ways. You will be
loved forever- till the end of my days.
rings and roses vanish, fleet and pass without leaving a trace.
but words are forever so, speak for this love lives on words
and words alone can ink themselves deep into my heart and
not rings, not roses, not a new house. no. no.
speak and i will live on your words, i will drink every word and i will
follow the breath of your lips to where it will land a new loving word.
no rings, no roses - they vanish, they fleet, they pass;
speak! and i will swallow your words deep into me
and make of them my core and essence. yes. yes.
keep speaking and giving me words big and small.
my darling artist, keep talking, writing and
painting your words and in all of them i will delight.
but like my Lord i will ask again that if you build me a mansion then you should build it in
the path of a flood.
The African Leadership Centre is pleased to announce that from the 2013-2014 academic year it will be offering two new MSc programmes at King's College, London. These two fantastic postgraduate programmes are:
1. The MSc Leadership & Development.
2. The MSc Security, Leadership & Society.
Both programmes are available now for online application via the King’s College London application system.To apply for The MSc Leadership & Development please visit:
You are looking the opportunity to advance your knowledge on leadership, security, development and the society with practical tools and solutions? You have found the answers!
I gave birth to Adelaide Shekwoshimi Hideyoshi Ogidion May 30 2007. I was 46 years old, eleven years older than his father and Adelaide(Adel for short) is our Only child. He was diagnosed with two holes in the heart (a PDA and VSD) when he was 5 months old. His life was ebbing away as his heart grew weaker, larger, occupying virtually all his chest, with more than 50% shunt of the blood pumped from his heart into his lungs. He was weak and blue when I took him to Hudrulaya Narayana (a Heart Hospital) in Bangalore where he had a surgery with support from feminists and friends like Meena Seshu, Pramada Menon, Bene Madunagu, and the humanitarian desk of the hospital. This is where Adel was diagnosed with the Down Syndrome.
He recovered gradually from the impact of the heart condition
He took a little longer in his case to sit without support, crawl, stand and took his first steps when he was 26 months old.
At this point, I had started bombarding him with Sesame Street, Barney and Vegetale videos. He took interest in them was learned over the next two years to say his alphabets, sing along and dance.
In all the sessions we had, with his paediatricians and the endocrinologist, they were convinced that he could cope in a regular school because he displayed high level of intelligence. The Endocrinologist in fact concluded that he must have the mosaic pattern of down syndrome since other children his age could not do certain tasks that Adel was capable of.
At four I enrolled him in a kindergarten class of a faith based institution. I moved him from there to a private Primary School believing that they had a standard that will enable Adel progress well in his education.
Till this point, I had had to fight discrimination and stigma including from family members (his father and his relatives) who saw Adel as an abnormal and handicapped child. The traditional way of receiving a child born into a family was not performed for Adel. All through the hospitalisation and surgery, his father’s relations did not visit him in the hospital. A huge statement of rejection given what should ordinarily have been the case in a cultural setting where extended families are closely knit.
At three, Adel could call elevators, select the floors, he could identify our hotel rooms, he could tell his way around town, as wrong turns would draw a cry. From the age of two, he could operate the DVD player, select channels from the TV, operate the mobile phone in and out of various folders, identify all the letters of the alphabet and numbers in whatever order they are presented, including mirror image.
In November 2011, his father left us discontinuing his financial support. One of the reasons he gave was that since I was treating cancer (I have been on treatment for CA breast since December 2010 when I had RMM) and was not in a position to give birth to more children, and the only son I gave him was not normal, he needed to go find some other woman who will have more children for him. It was an additional pain when in September 2012 the School wrote me a letter advising me to withdraw my son from their school. This was shocking because he had passed his examinations. Convinced that his expulsion from school was a discrimination based on his birth condition, I sued the school and presented evidence of his continually improving performance. The Judge ruled on 14th February 2013 that the school had acted “in the best interest of the child”. To pursue appeal on the case, is further depletion of resources needed for his education especially since financial support from his father was no longer forth coming.
With the little resources I had left I approached other much cheaper schools to get him back to school, but the efforts have failed. He is constantly rejected and I am told to take him to the school of the “deaf and dump”, only school for people with hearing and speech impairment.
The options I have exist only outside Minna, the town where I live and work. Please I need your financial support to take him to Abuja or Lagos to offer him the education he so desperately needs and record a success story that debunks myths, stereotypes and taboos.
I thank you, Adel thanks you For taking the time to read our story and for your anticipated support.
Contribute your token to Adel's education's please by visiting Indiegogo
What is going on? Why have we turned into a continent of beggars?
Our leaders go abroad to beg for “aid” to support the national budget or else they can’t run our countries. They beg for loans, grants, and experts to develop Africa. It makes no sense, when you have everything you need at home to cook a good meal, to go begging your neighbour for their food."
What is going on in Africa? From Burkina Faso to Madagascar, from presidents to street children, I have never come across so much begging in my life. Every single day, no matter which African country I am in, I am accosted by beggars. And I don’t just mean the regular beggars we see on the streets everywhere in the world. No. The African culture of begging permeates all spheres of life–from extended family members to the young bank teller; everyone seems to think begging is okay. In fact, some of us have even become professional beggars and live solely by this way of life. Can you imagine the frustration of arriving in a country and dealing with immigration staff that are nothing more than beggars in uniform? I have known situations where immigration officers, on the pretence of checking for contraband goods, have rummaged through my belongings and begged for whatever item catches their fancy.
Recently, on arriving at the airport in Accra, Ghana, I was disgusted when an immigration officer actually begged that I give him the biscuits I had bought for my children. Just ordinary biscuits, which he could easily have bought on the streets of Accra! Naturally I refused. Can you believe another young officer escorted me to my waiting car, all the while trying to convince me to part with the biscuits? What kind of begging is this? After extracting myself from that irritating situation, it was time to go home. But not before the hangers-on at the airport had demanded I give them “pounds or coins”. All across the continent, you see young men standing at the airports, ready to help you push your trolley to your car for some “small change”. Whether you seek their assistance or not, everybody is keen to “help” you.
But of course you soon find out this “help” comes at a cost. These days, one of the biggest beggars (like our immigration officers) also comes in uniform. I am talking about African policemen and women. Even if you are the victim of a crime, the police have no shame in begging you for money before coming to your assistance. Right now, drivers in Ghana are being accosted every day and night by these “beggars in uniform”. Because of the high incidence of robberies in the past, the Ghana police started mounting barriers at night, as a way to protect innocent members of society. The idea really is for the police to search each vehicle to make sure it is not full of robbers carrying dangerous weapons such as guns.
Instead, when a driver gets to a barrier, the police shine their pathetic torch lights in the car and, sometimes, ask for something “small for iced water or Fanta”. I mean, what kind of life is this? Why should policemen and women turn themselves into professional beggars? I know they are underpaid, but come on, begging for money from the populace is not cool. These “beggars in uniform” are all over the streets of West Africa and travelling by road from say Ghana to Benin is no laughing matter. You will come across so many barriers and you know at each one, a beggar in uniform will demand something from you. For doing their job! That is what gets to me the most. The majority of people begging in Africa are in full-time gainful employment.
Yet they beg for money from you for them to do their jobs! Can you imagine, after withdrawing your money from a bank, the bank teller begs for “something” from you? I have heard of secretaries who, no matter how many times you visit their offices, will tell you their boss is unavailable. Yet the same secretaries have no shame in begging you for “something”. “Something” which, when it materialises, guarantees you a meeting with the “absent” boss.
This culture of begging has permeated the whole African social order, from our governments down to every sector of society. In the classrooms, teachers beg schoolchildren for their “luxury foods” such as apples which they cannot afford on a teacher’s salary. Pathetic but true! Visit any establishment and the security officer will act as if he is helping you to find a parking lot. The minute you step out of your car, the begging starts: “Oh madam, I dey ooo!”You stop at the traffic lights and young children who are supposedly trying to earn a living by cleaning your car windows or selling chewing gum, all of a sudden turn into professional beggars. These days, many of our young men are creating work for themselves by filling in the potholes on our roads, whilst at the same time begging for money!
What is going on? Why have we turned into a continent of beggars?
Our leaders go abroad to beg for “aid” to support the national budget or else they can’t run our countries. They beg for loans, grants, and experts to develop Africa. It makes no sense, when you have everything you need at home to cook a good meal, to go begging your neighbour for their food. You may not be a good cook, but once you have the ingredients, surely you can only try? For as long as we keep begging foreigners to produce for us, we will never know how to manufacture anything. We may not know how to mine and polish diamonds, but how can we know when we do not learn? We would rather beg foreign investors to come and do it for us, on their own terms! "
Words by Standtall-The Activist Song/Instrumentation written and sung by Donald Molosi
I wrote and blogged this poem in 2009 and Donald has made an outstanding job of making it more meaningful by making it into a song. This is fantastic!
Girl Soldier - Injustice, corruption, discrimination she saw. Deeply entrenched in her society. Ruling all and sundry. She carried a gun to fight. Gun of truth. Gun of passion. Gun of selfless service.
