News
The latest news from the African Leadership Institute and its Fellows. AFLI Fellows are leaders and change-makers, so this section has a lot of news. All text in all of the posts is fully searchable.
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As a survivor of kidney disease, 2010 Fellow Lorna Irungu shares in her TEDx talk some important life lessons. The first one she offers is the importance of being well informed. She goes on to say how important it is to surround yourself with the right kind of people who believe in you and support you in any way. She gave her talk in July, 2012.
Running through the statistics of the number of people who die annually of kidney disease in the world - 2.5 million people - she points out how daunting these numbers are and the impacts are on the people affected. Despite that, she says it is very important for people to not identify themselves with the situation they are in, in order to become a conqueror of the situation rather than a victim.
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In 2011, 2014 Tutu Fellow Mokena Makeka spoke at a TEDx event in Mfuleni township about the relationship between democracy and design. His perspective as an architect revealed to him how lot of problems are caused by the way design is used to separate and affect people.
Mokena is the Director of Makeka Design Lab an international award-winning Architecture practice. He said he noticed how areas of Cape Town that were more vulnerable to floods were inhabited by poorer people, while the ones with great views had homes for more privileged ones. This was not just about colonialism or apartheid, he said. It was about the conscious choices of design in society.
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2013 Tutu Fellow Dr Francois Bonnici shares in his TEDx talk in 2010 the issue of newborn survival. He starts out by asking which seems more dangerous - bungy jumping, shark infested waters, air travel? Rather, he says, it is infant mortality. The day we are born is the day we have the highest risk of dying.
Statistics show how incredibly big an issue newborn mortality is, and how investment in health has had great strides in improving the numbers. In some countries in Africa, the numbers can be as high as one child in 16 dies at birth. He has been trying to change the African health system and to raise awareness by working in humanitarian and development programs.
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2009 Tutu Fellow Andrew Mwenda asks the audience at a TED talk in 2007 to reframe the "African question" - to look beyond the media's stories of poverty, civil war and helplessness and see the opportunities for creating wealth and happiness throughout the continent.
Andrew points out that the solution to Africa’s problems is not to increase the foreign aid, because that it comes with reinforcing negative narratives - but instead to reframe how aid can be best used. Among the consequences of the continent being seen in a bad light is that it appears as if it is only a place of despair, rather than one of great potential and opportunities.
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