Tradition is not a frozen thing: Notes from Session 7, Power up

Alsarah and the Nubatones bring a new twist on traditional East African pop. As Alsarah tells it: “Tradition is not a frozen thing, it’s not a stagnant thing. Tradition is merely a conversation between you and the future about your past.” They perform at TEDGlobal 2017: Builders. Truth-Tellers. Catalysts., on Wednesday, August 30, 2017, in Arusha, Tanzania. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Human potential is a double-edged sword; it can be turned to great good or great evil. This session is about the discovery, liberation and channeling of human potential in ways that make the world around us a better place.

But first, Alsarah & the Nubatones introduce us to East African retro-pop. As Alsarah says from stage mid-set: “This music is not traditional, but it is rooted. It’s pop, but it’s got feelings. It’s got messages. It knows where it’s come from and it’s ready to go anywhere it needs to go.”

Today is a joyful homecoming for William Kamkwamba who stole the hearts of the TED audience with his windmill here in Arusha in 2007 when he was only 14 years old. Since then, he’s co-written a book, graduated from African Leadership Academy and Dartmouth, travelled the world, is working with farmers to get their crops into supermarkets, and more. “My dream,” says Kamkamba, “is to continue the work I’m doing, trying to find the ways of solving some of the problems people are facing in my community or the world in general.”

Host Chris Anderson and William Kamkwamba re-unite onstage in Arusha, 10 years after William’s pioneering talk here at age 14. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Decades of study exists on mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit. Nonetheless, malaria still plagues hundreds of millions of people every year, and kills more than a million, mostly children under the age of five, in sub-Saharan Africa. We still know very little about mosquitoes, says Fredros Okumu, who catches mosquitoes for a living. Okay, so he catches them to study them. As mosquitoes build resistance to insecticides, new ways must be found to control their populations. After some rather intense study of mosquito biology (that involves baring legs in 12-hour shifts to invite the insects), Fredros’ research team have developed some rather unconventional methods for targeting and culling the malaria vector that has been described as the most dangerous animal on the planet.

Fredros Okumu studies the deadliest animal in the world: the mosquito. We know very little about this vector for malaria and other diseases, even as it develops resistance to our pesticides. (And real talk, one way you study mosquitos is to let yourself get bitten over and over.) Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

By building local scientific capacity, Africans can find solutions to the continent’s problems, says audience member Kevin Njabo, who takes the stage to admit that he almost became one of the four of five Africans who never return to the continent after an education abroad. He urges more people to do so: “For every skilled African who returns home, nine jobs are created in the formal or informal sector.”

Audience member Amy Dickman gets onstage to tell the inspiring story of how her organization helped convert traditional lion killers into lion protectors (read more). Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Africa is a young continent: 41% percent of the population is under 15, according to the UN’s population division. But as the young demographic explodes, jobs have not kept up. Kola Masha is concerned that it could spell disaster if these people do not find opportunities to make a decent life for themselves. In 2012, Masha created a company called Babban Gona to explore if it was possible to use agriculture as an engine to unlock opportunities for economic advancement to young people in Nigeria. Over the past four years, Babban Gona has brought together a grassroots farmer learning community, professional management and investment to reach more than 20,000 farmers and help them not only be successful on the land but also multiply their profits from previous levels.

What do you do when you return to your country and visit the library, but can’t find books written by your country’s own people? Well, if you are Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, you become a publisher. Which is obviously not a cakewalk (brief sidebar), but has to be done. The reason? Archives are not value-free, and whoever controls them controls the narrative. It is one thing for writers to write. But in the end, the ones who control the means of production and distribution have outsized amounts of control over whether those stories will see the light of day, or be received in a meaningful way. And most important, they determine what will be seen by future generations. Bakare-Yusuf became a publisher to create the African archival future and contribute to the global archive of ideas. To make sure that the archive of African stories is not controlled by the West, or by African men. She hopes that in 500 years, when people (or aliens?) look into the archives of Africa, they will find a diverse array of texts written by African men and women.

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf started a publishing company to preserve African texts — and to deliver them safely to future generations. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/tradition-is-not-a-frozen-thing-notes-from-session-7-power-up/
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Cities are great when they work: Notes from Session 6, Urban 3.0

Architect Christian Benimana hopes to build a network of architects and planners who can help Africa’s booming cities grow in resilient, sustainable and equitable ways — balancing growth with human values that are uniquely African. He speaks at TEDGlobal 2017: Builders, Truth Tellers, Catalysts, on Wednesday, August 30, 2017, in Arusha, Tanzania. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Cities are a constellation of dreams — dreams that are constantly dying and being born. Cities are living things, with character and distinct personalities. Africa’s cities teem with these dreams. Who gets to decide which ones live, and which ones die?

To become an architect, Christian Benimana had to go far away from home. There were no schools of architecture in Rwanda, so he travelled to Shanghai, where he observed that, though impressive, China’s urban city and housing infrastructure was built at great human and environmental cost. Rwanda now is witnessing a great building boom of its own, and Benimana has made it his mission to advocate for a model of architecture that is uniquely African, sustainable and equitable. From the coastal slums of Lagos, to Burkina Faso, Benimana cites examples of his ideal. A pan-African movement of architects, designers and engineers on the continent and in diaspora, learning, sharing and inspiring each other, is gathering steam. Benimana wants us to imagine future African cities not as vast slums but as the most resilient, the most socially inclusive places on earth. “This is achievable,” he says. “We have the talent to make it a reality.”

In Agblobloshie, a community in Accra, people descend on a scrapyard to mine the electronic waste that is deposited there for recyclable materials. Without formal training, these scrap dealers often teach themselves the workings of electronics by taking them apart and putting them together again. On the other hand, Ghana is teeming with technical graduates with little real-world experience because there are no jobs. DK Osseo-Asare and his co-founder at Low Design Office wondered what would happen if they brought these two groups together. The result: a growing maker community where makers engage in peer-to-peer and practical, hands-on education, motivated by what they want to make.

Designer DK Osseo-Asare wondered: What would happen if we linked a community of trained engineers in Accra with the self-taught techies who work in local scrapyards? Predictably, amazements. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

While global pundits talk about a theoretical future of sharing economies, Robert Neuwirth studies the way they work right now, right here in Africa. In Nigeria, Igbo traders take on apprentices who work for them for a number of years. When the apprenticeship ends, the trader sets up the apprentice with working capital to start their own business. Neuwirth also describes a money merry-go-round that people join, in which everyone puts money in a pot, and once a week or month, one person gets the money to do as they please — it sounds a lot like the Yoruba Ajo system. Neuwirth argues that many African business communities and markets already operate on mutual sharing principles, which if studied, propagated and scaled could lead to immense returns.

Robert Neuwirth studies informal economies — and makes the case that, as modern and high tech as the “sharing economy” may sound, it’s been happening within African economies all along. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

What can you do when the wheels of justice don’t turn fast enough? Or they just don’t turn at all? Vivek Maru is getting people to look at and engage the law in a different way than they are used to. “If we are going to make access to justice a reality, we need to transform the relationship between people and law,” Maru says. “We need to turn law from an abstraction or a threat into something that every single person can understand, use, and shape.” Instead of relying solely on lawyers, Maru started a global network of paralegals who serve in their own communities. These paralegals break the law down into simple terms to help find solutions to the problems at hand. Most important, they don’t focus on the courts alone, they look everywhere: local government, ministry departments, an ombudsman’s office. This apparently unconventional approach to using the law has proven to be very effective in helping socially excluded people claim their rights, and forcing corporations who are running roughshod over the rights of the people in surrounding communities to do the right thing.

Vivek Maru is training locals to act as legal advocates in their own communities, giving many more people access to the protections of the law. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

When governments resolve to conjure megacities, the poor are often the first to be sacrificed. OluTimehin Adegbeye delivers a moving talk about how unconstitutional government-instigated land grabs are destroying the lives of thousands who live in scores of coastal communities on the coast of Lagos to make way for a “new Dubai.” These people, she explains, who settled in Lagos more than a hundred years ago would never have dreamed that the city that would grow around them would turn around one day to say that they didn’t belong there. Now they are being driven out to make way for a new megacity, simply for the crime of being poor. Adegbeye says: “We must hold our governments and ourselves accountable for keeping our shared cities safe for everyone in them. The only cities worth building, indeed the only futures worth dreaming of, are those that include all of us, no matter who we are or how we make homes for ourselves.”

PS: There were other audience talks that broke our hearts, made us cry, then mended them back again that I am not able to describe in detail, but I would like to mention anyway: Peter Manson Ouko’s story of bravery, refusal to be defeated and eventual triumph over a broken justice system, and Christopher Ategeka’s call to the audience to adopt a child and give them the same life-changing opportunity he was given by total strangers in 2006.

OluTimehin Adegbeye makes a stirring and powerful case for protecting city residents, no matter their economic level. Because, as she says, “the only cities worth building, indeed the only futures worth dreaming of, are those that include all of us.” Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/cities-are-great-when-they-work-notes-from-session-6-urban-3-0/
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Tips for WeightLifting Beginners

Have you always wanted to start weightlifting but maybe felt a little intimidated by it? Or unsure of where to start? Well, no need! First of all the best place to start is just to start. I’ve got some practical tips for weightlifting beginners that will help get you into the gym and get started.... Read More The post Tips for WeightLifting Beginners appeared first on Running on Real Food.

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from Running on Real Food http://runningonrealfood.com/tips-for-weightlifting-beginners/
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Repatterning culture, identity, language: Visual thinking from Session 5

Thandiswa brings a rocking, soul-deep performance to kick off Session 5 of TEDGlobal 2017 on Tuesday, August 29, 2017, in Arusha, Tanzania. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

The speakers in this session are artists, designer-scientists and visionaries who are remaking the world around them. Their weapons are scope, shutter, paint, brush, font, code, blood and bone. And they are not afraid to use them. Who are they and what do they want? It’s time to find out.

who have direct impact on culture, in music, art, designs that are imbued with messages. Repatterning. Changing the narrative, remodelling, reconfiguring, shattering the status quo, taking out of the comfort zone.

Self-styled “wild woman” Thandiswa Mazwai came off as both fierce and vulnerable in tonight’s performance with her band. Some people in the audience reported getting goosebumps. Brrrrr. Others report .

To recover, we watch this lovely short film featuring TED Fellow Walé Oyéjidé, a lawyer turned fashion maven for the menswear line Ikiré Jones. Their vision brings traditional African prints to tailored menswear, blending cultures, traditions and signifiers to make gorgeous stuff.

Over the past century, our world has organized itself around fossil fuels — “arguably the most valuable material system we’ve ever known,” says Natsai Audrey Chieza. But that system is coming to an end — not only because we’re within sight of running out of fuel, but because our dependence on petroleum has wreaked havoc on our planet and our economies. In her work, Natsai images a world that transitions off fossil fuels and onto biological materials that do the same tasks, are endlessly renewable, and recycle like a dream. As a first step, she shows how naturally occurring bacteria can be used to dye textiles at industrial scale (replacing disastrously dirty oil-based dyes). We have a chance to build a new industry from scratch, she says, that works in symbiosis with the environment. As she sees it, the future of materials will be grown, fermented and recycled.

Natsai Audrey Chieza imagines a world beyond fossil fuels — not just in our cars and homes, but in the many industrial processes that depend on petroleum. Imagine instead an industry based on biology, that grew itself and used itself up with no waste? Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

After a visit to the library in search of Arabic and Middle Eastern texts turned up titles about terrorism, fear and ISIS, Ghada Wali resolved that she would not leave her culture, nor the Arabic script, to disappear. The one tool in her arsenal was graphic design, and while she initially wasn’t sure how that would help, she drew on her recollections of the visual medium’s power to spread messages that led to the downfall of two dictators in her home country of Egypt. With the weapon acquired, all Wali needed now was a mission. “My eureka moment was to find a bilingual solution for Arabic education, because effective communication and education is the road to more tolerant communities.”

The solution that she designed is an appealing mashup of colourful Lego and the Arabic script: a game that teaches people Arabic by assembling Lego blocks. The concept has morphed into merchandise, a mobile app and, very soon, a book. “This book is the final product that I would like to eventually publish and translate into all the other languages in the world,” she says, “so that Arabic teaching and learning becomes easy, fun, and accessible globally.”

“If you look online at a map of a township in South Africa or a remote village in Nigeria, you’ll see a few roads, surrounded by a lot of empty space. But if you switch to satellite view, you’ll see vast swathes of houses, businesses and people there, spread across hundreds of unmapped streets.” Chris Sheldrick wants to help the world’s unmapped people, the estimated billions who live without an address, to get more findable. He and a mathematician friend realized you could divide the world into 3-meter squares (to save you the math, it’s 57 trillion squares). And then you could give each square an absolutely unique name if you just stuck three random words together. (A dictionary of 40,000 words gives you 64 trillion combinations.) It’s nerdy and a bit goofy, but it’s working, in Mongolia, in UN disaster zones, even in a Caribbean pizza delivery service. And this year three African nations — Nigeria, Djibouti and Cote D’Ivoire — are giving it a go.

Throughout his colourful career and bodies of work, Iké Udé has found creative ways to repudiate the negative portrayal of Africans — most recently, through the evocative images of a portrait series, Nollywood Portraits: Radical Beauty. “Nollywood is Africa’s vivid mirror par excellence,” he enthuses. “It is the very first time that you have a school of Africans truly in possession of such cultural agency and in charge of telling African stories, for their Africans, without any foreign or colonial intervention.”

He observes that the age of social media and YouTube has actually helped to advance the ubiquity of Africans. But he doesn’t seem quite ready to down his tools just yet. “Part of my job,” Ude says, is to keep beautifying Africa and the world, one portrait at a time.

IkéŽ Udé’s astonishing self-portraits blend clothing, props and poses from many cultures at once into sharp takes on global visions. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Sethembile Mzesane became uncomfortable with the horde of masculine and racist symbols that loomed everywhere in Cape Town, the city she had lived in for five years. “I could not see myself represented, I could not see the women who raised me, the ones who influenced me and the ones who have made South Africa what it is today. I decided to do something about it.”

And something, she did. She became a living sculpture, standing for hours on end in public spaces. Each time, the deliberate combination of the symbol she chose to embody and the places she chose to perform in never failed to evoke powerful reactions from the people who went past. One time, she stood barechested in a place called Freedom Square to protest the treatment of women at a local bus depot. Another time, she became Chapungu, the soapstone bird that was looted from Great Zimbabwe, and stood triumphant while the cranes took down the statue of John Cecil Rhodes, Chapungu’s plunderer.

“With my work I’ve gotten regular people to talk about the society they live within,” she says. “Through my performances I have made people reflect about the past and the current democracy they are part of.”

Off to a barbecue. Tomorrow at 8:30, we start it up all over again. Tonight, catch up here.

On the day in 2015 that the statue of Cecil Rhodes came down in Cape Town, Sethembile Msezane stood in front of it dressed as Chapungu, the soapstone bird looted from Great Zimbabwe. Her powerful pose reclaimed the space for African identities in a square once claimed by colonialists. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/repatterning-culture-identity-language-visual-thinking-from-session-5/
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The Ultimate Guide to Healthy Back to School Meals

Today I’ve got the ultimate healthy back to school meal guide for you!

It’s that time of year…fall is right around the corner and with it comes new schedules for students young and not-so-young. Whether you’re a kid, parent, teacher, college student or just someone who notices the changing of the seasons, fall is an interesting time of year.

For many people, it almost feels like pushing the reset button, a chance to make a commitment to healthier eating.

And I’d hope that means not the same old song and dance of dieting, but instead choosing to put better options on your plate, make swaps when you can (see ideas here and here), and enjoying the occasional treat.

(Seriously, stop dieting, punishing yourself and trying to eat perfectly. It doesn’t last. Check out my Harder to Kill Challenge for a plan that actually works.)

So here’s how to make healthy back to school meal planning suck way less when you’re already feeling crunched for time:

Meal Prep is Your Friend

Once a week, plan a big meal prep day. Ideally, do this on the weekend so you’ve got some meals banked for the beginning of the week.

Time and time again, my clients tell me that being prepared at the start of the week is a game-changer. You’ll get your fridge stocked with some essentials that you can grab when things feel extra hectic. Remember, when stress is high, willpower gets eroded.

Having healthy dishes ready to heat and eat make all the difference because you’ve already taken the decision making out of it.

Recommendations for back to school meal prep:

• Cook up a dozen hard-cooked eggs and store them in their shell for quick protein. (Click here to see my fool-proof method that works every time.)
• Chop up and store all your veggies as soon as you get home. They won’t lose much nutrient value, and if it’s ready to go, you’ll be more likely to use it than let it rot in the veggie drawer.
• Roast a few trays of veggies. Mix and match. Better yet, if you have kids, let them pick which veggies are on the menu.
• Roast some sweet potatoes or white potatoes. Yes, I said white potatoes. (Click here to read more on white potatoes.)
• Use your Crock Pot. Make a stew or soup, then store for the week ahead or freeze for later.
• Make a couple pounds of burgers or meatballs. These are perfect for no-fuss protein later in the week. (Click here for my Emergency Meatball recipe.)
• Whip up a couple salsas, dressings, or other sauces to dress your meals up.

Want my free 7-day meal plan where I lay it out for you? Click below.

Want healthy meals planned for you? Click here for my FREE 7-day stupid-easy meal plan!

What About Breakfast?

Morning can be the biggest pain in the ass when it comes to putting a healthy meal on the table and getting everyone out the door on time.

My opinion is one that might not be so popular, but here it is: Breakfast food can be ANY food.

It doesn’t have to be sweet, come slathered in syrup, or resemble a miniature cake. Sweet, refined carb heavy breakfasts are a blood sugar bomb waiting to happen and may be common in Western society, but that’s not true the world over.

And it’s curious to me how brinner – breakfast for dinner – is a thing but not dreakfast. Let’s think outside the box!

My favorite fast breakfast option is leftover dinner from the night before.

I do admit that some dishes are more comforting and warming than others; I’m personally not a huge fan of giant raw salads or cold dishes for breakfast, but that’s just me. Soups, stews, meat and cooked veg mixed into some bone broth…all nourishing, filling, and totally easy.

Some easy breakfast ideas (more below):

• Egg and veggie frittata with roasted sweet potato
• Bacon and eggs with greens
• Chicken sausage with avocado and fruit
• Prosciutto, tomato, and basil mini-skewers
• Chia seed “pudding” or non-dairy yogurt – check sugar content! – with fruit.
• Leftover dinner

On Snacking

Back to school is often synonymous with packing snacks and lunches for kids and adults alike, and it can get downright frustrating trying to suit everyone’s tastes.

Here’s the thing for adults: If you find yourself NEEDING a snack every single day between breakfast and lunch – or else you turn into a hangry monster – it’s time to rethink what you’re putting on your breakfast plate.

You should be able to go 4-6 hours without requiring a snack to keep you going. If not, first bump up the protein on your breakfast plate and eat real, whole sources that you have to chew. Drinking your breakfast – i.e. shakes, smoothies, and loaded coffees – means they digest super fast, leaving you feeling hungry in an hour or two. If you’re adding lots of fruit or other carbs to your liquid meal, your blood sugar can still spike and crash.

I recommend chewing your breakfast calories and including dense animal protein sources like eggs, meat, poultry, or fish to stave off cravings, keep you full, and hold the hangry monster off until lunch. (How much protein? 3-4 eggs or 4 to 6 ounces of meat as a starting point.)

Sometimes, though, I get it: You want a snack or the kiddos need one for the school day.

With that in mind, I recommend a snack that has protein, carbs, and fat to provide satiety and prevent blood sugar swings.

Here’s some paleo-friendly and gluten-free healthy back to school snack options you can mix and match:

• Hard-boiled eggs
• Roasted seaweed sheets (nori)
• Salsa and grain-free tortilla chips
• Jerky
• Bean-free beet hummus
• Pork rinds (from pastured animals)
• Kale chips
• Veggie sticks
• Dehydrated fruit chips or fresh fruit
• Grain-free granola
• Coconut “chips”

Click here to find the bento boxes in these photos.

Healthy Back to School Lunches and Dinners

The motto here for healthy back to school lunches and dinners has to be: keep it super simple, especially in the beginning!

Don’t overdo it and overcommit yourself or you’ll find it impossible to stick to. Go slow.

Once you’ve wrapped your brain around it, you can start getting fancier if you want. Remember, it’s OKAY not to make a complicated recipe from scratch every single night.

Below are 30 healthy back to school meal options for you when life gets busy! Make one each day for the next month and you’ll be well on your way to a bag of tricks you can pull out any time.

Breakfast-y

• Breakfast Sausage Scotch Eggs
• Breakfast Stuffed Peppers
• Paleo Pizza Egg Muffins
• Paleo Chicken Sweet Potato Frittata
• 3-Ingredient Banana Pudding
• Vanilla Berry Chia Pudding

Lunch-y

• Thai Larb with Pork
• Emergency Meatballs
• Honey Chipotle Meatballs
• Crispy Buffalo Chicken Fingers
• Simple Paleo Tortillas (fill with sliced turkey, veggies, and smashed avocado then roll up)
• Paleo Lemon Tahini Tuna Salad
• Strawberry Avocado Summer Salad
• Holy Guacamole Salad (add grilled steak or shrimp)
• Cold Zucchini Noodle Salad with Tomato and Olives (add grilled chicken)
• Buffalo Chicken Salad
• Citrus Basil Chicken Salad

Dinner-y

• Tuesday Night Chicken
• Green Chile Chicken
• Easy Pan-Fried Lemon Chicken
• Chicken Enchiladas
• Bitchin’ Bowl
• Easy Sunday Beef Stew
• One Skillet Paleo Dinner
• Slow Cooker Mocha-Rubbed Pot Roast
• Crispy Skin Salmon
• Lamb Kebabs with Carrot Salad
• Paleo Pulled Pork Stuffed Squash
• Pork Chile Verde
• Shredded Beef & Onions

One final option that’s really helpful for us are the wide variety of pre-prepped meal options that get sent right to your door like Sun Basket. The shopping and most of the prep is done for you. Instead of fighting the crowded supermarket or spending time planning the recipes, simply have to cook and eat.

Click here to read my full review of Sun Basket. I’m proud to partner with them and offer you a chance to try 3 meals for free!

They even have family portions which gave the two of us leftovers. Cook once, eat twice.

Here’s a recent box we enjoyed from Sun Basket (clockwise from top left):

• Chinese five-spice steak stir-fry with cauliflower “rice”
• Southwestern grilled chicken salad (with a flexible gluten-free option)
• Turkish lamb kofte with tahini sauce and smashed cucumber salad

I’m notoriously hard to please with stuff like this, and Sun Basket’s exceeded my expectations. Give them a shot!

In Conclusion

I hope this post has inspired you and given you the confidence to cook healthy meals for your busy back to school season.

There are plenty of resources to help you from free, pre-made meal plans all the way up to delivery at your door.

Remember: Perfection isn’t the answer. Do your best and don’t sweat the small stuff!

Pin this Healthy Back to School Meal post for later!

The post The Ultimate Guide to Healthy Back to School Meals appeared first on Stupid Easy Paleo.

from Stupid Easy Paleo https://stupideasypaleo.com/2017/08/29/ultimate-guide-healthy-back-to-school-meals-paleo-gluten-free/
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TEDWomen: Exploring the complex challenges of life-work partnerships

Tiq Milan and Kim Katrin Milan spoke at TEDWomen 2016 — now they have exciting news: a keynote, a forthcoming book, and more! Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED

 

When we started TEDWomen in 2010, we felt strongly that we wanted to include a talks that break the traditional TED Talk model and present pairs of speakers instead of solos.

Our first “Duet” featured the married couple Beverly and Dereck Joubert. I wrote about them on this blog earlier this month. As National Geographic Explorers in Residence, the couple makes films that greatly influence public policy and perceptions about wildlife in Africa. They are incredible filmmakers — their latest, Pride vs. Tribe, was just nominated for Best Conservation Film at the 2017 Jackson Hole Film Festival.

Their current conservation project, Rhinos Without Borders, aims to translocate a total of 100 rhino and is another example of the bold, innovative steps that the Jouberts take to save Africa’s big animals — a conservation effort essential to sustaining the economic impact of the tourist industry. They are literally airlifting rhinos out of places where they are being killed for their horns as part of a global criminal poaching trade, into Botswana where they are safe from hunters and poachers. It’s a big-risk, big-expenses operation supported in part by conservation-minded individuals and travel companies, along with the Jouberts’ safari camp company, Great Plains Conservation.

Over the years, we’ve continued duet talks with other married couples and life/work partners in order to uncover new ideas about how two people can work out the sometimes complex challenges of working/living in a partnership.

We have heard a Masai father talk about how he reconciled his own cultural traditions that called for female circumcision with the aspirations of a daughter who wanted an education rather than an early marriage, and we heard the daughter’s story of running away, pursuing her dream and returning to her village to partner with her father for the benefit of the family.

Another memorable duet at TEDWomen 2016 was Tiq Milan and Kim Katrin Milan. They talked about navigating stereotypes to present a new conception of gender and a broader definition of love.

I recently emailed with Tiq and Kim, and I’m so thrilled to announce that they are expecting a baby in January! They’re also giving a keynote to the Human Rights Commission of Canada called “No Labels,” discussing intersectional approaches to human rights, expanding on some points in their TED Talk that really resonated with folks. It’s rumored that Prime Minister Trudeau will be in attendance.

Tiq is working on a book that will be out next summer called Man of My Design, a memoir and analysis of masculinity and its effect on culture. He writes, “Now that the baby is on the way, Kim and I will be documenting our journey as queer parents on our YouTube channel, which we are launching next week! I’ll make sure to send the link when it’s up and running.”

This year, TEDWomen will be held November 1–3 in New Orleans. The theme is Bridges: We build them, we cross them, and sometimes we even burn them. We’ll explore the many aspects of this year’s theme through curated TED Talks, including a session of memorable pairings to be announced early September. The hosts of this year’s duet session will be a married couple who have just completed two years of interviews with partners, and they will add their own insights about how good partnerships come together and stay together. It’s something they call “plus wonder,” and that’s how we think of our “Duets” sessions—it’s a plus-one TED Talk.

Registration for TEDWomen 2017 is open, so if you haven’t registered yet, click this link and apply today — space is limited and I don’t want you to miss out.

Join us!

– Pat

 

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/tedwomen-exploring-the-complex-challenges-of-life-work-partnerships/
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A hard look: Exploring tough truths in Session 4

Dancer Qudus Onikeku and kora player Tunde Jegede, accompanied on the tabla, collaborate during Session 4 at TEDGlobal 2017, on Tuesday, August 29, 2017, in Arusha, Tanzania. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

TED is known for its inspiring talks. And all of the previous sessions before this have been inspiring, you have no idea. Humans, however, shall not live by endorphins alone. Sometimes, we need a stern lecture. Or a biting sermon. Sometimes, we need to reflect on a somber piece of art or music. Sometimes, we need to be told the truth. Sometimes, sit down, be humble, and contemplate what it means to be human, and our place in the universe. Sometimes, what we really, really need is a good, hard kick in the butt. That is what the speakers in this session came to do.

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, a professor of African political thought, wonders how a continent that is home to some of the largest bodies of water in the world — the Nile, the Niger, the Congo, the Zambezi, the Orange rivers — can be said to have a water crisis. “Including in countries where the rivers are?” he asks. “Africa does not have a water crisis; it has a knowledge crisis regarding its water, where and what type it is, how it can be tapped and made available where and when needed to all and sundry.” According to Taiwo, a lack of knowledge is what stands between Africa’s current state and a future of prosperity. He posits that Africa must become a knowledge society, which is difficult since the continent currently loses its best and brightest to more favourable climes.

“We must find a way to make knowledge and its production sexy and rewarding. Rewarding not in the crass sense of money-making but in terms of making it worthwhile to indulge in the pursuit of knowledge, support the existence of knowledge-producing groups and intellectuals, ensuring that the continent is the immediate locus of knowledge production, distribution, and consumption and that instead of having its depositories beyond Africa’s boundaries, people once more from the rest of the world, even if in virtual space, come to learn from us. All this we do as custodians on behalf of common humanity.”

I did say he is a professor.

At Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, says: “We must find a way to make knowledge and its production sexy and rewarding.” Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Africa’s informal economy is really what keeps it running, creating jobs at four times the pace of the formal sector. And they get zero kudos for it, says Niti Bhan. In fact, the informal economy has been much maligned and even criminalised, because African governments cannot be bothered to distinguish between unrecorded and illegal trade. “This criminalization of the informal sector can easily cost each African economy between 60% to 80% addition to the annual GDP growth rate.” Informal businesses often pay local levies and all kinds of dues, but are almost always targeted for extortion and impoundment by government officials, and denied loans by lenders. Instead of penalising them for their social status and punishing them for their contributions to the economy, Bhan insists that we must begin to recognise and include the people, skills and occupations that fall into this forgotten segment of the economy in order to harness its true potential, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and lift millions out of poverty.

Niti Bhan studies informal economies — the source of more than half of economic activity in many nations of Africa. Yet, she says, they’re criminalized, persecuted, extorted by officials. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Kora virtuoso Tunde Jegede collaborates with dancer Qudus Onikeku in a somber, reflective performance, impossible to capture in words … perhaps these photos will do.

Click to view slideshow.

Leo Igwe comes to the stage with a message of hope and faith in humanity’s ability to rise above fear, hate and superstition. Especially superstition. “In Africa, superstition is widespread, with people too often believing in witchcraft, something that has no basis in reason or science. Yet alleged witches, usually women, children or elderly persons, are still routinely attacked, banished or killed. And I have made it part of my life’s mission to eradicate witch persecution in Africa.”

Ndidi Nwuneli has advice for Africans who believe in God, and Africans who don’t believe in god. To the religious, she believes that God loves Africa … just as much as he loves the people all over the world. While her faith in the omnipotence of the divine is firm, she is certain that God is not a micro-manager, or someone for whom the responsibility for how our lives turn out can be outsourced. “By claiming we have no power over past, present or future, we give too much authority to the wicked, who steal funds and ask God for forgiveness.”

To the non-religious, she argues that the outsized influence of faith-based organisations requires that they be factored into the African social change equation. Antagonising them or pretending they don’t matter isn’t practical. On the other hand, keeping an open mind and working with them can yield incredible results for issues of maternal mortality, healthcare and education.

Speakers Ndidi Nwuneli, at left, and Leo Igwe, right, discuss the role of faith and belief in modern African, in a Q&A sparked by TEDGlobal co-host Chris Anderson onstage at TEDGlobal 2017, Tuesday, August 29, 2017. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

It isn’t every day you hear about projects that connect different religious faiths. Nabila Alibhai and a group of friends wanted to see if they could create a language that transcended religion, race and political leanings. “The idea,” Alibhai says, “was to unite people of different faith by getting them to paint each other’s house of worship … churches, mosques, synagogues … yellow, in the name of love.” It might sound crazy, and of course they were told so. But in the end, 25 houses of worship participated, and the leaders of those places boldly owned the choice to do so, often coming up with their own beautiful justifications when asked why. “We’ve proven that the human family can come together and send a message far brighter and more powerful than the voices of those who would wish to do us harm,” says Alibhai. “Fear is infectious but we’re showing that so is hope.”

We’re officially at the halfmark. Four more sessions to go. If you just got here, visit blog.ted.com to start from the beginning so you don’t miss anything. If you’ve been following along all this time, well done, keep it locked. Asante.\

Why is this house of worship — and 24 more like it, churches, mosques and synagogues — painted bright yellow? Because Nabila Alibhai and her friends asked if they would. It’s part of a project to show the interconnectedness and hopefulness of faith. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/a-hard-look-exploring-tough-truths-in-session-4/
via Sol Danmeri