10 talented Africans, 10 inspiring stories

In October this year, over 1300 young future leaders from 190 countries will gather in Johannesburg to share their vision and ideas on leadership and development. They’ll be attending the fourth annual One Young World Summit from 2-5 October, where they’ll be given a platform to engage with respected global leaders on everything from governance to health to sustainable development.

Unlike any other event, the One Young World Summit gives delegates the kind of media platform ordinarily afforded only to those who lead countries and corporations. Delegates speak alongside respected global figures selected for their work and insight into matters affecting the whole world, and the youth in particular.  The Mail & Guardian‘s Trevor Ncube will be chairing a session on African media and what Africans think of their journalists. To share your views, complete this short survey.

As part of its commitment to developing young leaders, the M&G is sponsoring two young Africans to attend the One Young World summit. Last month we called for applications from Africans who have strong leadership skills, are invested in global issues and have a  passion for volunteering to apply for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We received hundreds of responses from young people doing inspiring and exciting things in the fields of technology and development on the continent. Of these, we’ve shortlisted the 10 candidates below and will choose two of them as One Young World delegates. Over the next two weeks, they’ll be blogging about how they’re using digital technology to improve Africans’ daily lives. From digitising Ghanaian doctors’ prescription pads to empowering women farmers in Malawi through SMS campaigns, these are stories you don’t want to miss.

Meet the 10 candidates:

Oscar Ekponimo (27), Nigeria

Oscar Ekponimo

 

 

 

Oscar is passionate about technology and social change. He has used his skills in digital technology to raise funds for Crystal Mbaguno who required life saving surgery in India for a benign brain tumour.  His digital media campaign helped raised part of the 2.5 million Nira for her operation, and she is currently in recovery. Oscar is involved in another project to combat hunger and food wastage in conjunction with retail distributors. This project connects the retailer, the poor, and charities that supply food to them.

Joel Macharia (26), Kenya

Joel Macharia

 

 

 

 

 

Joel is the founder of pesatalk.com, an online consumer finance publication that’s aimed at simplifying the world of finance for ordinary Kenyans. He’s also behind Sagana Farms, an agribusiness start-up that helps small-scale farmers get the best returns for their produce by linking them with retailers in urban areas. Joel is a volunteer lecturer in a program aimed at equipping underprivileged students with entrepreneurship and technology skills. He has been involved with TEDx in Nairobi, and spoke at TEDx Kangemi, Kibera and Silanga.

Chikondi Chabvuta (25), Malawi

Chikondi Chabvuta

 

 

 

 

Chikondi is passionate about empowering women farmers and educating young women. She uses digital technology – webcasts –  to put young girls in her community in touch with inspiring role models in Malawi and across the world. Chikondi also empowers female farmers by teaching them literacy and numeracy via their cellphones.  She promotes the use of SMS marketing among women farmers, which makes them more knowledgeable about market prices and enables them to sell their produce at minimum cost.

Adib Ayay (19), Morocco

Adib Ayay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having grown up between the olive fields in a small town in Morocco, Adib has a passion for agriculture and business. At 17, he founded Fair Farming, a student-run organisation that seeks to help farmers boost their revenue using mobile technology. This project has enabled 300 hundred farmers to benefit from higher incomes and better provide for their families.

His team is working on a new project called TelFarm, which will have a larger impact and benefit millions of farmers across the world. Aimed at small-scale farmers who lack financial services and extensive agriculture information, TelFarm is a suite of mobile-based SMS and voice tools that will allow farmers to significantly increase their income through access to transparent market prices, best farming practices, mobile payments and and micro-insurance.

Gregory Rockson (22), Ghana

Gregory Rockson

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gregory is passionate about access to healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa. The young Ghanaian founded mPharma, a system which digitises the traditional prescription notepad and transforms it into an interactive prescription writing tool. This way, physicians can send mobile prescription scripts to their patients and record and report adverse drug reactions in real time. Gregory has successfully partnered with the Zambian health ministry to deploy mPharma in the country’s health facilities.

Tawanda Kembo (26), Zimbabwe

Tawanda Kembo


 

 

 

 

 

Tawanda is interested in finding innovative ways to meet social needs. He explore existing methods to see if he can remake or modify them to serve today’s society. He founded ipaidabribe.org.zw,  an online platform for users to blow the whistle on corrupt activity in Zimbabwe. He also founded Virtual Bank Africa www.virtualbank.co.zw, which provides basic financial services to people who otherwise would not be able to afford them. Tawanda is also committed to volunteering activities and job creation.

Mooketsi Bennedict Tekere (27), Botswana

Mooketsi Benedict Tekere

Mooketsi is passionate about social entrepreneurship, improved medical tourism for healthcare and education in Africa. He founded Digital Computer Labs, an initiative to set up state-of-the-art computer labs across all of Botswana for students to use. He is also invested in empowering women through education. He founded the first digital lab for young female students to come together and discuss ICTs and has given female students from the University of Botswana internships in his company. Mooketsi also hosts technology workshops and tutors students.

Achu Coretta Penn (27), Cameroon

Achu Coretta Penn

 

 

 

 

 

Achu is a youth activist and is passionate about advocating education for young girls. She is a founding member of Impact Creators, a youth-led apolitical NGO that promotes the education and professional development of Cameroonian youth. She is part of a project called “Using Mobile Reporting to Improve Rural and Urban Youth Programming”. It makes use of basic technology on mobile phones to collect data more easily and make youth programming more effective. This ongoing initiative has been welcomed by the international community, and Achu presented on it at the 12th ICT4D conference in Atlanta last year.

Divine Puplamu (23), Ghana

Divine Puplampu

 

 

 

 

 

 

Divine believes that technology can be the solution to everyday problems. He co-founded a technology start-up company called Zottech, which provides  technological products and solutions to Ghanaian businesses and organisations. He also volunteers his time as a producer and co-host of Computer Link, the only IT show on radio in Ghana. Divine served as a Google Ambassador at university and hosted workshops and training sessions for technological products. He volunteers with various initiatives aimed at improving the lives of the youth through the use of technology.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu (30), Zimbabwe

tinashe

 

 

 

Tinashe believes that the voice of Zimbabwean youth matters and that they ought to proactively participate in the political and social discourse as it affects their lives daily . He is the founder of YoungNation, an online portal that harvests conversations to build young people into better citizens. YoungNation runs an interactive digital hub located in downtown Harare that provides access to information and applications for communication, commerce, entertainment and education. It is the first such initiative in Zimbabwe targeted at young people aged between 18 and 35. The project offers networking opportunities and hosts workshops and training. It is an ideal location to support and grow future entrepreneurs.

 

Ethiopian long-distance champion eyes 2015 election race

As his feet hit the pedals at lightning speed, Haile Gebrselassie barely breaks a sweat on an exercise bike at his gym in the Ethiopian capital’s upscale Bole district.

He then proceeds to work on his chest muscles, hours after jogging down the forested hills in the northern suburbs of Addis Ababa.

The 40-year-old still maintains the tough regimen that brought him track glory and international recognition for two decades, after clinching the 5 000 metres and 10 000 metres races at the 1992 Junior World Championships in Seoul.

Some 27 world records, two Olympic gold medals and four World Championships titles later, Gebrselassie, regarded by many as the greatest long distance runner of all time, says he still does not know when he will retire from sport.

But he has yet to start on his one longstanding ambition – to enter politics – something he now plans to do at Ethiopia’s legislative elections, in two years’ time.

“Now I think I am a little bit mature. As I told you in 2010, my ambition was politics,” he told Reuters. “Now 2015 is the perfect time.”

“People think I will become a parliamentarian, but the competition won’t be easy. That’s why I needed to prepare two years in advance.”

Haile Gebrselassie celebrating with his national flag after competing in the men's 10 000m final at the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (AFP)
Haile Gebrselassie celebrates with his national flag after competing in the men’s 10 000m final at the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (AFP)

Known as “The Emperor”, Gebrselassie enjoys immense popularity in the Horn of Africa country and has used his winnings to build a successful business empire including hotels, a car dealership, a cinema and a sports complex.

But some in Ethiopia have expressed their surprise at his political aspirations, given the country’s dubious democratic track record.

Politics is dominated by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, in power since 1991 when it ousted Mengistu Haile Mariam’s military junta.

In Parliament, all but two of the 547 seats are held by the ruling party. There is one independent member and only one from an opposition party, which often accuses the government of arbitrarily arresting its members.

Gebrselassie plans to run as an independent, and says he is not daunted by the prospects of politics tarnishing his reputation as a sporting hero. The ruling party had yet to express a clear opinion on the popular athlete’s bid for public office.

Sport scandal
“We are dreaming about a democracy like the ones in Europe and America, it’s a long process. How can you expect [that] in 20 years?,” he said.

Ethiopia has come a long way, he says, from the days of military leader Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose purges killed tens of thousands of people in the mid-1970s when victims’ bodies were often left in the street to discourage dissent.

“We have to give chances. Now we are here, at least we are safe to come back home, at least we are safe to do something else,” he said.

Gebrselassie has yet to issue a policy manifesto, but he says he would support measures to help fight poverty and enable Ethiopia to become a middle-income country.

“As citizens, all of us have a responsibility. Its not only a responsibility for the government or the opposition, all of us have our own responsibility,” he said.

“If we achieve that … we can change this country, we can reach the democracy we dream [of] and we can eradicate poverty.”

Speaking on the latest doping scandal to hit international athletics, Gebrselassie urged anti-doping bodies to widen the scope of their investigations, after former world sprint champion Tyson Gay failed a dope test but denied knowingly taking a performance-enhancing drug.

The scandal marked yet another blow for the sport after former world 100 meters record holder Asafa Powell and Olympic 4×100 meters relay silver medallist Sherone Simpson also said they had both tested positive for the stimulant oxilophrine at June’s Jamaican championships.

Gay said he had “put his trust in someone” and that he had been let down.

Gebrselassie said he “still could not believe” the weekend’s disclosures.

“It’s better to stop these problems from the root. You don’t know sometimes, [whether] in these kind of problems there is someone behind [the athlete’s doping],” he said.

Ramadan in Sudan: The tie that binds

There’s nothing like Ramadan in Sudan. To be more specific, from my personal experience, there’s nothing like Ramadan in my hometown of Khartoum.

This year marks my second Ramadan away from home and, like they say, you never really realise what you had until it’s gone. There are so many things that I miss, but I mostly miss the sense of solidarity that binds the people of my country during such a month.

I used to spend many hours of my fasting days in the streets of Khartoum. There is something majestic about how people carried themselves around; walking around the various streets, markets and bus stations, going about their daily business while bearing the grunt of the staggering heat of Sudan’s sun, trying to eke out a living in today’s harsh conditions.

It is not the lanterns and well-lit streets and alleys that make Ramadan so special, rather it is the scope of distinct practices and traditions that are ever so unique. It is the call for Maghreb prayer and the events that follow. It is the people gathering around the mosques minutes before the sun sets, some worshipping in silence while others converse about their families, the weather and politics. It is that first sip of cool water that quenches the thirst of a hardworking bus driver who spends his entire day driving a rundown vehicle with no air conditioning, and suffers blasts of hot air coming from a broken window. It is that group of volunteers who stop you in the middle of the road at the sound of the azaan (call to prayer) to offer you water and dates to break your fast.

Men break their fast on the first Friday of Ramadan in a mosque at Umdowan Ban village outside Khartoum on August 5 2011. (Pic: Reuters)
Men break their fast on the first Friday of Ramadan in a mosque at Umdowan Ban village outside Khartoum on August 5 2011. (Pic: Reuters)

It is family. My grandmother, may she rest in peace, would light up at the sight of my sisters, mother and I entering her warm home just in time for Iftar (breaking of the fast). She would kiss each one of us and ask Allah to protect us. It is her blessings, her smile and the wisdom in her eyes. It is tasting the food made with love; the aseeda (porridge), mulaah (sauce) and delicious soup just before we set off for prayer and later on commence our first meal of the day. It is the sugary gongolez juice, helo mur (a drink made with sorghum and spices) and hibiscus poured into enormous glasses. It is the long Taraweeh prayers that I used to always struggle with on the first week of the month after stuffing my face like it’s the last day on earth.

So no, it is not the lanterns and well-lit streets and alleys that make Ramadan what it is in a place like Sudan, a place that lacks the kinds of festivities that other neighbouring countries have the privilege of exercising. It is the kind of love that is portrayed in the simplest of conduct, and in the crudest of times. It is the tie that binds.

Maha El-Sonasi for 500 Words Magazine, an independent online magazine about Sudan. It is an amalgamation of various thoughts and opinions on Sudanese society, culture and life, and provides a platform for discussion among Sudanese youth. Connect with 500 Words Magazine on Twitter and Facebook. 

Car shopping with the help of Dar Es Salaam’s taximen

It may be that nothing brings out a man’s emotional side quite like helping a woman buy a car.

A few months ago I lost Maggie, my trusty chariot of several years. She was a big-hearted Suzuki Jimny that could never go above 60kph, but had enough 4-wheel drive muscle to pull cars three times her weight out of bogs. I named her Maggie, like Thatcher, a solid name for a tough can-do broad. Even the rainy-season potholes of Dar were no deterrent to her. While thousands driving lesser cars got stranded in the suburbs at the slightest tropical downpour, Maggie would confidently navigate the dangerous rapids at Shopper’s Plaza bridge, not to mention the deceptively deep Lake Millenium towers – both on important tarmac roads connecting to the city.

But she’s gone now. While I know that nothing will ever feel as perfect as her gearshift cupped in my hand or the way her engine growled on cool mornings like a smoker waking up, I can’t help trying to look for a car that has some of her spirit. Good news came recently – one of my taximen had found another fiesty little Suzuki that I might be interested in.

Let me explain a little bit about the real taximen of Dar es Salaam. They are amazing. In the course of a couple of years, you can build relationships of trust usually only enjoyed between a client and her lawyer or a patient and her doctor. They’re the guys who will pick your kids up from school, buy your utilities when you run out, deposit cash at the bank and never charge your Mama when she sends them on an emergency trip because they know to bring the bill to you.

Nothing is beyond them, not a 3am am pick-up at Julius Nyerere International nor a hunt for an affordable apartment in the mixed neighborhoods off the Old and New Bagamoyo roads. I put out the word about a month ago that I was in the market for a new ride. My taximen understood what kind of car might pass muster as a replacement so when Tony called me about a potential candidate, I knew I was in safe hands.

Little did I realise how much my knights in shining motor vehicles would invest in the quest! Or how dramatic they can be. As I took the potential purchase for a test drive it was impossible not to smile at the guys – two taximen and a mechanic – who came along. They preened over my familiarity with a manual transmission. You’d think I had performed cardiac surgery.

(Pic: Flickr/Daniel Oines)
(Pic: Flickr/Daniel Oines)

Yet within hours of kicking the tyres of this potential purchase I had to counsel Tony, who was having a meltdown about hidden costs. The next day I had to calm down Mwinyi who could barely speak through his tears because he couldn’t get hold of me for two hours in morning to warn me about the hazards of a V6 engine. I was in a meeting for goodness sake! If these men weren’t so damn cute with their concern, this would be a very vexing situation.

What does a feminist like me do with such chivalry, when I have always considered it the other side of the chauvinism coin? I don’t know what kind of women they hang out with – all the best drivers I know are hardcore stick-shift women who drive like girls and thus keep their beloved cars roadworthy and unscratched for decades. I usually take my cue from these capable dames, but in this situation it just seemed churlish not to let my taximen lead the way. Hysteria included.

Because no matter how hard I tried to detect any condescension or outright patronising I just couldn’t. Mwinyi taught me everything I know about preventing salt-air corrosion in the car body, the regular replacement of spark plugs, fan belts and oil seals. They are inordinately proud of my independent lifestyle – especially the part where I can drive a stick shift. Haji and Saidi debate politics with me and have helped me out of more than one tight spot in life. If getting a little unhinged in their zeal to help me secure a new car is part of the deal, what’s a bit of craziness between friends?

It is not just the taximen in Dar who are crunchy on the outside and squishy on the inside, which is secretly one of my favourite Swahili Coast quirks. I’m not crazy, I do like a man who is in touch with his inner mother hen. But when you actually have to deal with that from your male support group? Eish. It can be overwhelming. I don’t know if the sale will go through, the owner is a tough but fair businesswoman and we’re facing off over the last couple of hundred thousand shillings. Wish me luck. No seriously, wish me luck. The mental health of my friends is hanging in the balance, bless their sweet and sensitive souls.

Elsie Eyakuze is a freelance consultant in print and online media from Tanzania, working mainly in the development sector. She blogs at mikochenireport.blogspot.com. Connect with her on Twitter.