Rage for Change - Ndidi Nwuneli at TEDxEuston

[Music] it's a real pleasure to be here this afternoon I'm really humbled by this invitation especially because I have so many old friends in the audience I think it's like coming home to any GU campus oh the a new ku campus people and ul nu and he's he raise your hands some of these people I haven't seen in 25 years so thank you to care for this wonderful opportunity and so I can the rest of the team my path to life as a social entrepreneur has been a relatively unusual one like I case said I had a wonderful and very sheltered experience as a child in the university campus where getting a PhD was probably one of the things that my parents pray that we would have academics and integrity were the bedrock of the childhood that we had but two personal traits stood out for me when I reflect on my childhood the first one is that I'm a middle child I have two older sisters who are simply amazing who could do no wrong and two younger siblings who are adorable and so I was a freedom fighter from a very young age always looking for why I was being mistreated who was fighting with who and how I could have my voice heard in a family of five the second thing that actually stood out for me is that I had a very hot temper and some of you who know me now wonder wow how could she have a hot temper my mother actually said that I would end up in jail by 15 if I didn't sauce out in my hot temper and in all honesty you know that stood stood by me that issue of anger and how you deal with anger so I've picked the title of my talk today rage for change couple those two traits about being a freedom fighter and angry child with a strong relationship with God and a sense of purpose from a very young age that I was born to do something and that everybody was born to live a life of purpose and to make a difference these traits surfaced again very early in life even though I took a very traditional path of going to Wharton undergrad and working at McKinsey I always sought out opportunities for non-traditional roles and I think starting off in America actually was a very interesting place to start off with and ideally my parents would not have sent us abroad but I was a child of the 90s where under their budget regime those who grew up on campus know how hot it was on a daily basis they were riots and school closures and for periods of six months on end people wouldn't go to school and so that was a choice that was available to us but I think interfacing with the african-american community actually taught me about sacrifice and I was a beneficiary of so many of these minority programs such as in Rose and SEO and the black client service staff at McKinsey where people of color helps each other succeed I think that is something that I would never forget about that experience and so this same attributes kind of led me to pick a very untraditional summer opportunity because in business school you have a summer opportunity between the first and second year and I turned down the traditional jobs to actually go to Ramallah in the Middle East to work with an organization called the Center for Middle East competitive strategy and this organization was started by Michael Porter I'm the idea behind the organization seems so good at the time you know callable MBA students that if we could get people in the Middle East to trade that would lead to lasting peace so if countries could work with each other you know we could ensure that there was peace and so one half afternoon in Ramallah Palestinian territory one of the team members asked me a question he said why are you here helping our Khan three when yours is such a mess and that question really rattled me you know it's for one thing for Nigerians to say Niger is a mess but for a Palestinian that really rattles me and I really had to think about it and say what am I actually doing here helping other people and so my final area in Business School we organized the first Africa business conference and I was the pioneer of that and the theme was reversing the brain drain I remember my speech very vividly I was such a young naive 24 year old and I said you know my favorite I ended my speech with this African proverb you know do not follow the path go where there is no path and leave a trail and that was what I thought I was going to be doing leaving a trail and I decided to spend some time in Nigeria after my mba working as with an internship at the Ford Foundation helping to microfinance organizations Cohen and Phaedra and Cohen and fadh who had 700,000 members and you know it was a very fascinating experience but I was very angry during that summer because microfinance has been touted as you know one solution for out of poverty for working with these women who are doing at the rare and Ashoke I realized that they would never get out of poverty even though they had microfinance because they were selling that fabric at below cost you know nobody had ever spent the times help them figure out how much am I actually buying the raw materials for how much am i selling it for am i incorporating my time and that really made me angry and I realized that I had to do something about intrapreneurship development and that most people didn't understand what business was so nine months later after going back to McKinsey because they paid for my business school leaving early and having to take out a loan to pay them back I was back in Nigeria working with followed yalla to established a faith foundation and faith is a nonprofit that helps young people who are unemployed start businesses and was a pioneer in 2000 because there was no organization like that in Nigeria we had the first business final composition in the country we organized the first incubator center and faith has gone on to do tremendous work two years later my anger resurfaced again on a spring break trip with my husband's MBA class in Guatemala I was looking through the window and I was like this is supposed to be one of the poorest latin-american countries but they're no potholes no police checkpoints they haven't taken the lights I was wondering what was going on and I came up with four words that I thought were missing in the African context leadership effectiveness accountability and professionalism and that's what leap stands for so this journey to start leave was really propelled by the conviction that Africa desperately needed a new generation of visionary leaders who transform our continent leaders who are creative ethical disciplined and credible people who are integrity and that if we could have a group of people who share the same values working together to be change agents we could transform our country and our continent very noble indeed don't you think the challenge is that it's a lot harder to change the mindset of people and so change the way that people live we have made some progress on leave just celebrated its tenth anniversary in November we've pioneered curriculum on leadership in civics management governance and succession we've helped entrepreneurs believe that they can be leaders and they can build companies that without lift them we've instituted programs and public schools training teachers how to teach leadership ethics and civics and for all our programs we ask our young people what makes you angry about your country what makes you angry about your community and what can you do about it a lot has been said about anger early yesterday we saw the pictures of the Nigerian Nigerians who stood up against the fuel subsidy earlier speakers have spoken about anger and young people protesting and anger can be a force for evil right but there's a place for anger when you try to do good because you have to be angry enough about your situation so get up from your seat and say I'm gonna do something to make sure that other people don't suffer the way I have suffered and so that's what we get our young people to do so be mad enough to make a difference and that's one philosophy that we preach at leap Africa beyond encouraging our participants to start change projects we support them to develop clear visions budgets form strategic partnerships measure their impacts and develop sustainability strategies to ensure that these initiatives outlive their direct involvement so we've actually helped young people start a thousand change projects in their communities and I'll just show you a few examples of some of our young people Idris Abu Abdullah he started a change project called be and hero give blood now many of you in the public health space who have worked in Africa know that one of the biggest issues is blood donors and that whenever there's a crisis it's tough to get blood because the Africans don't like to give blood there are lots of superstitions ivy about even getting other people's blood [Laughter] but what he does is encourage people to give blood and creates awareness about the need for blood donors so yes yeah Carolee some of you have heard about he's a CEO of rice group and she's a young person who's a beneficiary of an integrity Institute and when she spoke at a tenth anniversary she said you know one thing I'll never forget about me was that they actually locked the door because I came late and I wasn't allowed in something as simple as teaching people that time is money and that African time is a thing of the past and with a leadership ethics and civics program we teach teachers who go on to teach students about leadership ethics and civics and one of our youth projects is I was a program one of the change projects the youth came up with in a few lobia in Anambra State was basically free eye tests for drivers of public vehicles because guess what most of these drivers can't see nobody has ever put them through an eye test and guess why we have I mean not one of them number one killers of young people in Africa is road accidents is that news to you so the challenge is these young people came up with a change project after their leap experience to transform the lives of others and I could go on and on about experiences such as this apart from leap my rage for change when I saw a female university students in all our leading universities whose primary dream is to move from university into their husband's home and have a male child to secure their place in the home stay in bad marriages just because that's also economic finances is that same man led me to establish Nia and Nia stands for undo ek anikanova life strength and wealth focus and helping young women achieve their highest potential I won't underscore that each of these initiatives have really been supported by wonderful people and that I can't take credit for any of the impacts we've been able to have now to my newest adventure ace foods with the experience that I've gotten nonprofit sector become more realistic about what nonprofits can achieve and I'll be honest with you there's a place for nonprofits but when you create a for-profit you create a sustainable enterprise occurring employ tons of people and then you can fund your own nonprofits and then you don't have to depend on funder but consider the statistics and I'm sure you share my rage 60% of the Nigerian population is engaged in agriculture however forty to sixty percent of our fruits and vegetables go to waste we have one of the highest rates of malnutrition forty one percent of our children under five a Stanford 14 percent are wasted this leads to infant mortality and XX mental development we talked about mental health earlier you wonder why we have some of the people we have in positions of authority ninety percent of the processed food consumed in nigeria is imported and it's not just nigeria all over africa lived in senegal have worked in ghana it breaks my heart to see that we import stuff from all over the world when we grow the best food in our own countries food is expensive in nigeria about 50% of household income is spent on food imagine that so the challenge is why and what can we do about it my husband and i established a company called ace foods where we sauce from farmers and process for the local population and it's been tough sounds good on paper but it's been tough we face the biggest challenge changing the mindsets of the average Nigerian that food grown locally sourced locally is better than imported food and changing the mindsets of fast moving consumer goods companies that they should buy locally companies like Indomie import 50 tons of chilli pepper for all those who buy into me in the room they don't buy from raise food why why that made us angry and it still makes us angry and we're fighting the good fight so ensure that we have high quality food one thing I'm pushing informally is a local food content bill we have a local content bill now we have a need a local food content bill that forces companies to buy locally if they can find high-quality and affordable prices instead of importing will you join me in that fight so as I conclude I'm often overwhelmed by the magnitude of development challenges that we face in Niger and indeed on the African continent people have spoken about them all day in security the health indicators the educational system the point for structure the levels of corruption the list goes on and on and through my experiences with faith leave Nia and now Ayse I have a great appreciation for the magnitude of work that we have to do the work is immense to transform communities to transform countries we've only scratched the surface but I believe that we were born for a time like this and that history will hold us accountable the challenge for us elite sitting in this room and some of you might not think you're elites but you're all elites because only 5% of the population in my country goes on to higher education only 5% so if you have any some form of higher education you're the elites the challenge for us is to figure out how to channel our rage and anger into a positive change we'd love to talk as Africans we love to complain but we love to blog we'd love to do Twitter but we need to get off our seats and actually start doing what acting because that's the challenge before us what happens with the middle class how do we get so deadened to things around us how do we stop seeing what's going on around us more importantly how do we ensure that our children don't get deadened to these things many of us shield our children from what's going on we built bigger walls so they don't see the shacks next door we buy Jeeps so that they don't see the potholes or don't feel them and then we have convoys from the airport so they don't deal with traffic I mean this was even resonated recently when I did a program for elite kids some mom said can you do up kids are home for the holidays can you do a program and I asked the kids what makes you angry about Nigeria when I was trying to fight off their iPhones on the iPods and nobody raised their hand there was nothing they could see and then one guy said he raised his hand I said man you fans I said one man's new farms that's what makes you angry about Nigeria the fact that people are no more mother European League than they do about their own country that makes me angry so I'm gonna end with just two quotes that I love this quote from Aristotle that says anyone can become angry that is easy but to be angry with the right person to the right degree and at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way that is not within everyone's power that is not easy and the final quotes which is the one that my current mantra is if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go with others and the challenge for us right now for those people who have decided they're gonna act is how do we keep this flame going how do we keep angry enough to want to change the system regardless of how slow it is and how long it's gonna take the only ways by supporting each other by working hand-in-hand by encouraging each other by fueling the flame and the momentum and inspiration that I've got from the Middle East from South America from Guatemala from Ramallah from the United States and from my own country challenges me to continue to fight the good fight and so reach out a hand to all of you to fight for a better future so get angry stay angry and work together let's go far together thank you very much [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 82,356

Rating: 4.8907852 out of 5

Keywords: ted, aace foods, ted talk, leap africa, ndidi nwuneli, tedxeuston, tedx, tedx talks, ted talks, ted x, tedx talk

Id: ram_DHQcwQU

Length: 19min 12sec (1152 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2013