Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been honoured with the Bookcity Milano Prize at the Bookcity Literary Festival!
The author revealed the news on her Instagram, sharing photos of herself looking gorgeous. She wrote: “Delighted to accept the Bookcity Milano Prize at the Bookcity Literary Festival.”
See photos below.
Photo Credit: chimamanda_adichie
Source: Bellanaija
It is so heartbreaking. A lady identified as Moradeun, who was reportedly robbed and stabbed on Monday night, has died after she was allegedly denied treatment by a Lagos hospital.
Friends on social media share that Moradeun was on her way home from work when she was robbed then stabbed.
Moradeun’s sister, Twitter user @bankemusic, share the story on her timeline. She wrote:
@segalink please help me I beg you my heart can’t take it please!!! My sister was on her way back home from Work to her house in Gbagada around 7pm.
She was robbed and was also stabbed. People were watching . Sir I don’t know please what would you have done.
Then bystanders later rushed her to R.Jolad hospital in Gbagada but the doctors said they can not treat her expect she has a police report ahhh sir someone was stabbed in the neck. Police report that what sir.
MY SISTER IS DEAD. Someone please pinch me. Who will help me like this!!!!
There’s since been an outpouring of love from friends of Moradeun, all of them sharing stories about the impact she’s had in their lives, and lamenting the practice of demanding police reports before treatment.
Moboluwajinde
Moradeun was very friendly, Moradeun was a caring heart, Moradeun was a loving soul, Moradeun bridged gaps, Moradeun didn’t deserve the inhumane act of R. JOLAD Hospital Gbagada Lagos State. Moradeun was stabbed in the neck, Moradeun was dying yet they didn’t attend to Moradeun
Jolad in Gbagada killed Moradeun
She was stabbed on her way from work yesterday, rushed to this useless hospital but they refused to treat her without Police report. Moradeun is dead 💔 pic.twitter.com/smBUjWAfNa— IkeOluwa Fasipe (@ik3oluwa) December 3, 2019
Tunde TNT@Tunde_TNTThis country has failed us!! They are not going to escape with this one! Moradeun was going about her life and she was stabbed and robbed! This can’t continue in this country. #GetjusticeforMoradeun
Okpetoritse@okpedaiboI met a lady probably when I was in my second year in Uni. A friend told her I had issues with people touching me and she made it a point of duty to hug me and peck me on the cheek until I was okay with it. That was Moradeun, that was the person a failed system took from us.
Proud Egba babe!!!@daythoughyinI’m so sorry Nigeria failed you Moradeun. Go on angels wings sweet soul. #welostagemtoafailedsystem
#justiceformoradeun
Mr. Oladiji@TolaOladijiTell Moradeun a dream or idea you have, she’ll never forget.
Have you done that thing now.
What about that plan you told me about?
When are you going to do it?
Sigh.
Sigh.
The hospital, R-Jolad, has however denied reports that they demanded a police report from the people who brought Moradeun in. She was assessed, they said, and found to be in need of a vascular surgeon. Because they did not have one, she was referred to the Gbagada General Hospital, they shared in a statement.
See the hospital’s statement below:
The McKinsey Global Institute 2019 Report reveals that Africa surpasses the world in this regard.
Phuti Mahanyele, a South African business executive. CEO of Sigma Capital and former CEO of the Shanduka Group.
McKinsey Global Institute further revealed in their report that as a result of placing so many women at the board of corporate companies in the continent, Africa now surpasses Europe, Asia, and America incorporate gender parity.
In its report, Bloomberg highlights the surprise of the feat. It highlights the fact that Africa deserves credit for the report despite being a continent blighted by the world’s highest maternal mortality rate.
You will agree that the continent has scant legal protection for women and very little representation in government. The continent, however, beats all other regions globally in the proportion of females on company boards.
Perhaps, this is the reason behind the success of many African corporate and the government should take a cue from the achievements by creating spaces for more women in governance.
The report reveals that in Africa, one in four board members are female. That’s better than second-placed Europe at 23% and well ahead of global laggard Latin America at 7%.
According to a report on gender parity released by the McKinsey Global Institute on Tuesday, the world average for female representation on boards is 17%. Representation on executive committees in Africa is lower than on boards, at 22%, but above the global average of 21%.
Still, the advance has been led by progress in only a handful of African nations and women disproportionately occupy leadership roles in human resources and legal departments. Jobs that are seen as less likely to lead to the position of chief executive officer, McKinsey said in the report titled ‘The Power of Parity – Advancing women’s equality in Africa.’
“A number of reality checks are necessary,” McKinsey said. “Only a relatively small number of economies — namely Botswana, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and South Africa — have made headway.”
The report highlighted that African women are far more disadvantaged outside the workplace, with significant inequality in their role in society and the legal protection available to them.
“Africa has not done a good job of providing essential services such as health care and education,” McKinsey said. “The continent has the world’s highest rates of maternal mortality and unmet need for family planning in the world.”
The equality of women’s and men’s rights is only enshrined in law in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Rwanda. High levels of violence against women are also prevalent.
Even so, the picture is a mixed one, reflecting a range of experiences across a continent with 54 nations and more than one billion people.
“Countries in southern Africa perform relatively well on women’s education and also have a low incidence of child marriage,” McKinsey said. “This is not the case in West and Central Africa.”
Across all measures in the 39 African countries that McKinsey could obtain data for, South Africa, with a gender parity score of 0.76, is the best place to be a woman. Niger is the worst, with a score of 0.45. Complete parity would be a score of 1. Out of the five top-scoring nations, only one, Rwanda wasn’t in southern Africa.
That implies economic performance: By denying women equal rights, African countries are limiting their growth potential. If all countries matched South Africa’s level of parity by 2025, the continental economy would be 10%, or $316 billion, larger, McKinsey said.
Still, at the current pace of progress, complete gender parity in Africa will only be reached in 142 years.
With an untamed entrepreneurial flair, these young South African women are using recycled plastic to make bricks!
These young South African women are using recycled plastic to make bricks!
The entrepreneurial flair exuded by young Africans shows the unstoppable willingness to provide sustainable solutions to the problems affecting communities. Two young South African ladies started a business that uses recycled plastic to make bricks.
They immediately went viral on Twitter for their excellence and innovative ways to reduce unemployment and also saving the environment at the same time.
A Twitter user celebrated the enterprising efforts of these young people saying, ” These ladies make bricks that are made from recycled plastic, the young ladies employed 15 young other people and created a number of indrt indirect employment by employing a number of waist pickers who they buy plastic from. First plastic bricks in South Africa.”
Plasti-Bricks is the name of their budding product and the way they are solving these two problems at once – unemployment and plastic waste – is simply commendable.
Some doubted the durability of these bricks. But this is not the first venture of its kind. In Ghana, Nelplast Ghana is a company that “transforms waste plastics and sand into durable Eco-friendly bricks that is used in the construction of roads/roofing and building construction.”
When done in the correct sense with the environmental solutions in mind, the bricks are of admirable longevity.
The young women said, “Thank you so much for engaging with us, yes the bricks have the same look an feel as the conventional cement bricks so they can be cemented and plastered like any other brick.” They were responding to the question, “Can we really build with these bricks?”
Their website homepage reads, “At Ramtsilo Manufacturing & Construction, our mission is to solve the plastic waste problem while providing a sustainable housing solution. Whether its household renovations or new mall construction we make it easier to achieve a finished project by supplying what you need the most… The BRICKS!”
They are a focused team that is keen on delivering sustainable solutions to the environment while providing employment and creating a robust business structure withing the construction industry.
They hail the PlastiBrick as their most innovative product and the future looks bright for them!
A sweet story of love that conquers all social boundaries.
A beautiful Nigerian woman on Saturday, September 7, walked down the aisle with her visually impaired husband in a wedding ceremony which took place at St. Williams Catholic Church in Lafia, Nasarawa State capital.
It would have been like any other wedding except for the way the social media went crazy about how love happens.
The beautiful bride said to be from Plateau State said, ‘I Do’ to her husband from Kogi state while cheered on by her family, friends, and well-wishers.
A Facebook user, Nora Chika who shared photos from the event, wrote: “WONDERS shall never end, beautiful Plateau bride and her handsome blind groom. I witness the I DO I DO today, no be say na money the bride see, this is indeed true love. May God bless their union I pray,” she wrote in Pidgin English.
It is a known fact across many climes that physically challenged folks are stigmatized and often ostracized due to their conditions. From the workplace, love and relationships, and opportunities, they are part of the oppressed. For a woman to marry a physically impaired man, she must have crossed the social hurdles from friends and associates.
The photos of the newly wedded couple immediately went viral, as it further gives credence to the notion of love is limitless. This sweet story of love can teach today’s youth that love knows no barrier and it never discriminates.
Header Image Credit: Lindaikeji
She fought against her father on the battlefield in 1970.
What will you do if faced with two tricky choices of choosing sides between a rebel group and your father? Alemtsehay Kasa made a choice not many people would when she joined a rebel group to fight against her father.
Now, a high ranking police commander, Alemtsehay Kasa has shared her story of what happened in the 1970s. She joined a rebel group as a teenager to fight against the Marxist regime.
In the late 1970s, rebel groups were picking up arms against the Marxist military rulers in Ethiopia. Despite having full knowledge that her father had sided with the Marxist government, Alemtsehay joined a rebel group – the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
She knew full well that this would mean fighting against her father on the battlefield, but she chose her country over her father.
“Our father, Kasa Hailu, fought against all his five children, politically speaking. But he and I fought in a specific battle called Adi Emiru, where he finally retreated with his wounded comrades,” Alemtsehay Kasa said.
She claimed her mother was also an ardent supporter of the TPLF rebels and tried to convince her husband, a soldier, to change his allegiance, but he refused.
She wrote him a letter pleading for him not to fight their 14-year-old – but he refused and wrote back urging her to “bring back our daughter from the bush”.
Ms. Alemtsehay then wrote to him, saying:
“The regime that you are fighting for is killing your relatives, and it is undemocratic. Even if you are devoted to the cause, a father should not fight his daughter.”
Again he refused to desert the government, which became known for its “Red Terror” purges. They killed thousands of people who opposed the regime.
Alemtsehay Kasa had no choice but to fight against her father.
Mr. Kasa was later wounded in the fighting at the battle of Feres My and taken captive by the rebels. He eventually died in captivity in 1982.
Ms. Almetshay said when she heard about her father’s death from her fellow fighters, she was deeply affected.
“I could not see my father again – I was very sad to hear the news. Above all, I was very upset that my father had died supporting a dictatorial and murderous system,” she says.
It took 17 years for a coalition of rebels to overthrow military ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam, who went into exile in 1991.
Header Image Credit: BBC
The global health industry has for long drawn 78% of its samples from Europe and only 2% from Africa, an imbalance that may have resulted in treatments that do not work on non-European populations. This Nigerain startup is changing the status quo.
54gene hopes to create an ecosystem within the African health market (Header Image Credits: CNN)
Scientific research and studies have consistently shown that there is greater genetic diversity in Africa than in any other continent, a Nigerian startup is revolutionalizing the study of African genomes.
In 2006, US scientists published a landmark study that linked lower levels of a gene known as PCSK9 to lower rates of heart disease.
Researchers then sought to test the thesis by identifying subjects with a rare mutation that resulted in even lower levels of PSCK9. Just two were discovered, including a young woman living in South Africa.
The discovery allowed drug manufacturers to produce what became Praluent, the first FDA-approved cholesterol-lowering drug of the 21st Century, which would be prescribed to guard against strokes, heart attacks, and other deadly conditions.
The location of the South African subject was not by chance.
The variations exhibited in African genes have the potential to reveal insights that enable the development of treatments for health conditions that affect Africans and non-Africans alike.
But scientists say African DNA is being largely excluded from the field of genomics, the study of full gene sets.
Pharmaceutical drugs that are produced are mostly drawn from samples of the European population, thus resulting in the production of treatments that do not work for the non-European population. Research published earlier this year showed just 2% of samples used in genome-wide association studies came from Africans, while 78% came from Europeans.
Calculations developed based on evidence from primarily European populations may not apply to people of other ethnic backgrounds,” the authors of the study wrote.
“The lack of ethnic diversity in human genomic studies means that our ability to translate genetic research into clinical practice or public health policy may be dangerously incomplete, or worse, mistaken.”
The study authors called for the creation of ethnically-diverse biobanks to address the imbalance.
Nigerian health tech startup 54gene has taken a lead on addressing the problem at hand. Industry experts have described it as “the world’s first pan-African biobank,” inspired by a mission to address some of the continent’s most serious health challenges.
54gene was launched earlier this year in Lagos. Co-founders included Abasi Ene-Obong, a veteran of US pharma companies with a Ph.D. in cancer biology, and Francis Osifo, a technology entrepreneur whose clients have included Visa and Microsoft.
The company has been drawing back diaspora Nigerians who have had experience working for global institutions such as Cancer Research UK and the World Bank.
The team began with a pilot project in three Nigerian hospitals, securing the necessary regulatory and ethical permissions to allow doctors to obtain an initial 6,000 blood and tissue samples.
The project has scaled up since then. Osifo says there are now partnerships with 17 hospitals and the target is to secure 40,000 samples by the end of this year, rising to 200,000 in 2020.
54gene supplies the genetic material to pharma companies and academic and clinical researchers to facilitate the development of healthcare solutions. Core targets for treatment include cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegenerative disease.
54gene and their new partners at Google talk about creating “ecosystems” in African markets – a virtuous circle with mutually supportive ties between investors, entrepreneurs, and state institutions that leads to improvements in education, employment, and patient outcomes.
The study of African genomics remains under-explored but is rich with promise.
Dark-skinned women everywhere are bullied and discriminated against for their dark skin colour. Nyakim Gatwech uses her platform to address and challenge that.
Nyakim Gatwech
A Uber driver offered “Queen of the Dark” South Sudanese model, Nyakim Gatwech, $10,000 to breach her skin. Nyakim laughed off the offer. “Why on earth would I ever bleach this beautiful melanin God blessed me with?” She asked.
Nyakim was born in Ethiopia where her parents had fled the South Sudanese civil war. The family then migrated to Kenya where they lived in refugee camps. They were later relocated to the US when she was 14.
Nyakim has been bullied several times due to her dark skin. People feel no shame telling her to bleach her skin, like the Uber driver who even offered her money to do it.
Colourism – prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a darker skin tone.
Not to be deterred, Nyakim took to social media to share her struggles and to inspire other dark-skinned women. She regularly posts photos with heartwarming captions about self-love and challenges the conventional beauty ideals that hold that “lighter is better”.
According to the World Health Organisation, 40% of African women bleached their skin in 2011. In some countries, the figure is higher: 77% of women in Nigeria, 59% in Togo, 35% in South Africa, 27% in Senegal and 25% in Mali.
These products are not safe and can cause terrible side effects including cancer and liver and kidney damage. Most of the products are not even approved for this use but they are widely advertised, including on social media. Some African countries have banned some of the products.
Women especially face the harsher end of colorism. Apart from the endless bullying, light-skinned women are preferred over dark-skinned women for jobs. It is alleged that in the US, dark-skinned women get harsher sentences than their light-skinned counterparts.
While the world has a long way to go to getting rid of colorism, dark-skinned girls and women see themselves represented in the media through women like Nyakim.
We’re all beautiful in whatever shade of skin colour God creates us in. – Nyakim Gatwech
Why should being dark be bad? Embrace who you are. – Nyakim Gatwech
Black is bold, black is beautiful, black is gold. Don’t let American standards damage your African soul. – Nyakim Gatwech
I am the queen of the dark who brings light and love to those around me. – Nyakim Gatwech
Kenyans are optimistic despite the hardships.
A survey conducted by YouGov has shown that Kenyans are the most optimistic Africans with a score of 70% which is above the 64% average for Africa and slightly below South America which had the highest score at 74%. The survey was commissioned by Expo 2020 Dubai.
The study, titled the Global Outlook Survey, sampled 20,000 people aged between 18-64 in 23 countries across the 6 continents. The survey revealed that almost two-thirds are optimistic about the future and 9 in 10 people believe that it is up to them to make it better.
The survey further revealed the world’s wishlist for 2050 includes (in descending order): knowledge-gathering, learning, and access to education; plastic-free oceans, access to resources, universal clean energy transportation, carbon-free travel, and free trade for all and amongst all.
Some of the reasons Kenyans were optimistic were: new opportunities created by a thriving digital technology landscape, a decentralized system of government, and a continued uplift in socio-economic conditions across the country.
85% of the surveyed Kenyans believe that knowledge-gathering, learning, and access to education give the best chance to unlock opportunities in the year 2050. Natural resource conservation, alternative energy, and zero waste were considered as the most important in creating a better future while technological advances such as ride-sharing and electric vehicles were considered the least important.
The 2050 wishlist for the surveyed Kenyans was as follows (in descending order): free trade (82%), self-powering and energy producing transportation (72%), carbon-free travel (68%), e-commerce (66%), and cloud computing, big data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) (66%).
View the survey here.
Header Image Credit: Daily Nation
She won the award for her work with young people who have suffered extremist violence.
Divina Maloum receiving her award in The HagueCameroon, hague
Divina Maloum has been named the recipient of the international peace prize organized by Dutch organization KidsRights.
14-year-old Divina Maloum from Cameroon won the award for her work with young people who have suffered extremist violence, particularly in the north of Cameroon.
Organizers of the award, KidsRights, say it wants children recognized for their efforts to improve society, beginning from improving their situation.
According to the report, a 16-year-old world-renowned environmental activist from Sweden, Greta Thunberg was also awarded alongside Divina Maloum.
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