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MEET NKECHI OKORO CARROLL, THE SHOW-RUNNER BEHIND ‘ALL AMERICAN’, THE CW’S NEW DRAMA

Nigerian-American, Nkechi Okoro Carroll is the showrunner of All American, the CW acclaimed new teen drama.

Nkechi Okoro Carroll took over as showrunner after the show’s creator, April Blair stepped aside last week for personal reasons. Nkechi plans to take charge of the storytelling by getting the show to tackle serious issues, ranging from gang violence to NFL protests.

Nkechi grew up in four different countries, Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire, England and the US. She created several short films that were featured in film festivals on multiple continents, including Africa, Europe and North America.

The success of her short films caught the attention of certain executives in Hollywood, which moved her from working as a senior trader and analyst to taking on several roles at the Fox Broadcasting Company — from story editor for Bones to producer of Rosewood and The Resident.

According to her, when she read the script for All American, she believed in it and wanted to see it through:

“As the mother of two black boys, I want to see this show on television. So I’ve been involved since the start, and when April stepped down and Greg asked if I would be interested in stepping up into the showrunner position, I was happy and excited to do it.

We’ve got an amazing creative team here, and we look forward to continuing to tell these stories that I think haven’t really been told on network TV.”

Daniel Ezra and Samantha Logan in ‘All American’(Photo: Jesse Giddings/The CW)

All American is based on the real events of former pro football player, Spencer Paysinger’s life, and the show follows Spencer (Daniel Ezra), a rising football star from who is recruited by the football coach at a prestigious high school, introducing him to a world vastly different from his.

But Spencer isn’t leaving his home behind ­– he’ll live and study in Beverly Hills during the week, then go home to Crenshaw on weekends, creating a more complex fish-out-of-water story, in which they show the ups and downs of both worlds.

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SELENA GOMEZ ADMITTED IN HOSPITAL AFTER HAVING AN EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN

PEOPLE reports that the award-winning singer had been admitted to the hospital after suffering from low white blood cells, which is related to patients with Kidney transplants.

However, while in the hospital, Selena broke down and is now being treated for an emotional breakdown.

“She has had a tough few weeks and the panic attack in the hospital was the tipping point,” a source tells PEOPLE.

“She realized she needed to seek additional help for her ongoing emotional issues. She’s surrounded by close family and has a lot of support. She’s doing better now and is seeking treatment on the East Coast,” the source also told PEOPLE.

According to PEOPLE, Selena is presently undergoing dialectical behavior therapy, a therapy method designed to help try to identify, and then change, negative thinking and behavioral patterns.

It would be recalled that back in 2017, Selena Gomez had a successful kidney transplant which was donated by her best friend.

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EX BBNAIJA HOUSEMATE, BAMBAM BECOMES BRAND AMBASSADOR OF NIGERIA’S FIRST WRISTWATCH BRAND

Ex Big Brother Star, Bamike Olawunmi, popularly known as  “Bambam”, has become the brand ambassador for Nigeria’s first wristwatch brand, Micserah.

Nigeria’s pioneer premium wristwatch brand Micserah has announced their new relationship with the fast-rising actress as she sets to represent the brand globally.

The news was announced by Adekunle Adeniji, Micserah, the founder and CEO who said:

“We’re thrilled to welcome Reality TV star Bambam to the Micserah family; she is the perfect fit for the brand, as she has proved to being an iconic pacesetter in her field. The Bambam watch collection is an exciting moment as the brand rapidly grows and enters new markets across Africa”.

Celebrating Bambam’s new endorsement, the brand will release A 300 piece of limited edition watch collection “Bambam Luna” which is inspired by the Luna concept of the goddess of the moon, a leader and a bright light resonating with Bambam’s personality.

The watch is packed full of Bambam-specific details from strap color variants, case dials, faces and an iconic print of Bambam’s signature on the watch back making this the first of its kind.

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WAKANDA FOREVER: LUPITA NYONG’O, DANAI GURIRA, AND ANGELA BASSETT COVER THE LATEST ISSUE OF ELLE MAGAZINE

On the cover of Elle USA November issue, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, and Angela Bassett are part of the eleven honorees of 2018 as the magazine marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Women in Hollywood.

These black women all played important roles in the hit movie, Black Panther.

Danai Gurira displayed strength in her character in the movie and as Clover Hope Of Elle interviews the trio, Danai speaks on their role in the blockbuster.

 

Read excerpts from the interview below.

Angela on black female representation in Black Panther:

The women were integral to the storytelling and the wisdom that the main character possessed. It was really important in terms of the representation of black feminine strength.

Danai on her wig-snatching scene:

I loved doing that, from the minute she’s wearing that wig and complaining about it, to the minute she gets rid of it very pragmatically. That spoke to so many things about feminine aesthetics.

Lupita on relating to her character:

Nakia was a departure from the character you see in the comic books. She is an independent woman and a bit of a rebel but also a loyalist to her country. I am also someone who depends on my family and friends and feels a connection to my people, and maybe has a sense of responsibility to make them proud. So I really related to that balancing act within oneself.

Photo Credit: Elle

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INSTAGRAM INTRODUCES NEW FEATURES TO DETECT BULLYING IN PHOTOS

You may remember that last June, the social media platform introduced advanced comment filters intended to wipe out hurtful remarks. Instead of just filtering out words and phrases that are seen as offensive, Instagram uses machine learning to take context into account, both helping to erase more offensive comments while flagging fewer false positives.

Now, that technology is expanding, just in time for October’s National Bullying Prevention Month. Here’s a rundown of the new features:

Detecting bullying in photos

Instagram will now apply that advanced machine learning to photos and captions so its Community Operations team can more “proactively detect bullying,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a release. He also expressed concern for protecting the platform’s youngest users, since teens experience higher rates of bullying online than others. (A 2017 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 14.9% of high school students were electronically bullied in the 12 months prior to their survey.)

This new feature is rolling out to all users in the coming weeks.

Bullying comment filter on Live videos

The advanced comment filtering techniques mentioned above, which previously were only used to hide bullying comments in your feed, profile page, and Explore tab, are now globally available on Instagram Live as well.

Kindness camera effect

If you’ve played around on Instagram Stories recently, you’ve probably found yourself LOLing to a funny face filter-and now you can share the good vibes with all your friends. Instagram partnered with Dance Moms phenom Maddie Ziegler to launch a new camera effect all about spreading kindness.

In selfie mode, you’ll see hearts filling up your screen, and you’ll then be encouraged to tag a friend to show them some love. Your friend will be notified, and they can share it to their own story or spread the kindness to someone else. When you switch camera views, you’ll get an overlay of kind comments in languages from all over the world. (If you follow @maddieziegler, you should have the camera effect automatically. If you aren’t a follower but you see someone else using the effect, tap “try it” to add it to your camera.)

Credit: Pulse

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DR. EZINNE MERIBE: THERE IS NO SHAME IN SEEKING HELP FOR MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGES

When the hand is broken, we go to see the doctor.
No, we run to see the doctor.
We know it needs fixing.
No one will see you carrying a broken hand and tell you to suck it up, hide it, you don’t want anyone to know. Of course, no one will stigmatize you for your broken hand.

The intense pain will not let you hide, you will run off to a surgeon and ask him to do something.
We all know the hand is replaceable and we even have two.We have two hands, two legs, two eyes, two ears, two kidneys; nearly every organ in the body can be successfully transplanted or fixed surgically.
You also know that even if you lose those limbs, there are prosthetic limbs you can wear so we have at our beck and call a ton of remedies for fixing a broken limb. Let’s not mention the friends and family that will support you during recovery and take turns by your bed side.Sadly, when your mind/brain is ‘broken’. They tell you to hide it. Don’t seek help. You will bring shame on the family and wrongly so, ignorant people will begin to avoid you and your family.

How else would you fix the mind/brain if you don’t seek help?
Do you have two brains? Do you know anyone that will donate one for you?

Are you looking forward to doing a mind/brain transplant or are there prosthetic minds/brains available for sale? Some people even have the resources to seek help but will hide under the cover of ‘do you know who I am?’. My pedigree? My status? Yet, they are not whole.

The broken mind/brain does not have prosthesis.
The broken mind or brain cannot be transplanted from a family member or donor.
Only you know where it hurts and how it hurts.

Some of us have emotional baggage from our childhood and past experiences that only therapy can take care of. Unfortunately, we can’t place these feelings and its consequences so we are unable to deal with it. It affects our relationships, our performance at work/productivity and our wellbeing. For this reason, some have been tagged as ‘having spiritual problem’ or being possessed while being ferried from one prayer house to another. It is a factor in the domestic violence/emotional abuse in marriage towards spouse and children.

It is no longer enough to tell people to lose weight, to follow a meal plan, to register at the gym, to wake up first thing in the morning to exercise – as long as those deep-seated issues are not dealt with through therapy and inquiry (excavating & uprooting); many of us will continue to use food as a coping mechanism. This is why with my clients, I choose first to focus on behavior remodeling. Sadly, many people don’t want to deal with the real issues they prefer a ‘meal plan’ that will fail them again and again.
You know deep within you that this mind/brain is not ‘working’ as it should and you want to be whole…believe me, there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Mental illnesses are disorders affecting a state and part of the body just like you would have kidney diseases, liver diseases and every other disease that affects a part of the body. Once a disorder in any of these parts result, it becomes an illness. There should be no stigma associated with it, just because they manifest differently is not a cause for stigma either. If we are not stigmatizing the person with a broken hand, we are wrong to stigmatize the one with a broken mind/brain.

Please, don’t let your ‘well-meaning’ pastor tell you ‘we will pray it out’. Why did that other church member who fractured her knee get admitted in the hospital and you all went to see her with baskets of fruits. Why was she not managed in church with prayer and fasting?
PS: Your pastor cannot fulfill every role in your life and a good pastor should be the first person encouraging you to seek professional help.

Yes, in God’s word there is an answer for every situation. Just like we had priests, we had kings, we had men at the city gates, we had scribes. Each one fulfilling a different purpose.
Today, we have therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Every wisdom here on earth comes from God. So, the therapists and psychiatrists you will see are acting under God’s divine wisdom just like the pastor is.

Even the psychiatrist is stigmatized.
In my 2nd year of Medical School (about 13 years ago), I heard about the psychiatrist in my city. They said he behaves like his patients, jumps on tables when attending to patients and ‘looks and acts crazy’. I’m sure most people who ‘distributed’ that narrative had never seen this man. I on the other hand have been there during a 4-week posting in my 5th year, never for once did I witness any of the doctors jumping on tables. This is what ‘the danger of a single story’ does to the world of psychiatry.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors who are trained to diagnose and treat mental  illness with medication or evideAccording to the WHO, while information is lacking on mental health and access to mental health in Nigeria is quite limited, it is estimated that at least 4% of the population suffer from depression. I assume this number is very much underestimated thanks to our poor health seeking behaviors (people don’t seek medical help until it is severe).

While there are non-existent desks in the ministries at any level for mental health and only 3.3% of the Federal Government’s health budget goes to mental health, we can do better as individuals. Stigmatization will only lead to more and more people suffering in silence, never getting help and even getting worse. A 4-week therapy session for that woman suffering post-partum depression will go a long way in helping her raise mentally strong children that will neither be neglected nor emotionally abused …but she won’t go for fear that YOU & I will stigmatize/ostracize her and her children.

Summary;
– When we feel pain in our muscles or limbs we see the orthopedic surgeon
– When we feel pain around the abdomen, we see the gastroenterologist
– When our heart hurts suddenly we run down to the cardiologist. No one wants to die of a heart attack.
– When we feel pain in our minds/brains we have every right like every other person who seeks help for pain in other parts of their body to see a therapist or a psychiatrist.

Having a mental illness does not mean you’re broken or weak. far from it. Acknowledging that you have a biological imbalance and need help is the most courageous thing that you can do today: It is a sign of strength, not weakness. I believe everyone deserves a therapy session at least twice a year.
As a psychiatrist rightly quoted, there is no health without mental health.

Mental Health Helplines and Resources in Nigeria
Nigeria Suicide Prevention Initiative: +234 806 210 6493
Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative +234 806 010 1157
She Writes Woman +234 817 491 3329

 

About Ezinne Meribe
Dr. Ezinne Meribe is the host of Beyond A Dress Size podcast; a podcast series that creates stimulating conversations to pull down misconceptions on nutrition, weight loss, health and body diversity while empowering women to live life beyond the numbers on the dress label, scale or tape.
She is the Lead Wellness Coach/Founder at Zinnyslifestyle, where she leverages her professional qualifications and personal experience to teach women how to OWN & LOVE their bodies and LIVE in it fabulously; having successfully won the struggle with being overweight and loving her body. A UK certified Wellness Professional with a Bachelors in Medicine and Surgery (MBBS), she completed her postgraduate training in Public Health at Kumamoto University, Japan. As a Medical Doctor and Public Health Specialist, she continues to promote preventive medicine as the number one way to combat the severe health system constraints in developing countries.

You can connect with her on
Instagram @zinnyslifestyle
Facebook @zinnyslifestyle
Read more on Medium @ezinnemeribe
Or send an email to info@zinnyslifestyle.com

 

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AGGREY MOKAYA’S NGO IS HELPING FEMALE INMATES BUILD THEIR FUTURE WITH TECH

The latest feature in BBC Innovators series is 31-year old Aggrey Mokaya who runs an NGO – Change Hub – bring tech training to women in Langata maximum-security prison, Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

Mokaya, who is also a tutorial fellow at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture, has through his organisation, trained 21 women so far and hopes to expand to every prison in Kenya.
“It’s all about giving people a second chance. It’s all about giving them a chance to tap into the economy they were not a part of before,” he said in the feature by Tamasin Ford and Suzanne Vanhooymissen.

60-80% of all inmates in Kenya will reoffend and land back in jail, according to Kenya Prisons’ statistics from 2014.

Mokaya’s organisation is working to reduce this.

“An ex-convict and a person who has never committed a crime, in the eyes of the law they are the same. So I think they should also be the same in the eyes of the economy, in the eyes of entrepreneurship or opportunities.
“If they are denied opportunities and chances to actually get into a space where they can make something of themselves we are basically setting them up to fail,” Mokoya said.

One of the beneficiaries, Dorcus, 44 who is due to be released later this month after serving half of her 3 and half-year sentence fr forgery had this to say:
When I came to prison I didn’t know computers. Now I can do anything. I can even create you a computer.

I have five children and I’m a widow, so going back to those children is the most important thing to me.

I won’t be moving around having dust on my feet as I don’t have a car.
It will change my life. I will be saving time and money.

Another beneficiary Rahab Nyawira, 35, who was released this year and now runs her catering business is also thankful and grateful she’s making her three children proud.
“There’s nothing you can compare with prison. Prison is the worst place to be but for me it was my turning point.

My website, I can say, it is my superpower in my business. It helps me meet new clients online everywhere in Kenya.

I learnt so many things through Change Hub. I was introduced to HTML, CSS and Javascript. For my website I coded everything myself.

When my daughter sees me now, I feel so proud,” she said.

On why he chose to start with a women’s prison, Mokaya said:
There’s a gender bias when it comes to technology.
If I’m able to impact the life of one woman it means you know there is a knock-on effect. It’s even a chance for her kids to get exposed to that programming early on.
When you talk about wanting to do a technology project everyone says why don’t you go to the men’s prison, or the juvenile prison?
I look at that and say yes it’s important, but it’s secondary. We will get there once we get it right at the women’s prison.

Credit: Bellanaija

 

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FG ANNOUNCES NEW MINIMUM WAGE AS N24,000

The Federal Government has revealed that the proposed minimum wage for the civil servants is ₦24,000.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, stated this on Monday while speaking with newsmen in the State House, Premium Times reports.
Ngige shared that the Federal Government has proposed to pay its workers ₦24,000, while states will pay ₦20,000.

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) are willing to go as low as ₦30,000, he revealed, while the organized private sector came down to ₦25,000.
The deliberation on setting a new minimum wage started in 2017 after President Muhammadu Buhari approved a committee to negotiate.

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UK APPOINTS FIRST MINISTER OF SUICIDE PREVENTION

The United Kingdom has, in commemoration of the World Mental Health Day, appointed its first Minister of Suicide Prevention.

The UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced the appointment, naming Jackie Doyle-Price as Minister for Mental Health, Inequalities and Suicide Prevention.
The Conservative Party shared the news on its Twitter, writing:
@theresa_may has appointed the first ever UK Minister for Suicide Prevention.
@JackieDP will lead a new national effort as we work to reduce the number of suicides and overcome the stigma that stops people seeking help.

Mashable reports that Doyle-Price, who was a junior minister in the Department of Health, said:
In my time as health minister I have met many people who have been bereaved by suicide and their stories of pain and loss will stay with me for a long time.
It’s these people who need to be at the heart of what we do and I welcome this opportunity to work closely with them, as well as experts, to oversee a cross-government suicide prevention plan, making their sure their views are always heard.
About 4,500 are said to die by suicide yearly in England, and the ministry’s work will be to see to the reduction of the number, something Doyle-Price has said she’s committed to.

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“MY CHILDREN ARE MY TEACHERS”, SAYS KERRY WASHINGTON AS SHE COVERS MARIE CLAIRE’S POWER ISSUE

Kerry Washington is the latest cover star for Marie Claire‘s Power Issue. For the cover feature, she talks life after tv series Scandal, heading back to Broadway, motherhood, and the Time Up movement.

Read excerpts below:

On the word Power: Honestly, I think about power as more of an internal phenomenon, I tend to think about empowerment for myself so that I have the courage and ability to act on the ideologies and priorities that resonate with me. I’ve always wanted to cultivate a sense of empowerment within myself without seeking approval from outside sources, which is hard to do as an actor, which is part of why producing is so important and which is where some of my freedom, or learning, to take that sense of freedom and bring it to a larger audience and larger space has a lot to do with having my employer be a black woman.

On working on Broadway:  Theater is a big part of why I fell in love with storytelling and with acting and I hadn’t been able to do it for the whole life of Scandal. I love being in the room with your audience. There’s something very meditative and monastic to me about theatre because on TV, every single day is different. To commit yourself to go to the same place and saying the same words and walking the same path, it’s almost like a labyrinth in a monastery or a walking meditation, where the world around you changes but you don’t. You commit to the same task at hand, and in doing that, you learn so much. The last time I did theater, it completely transformed my life. That’s where I met my husband.

On what Motherhood has taught her: Everything. My children are my teachers. There’s a writer that I love, Dr Shefali Tsabary. She writes about conscious parenting, and her paradigm is that we think about it all wrong. We think children come into the world and it’s our job to mold them and create them and teach them who to be so that they can be the best version of themselves, but it’s actually completely upside down. We get sent by God the kids we need so we can grow in order to be the parents they need us to be. The children I got sent came in perfect, and I have to figure out how to grow and evolve so that I can support the truth of them. I’m in a constant state of learning and challenging myself to make room for their perfection and beauty.

On the disparities in representation and action for women of colour in the industry and beyond: It’s complicated to be a woman of colour doing this work because I remember the first time I talked about it in a meeting. I said to the white women in the room, ‘You all roll your eyes when they call it a witch hunt, but for black women in this country, we’ve had our men hung from trees for whistling at white women when they did no wrong. The false accusation of sexual assault is a very real danger for us in a way that doesn’t resonate for you, and so when you wonder why there aren’t more of us in the room, that might be part of it.

It was in that meeting that we were talking about how one of our members got word that there was a powerful exposé being developed around R. Kelly and said, ‘Do we want to get ahead of this?’ It was like, ‘Of course we do.’ It can’t be only the Angelina Jolies and the Gwyneth Paltrows, that we prioritize their pain and ignore all of these underage black women who for decades have been saying, ‘Help me.’ We came forward for them in a statement about R. Kelly, and it was Time’s Up WOC’s first big public action.

Click here for more on Kerry.

Credit: BN
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