ARTS EXPO 2011 - UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

January 27, 2011, 5 - 8:30 pm

What is Arts Career Expo? Hear from UBC Alumni on the variety of career options available in law, government, business, international development and more… 

PANELIST 

Special thanks to the Arts Expo 2011 Team for inviting me. To all the amazing students who came to our panel, your exuberance and thirst for positive change left me more inspired and motivated to continue doing what I do best - innovating ways to make the world a better place for all.

Stay positive!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

                            
                            Dear WWW:

Your Quotes '2011

Three decades ago, when I was a little girl, I imagined that the world was going to end in the year 2000. I had no idea that I will not only live 11 years after but that I will also rise from my lowly beginnings to where I am today. Well, I met so many ANGELS all through my journey to success but equally so, the FALLEN ANGELS were (and still are) always around both physically and spiritually whispering "you can never become...", "you are not intelligent enough to become...", "for your race, you will succeed in entertainment and sports", "you will never amount up to anything good" or "you _______ go back to where you came from". But you know what? It seems whenever people say "I can't..." something deep inside my belly cranks up. Some call it RESILIENCE others "dare to succeed come what may." Given my ability to thrive, once I hear those words I instantly become motivated to work even harder. Let me be frank with you, 2010 had some really great snapshots but it was also a TRYING year for me. NEVERTHELESS, my "battery" is RECHARGED for 2011 because it's gonna be a good good year! I invite you to tap into your inner strength and let's ride together to "be the change" we want to see in the world. May 2011 be all that you have ever desired for yourselves. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

UBC ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2010

Global Citizenship Award 2010

 

There will never be ample lexicon to express my profound gratitude to the University of British Columbia Alumni Relations for valuing my "widow's mite" to society. I am very humble and appreciated! A full description of the deep emotions I felt (mostly positive, yet reflective) is buried in my personal diary and will hopefully re-surface (along with other very interesting life experiences) in my autobiography someday soon.

An emblem of my gratitude to all those who dare to believe in me is reflected in this song (courtesy Jonathan Larson - may your soul rest in peace).

Click to view video, snapshots, and pictures of the Achievement Award Presentation Dinner, Celebrating Achievement, and UBC Annual Review 2010.

THANK YOU UBC!!!

Could Caribana be a Possible Solution to Afro-Caribbean Community Development?

Note: This piece did not make for publication to Toronto Star, Metro News, Share News, Pride and Sway, so here you go...

As an African immigrant to the West Coast of Canada, I had always craved for the East Coast especially after being encouraged on several occasions to visit Toronto for Caribana; if I wanted to experience Canada’s true cultural mosaic with respect to Caribbean arts and entertainment. As a prospective law student with much excitement, I eagerly went about asking questions about living in Toronto. On one beautiful evening sometime in July whilst walking through the woods in Victoria, BC; I remember designing disturbing images of Toronto in my mind’s eyes as a fellow Volksports walker narrates crime prevalence rates in Toronto to me. He said, “most crimes in Toronto occur in the Jane and Finch area which is separated by only a street from York University.” “Whatever you do try not to cross the line,” he admonished. And, “those crimes are mainly committed by Jamaicans…” Of course, being an old white British descend, I could not have expected otherwise. I nodded as a sign of respect.

It had being almost 7 years of wishful thinking; finally I am going to be a part of this historical international event that has existed since 1967. Whilst researching on Caribana, I found some very interesting information that has siphoned my critical thinking. Caribana is praised for being the largest international cultural festival in North America attracting about 1 .5 million attendees in 2008; in addition to pumping about $100 million in the local Toronto economy. Of the one million attendees 57% are females; 43% are males; 58% are between the ages of 16 to 29 years; 51% have house hold income of over 50,000; 40% have tertiary education, and 64% live in Toronto area. According to the Scotiabank Caribana Sponsorship Package 2009, “festival goers have a high disposable income, are tech savvy, influential and have shown a high propensity to buy brands that visibly support the festival.” Knowledge of these information inherently provokes some hard questioning especially knowing that the Afro-Caribbean community in Toronto is being denigrated to exhibiting relatively high rates pertinent to crimes, single parenthood, teenage pregnancy, secondary school drop out, low admittance to post-secondary institutions, low representations in public offices, amongst others.

The first question is why is Caribana called “Scotiabank” Caribana? According to Wikipedia, in early 2006 Toronto municipal government refused to renew funding for Caribana Cultural Committee due to recurring accounting problems. This explains (in part) the need to Scotiabank support, however, it also necessitate the relevance of conducting further investigations into the nature of the “recurring accounting problems” should the Caribbean community deem it expedient to take full ownership and leadership of Caribana. My research on festivals in Toronto failed to find any other ethno-cultural event that has used a bank or the City of Toronto in the same way that Caribana has; e.g. Scotiabank Chinese Festival. This implies, with some level of exactitude, that the Afro-Caribbean community has serious problems in taking full control of its community. It appears that there must be some external interference at all times to ensure transparency and accountability within Afro-Caribbean communities, which can later lead to exploitation and destruction of local community.

Second major question, how does the Caribbean/Black community benefit in the long-term from Caribana? Apart from the Caribana Arts Group/Yorkgate Mall Scholarship which granted 4 students a total of $3,000 dollars scholarship award in 2006, there appears to be no other support for community development from Caribana. One would imagine that for an event that has the capacity to raise over a million dollar, there would be a significant amount of plans to target local disparities and inequalities that adversely typify the Afro-Caribbean community in Toronto.

A glance at events lined up for Scotiabank Caribana, shows that guests are charged up to $150 to attend the Scotiabank Caribana Gala. Where do the proceeds of such event end up? Especially when the Festival’s website highlights such expensive events with no provision for including underprivileged children or youths in the community, or at least aspiring to recognize the fact that Caribana could offer some form of solution to the myriad of social demise that not only stereotypically characterized the Afro-Caribbean community in Toronto but also adversely stigmatized the community in so many ways.

In an attempt to challenge the Afro-Caribbean community not just in Toronto but all of Canada,

I look forward to the day when Caribana (and other local Afro-Caribbean groups) will move beyond just “entertainment,” “arts” and “cultural identity” toward setting annual trends like constructing multi-purpose community centres for underprivileged black communities, providing full scholarships to vulnerable young people, recognizing and supporting the efforts of innovative Afro-Caribbean individuals and organizations that are working assiduously to penetrate systemic racial and discriminatory barriers of Canada so-called cultural mosaic. For example the Afro Global TV which promises to be the first ever Black TV Station in Canada is one of such distinctive organization that has the potential to raise the profile of the Afro-Caribbean community in Canada but yet is being denied opportunity to broadcast in Canada.

“A Career Limiting Response” for International Development Students

Note: Follow up from Queens International Development Conference, 2009

For the past six years students from multi-disciplinary backgrounds including engineering, commerce, international development studies, amongst others have successfully hosted Queens International Development Conference (Queens IDC). This year’s conference, Change: A Thousand Things Done Differently” held on March 12-13th was no exception. Seasoned speakers and panellists from various institutions across Canada’s East coast presented on topics ranging from the foreign aid, to human trafficking, technology and development, water issues, women and development and more.

Queens IDC with its mission to “inspire individuals to live socially responsible lifestyles; discover multiple perspectives of development issues, enabling individuals to derive their own views; and create awareness of the many issues surrounding international development”, invited two distinct keynote speakers who have devoted a significant amount of their lives to international development work. Keeping the conference’s vision in mind, the goal of the keynote speakers and every panellists for that matter was to give students inspiration about international development service/work as solid foundation of knowledge and experiences that student can draw from as they pre-empt their roles as future leaders international services.

In spite of the amazing success of the conference there seem to be few unnoticeable “glitches.” Not only were the two keynote speakers life-time bureaucrats, but they both represented high policy level employments with apparently less experiences when it comes to grassroots engagements. The first speaker painted the typical picture of Africa’s rift without really explaining why almost all of the policies adopted by the international community to “help” Africa have failed. He rather blamed African leaders as the main blocks to “putting the puzzles” together for Africa.

The second keynote speaker gave a general overview and changes in development policies highlighting selected macro-projects. Whilst these kinds of presentation usually benefit the significance of historical contexts and relations to international development work, this speaker left the hall filled eager-to-learn students with much dissatisfaction as he failed to answer the last question posed by a student. What is your opinion of Canada’s role in international development and what can be done better the student asked. This is a “career limiting response so I can’t answer your question.”

Bedazzled! This response is incongruous to the notion of free and democratic Canada where accountability, sustainability and transparency of significance. Queen’s IDC, despite is grass-root state; is a microcosm of how Canada is expected to make a difference internationally; even as Canada assumes it role in the G8 summit, it is important to openly dialogue its agenda for action. So, what does the second speaker’s response tell the students, our future leaders? If we are supposed to be educating students about contributing to international development, how is it that our government is not open to providing education and direction for these aspiring future leaders?

Winter Law School Program - Wits, South Africa

It was almost eleven years ago that I walked along the beautiful coastline of the Cape of Good Hope, stood upon a 1.5kg ostrich egg in wine-lands, trekked along the rugged peaks of Signal Hill to watch the gorgeous sun set, captured panoramic view on the cable car trip to Table Mountain, hopped on the train to Gugulethu township...amongst others. Although, I could not make it to the most famous prison site - Robben Island Museum - I had a fair bit of chance to roam one of Africa's most beautiful city and it's surrounding for close to 2 months. When it was time to return home, I left the apartheid-laden republic with the hope of coming back someday. Little did I know it would be within the space and time of 11 years.

On March 8, 2010, after several months of exchange between the University of Witswaterstrand, I booked my flight to Johannesburg via the United Arab Emirates. This time, it was to attend the Winter Law School at the Mandela Institute of School of Law, a joint exchange program mainly organized for students from Seattle University School of Law, in Washington State, USA. I believe that South Africa and Liberia has some similarity in their cultural history of oppression. BUT unlike Liberia, RSA has managed to develop and implement laws, policies and programs to deal with various forms of equality. My hope was to learn from Africa and explore opportunities of borrowing best practice with regards to sexual violence against women.

In addition to doing South African Constitutional Law in Comparative Context and International Dispute Resolution we have the privilege of visiting some of South Africa's highly acclaimed touristic sites (Constitutional Court, Soweto, Pilanesberg National Park, Apartheid Museum, the Origin Centre, South African Commission for Human Rights, the African Leadership Academy plus the added benefit of watching the opening ceremony of the historic FIFA World Cup (bafana bafana) where I had the most delighted opportunity to not only live next door to the Brazilian Football squad but also watched them practice (courtesy Lydia & Viv). I was also able to attend the Tribute to Mariam Makeba at Mary Fitzgerald Park in Newtown - courtesy Lydia & Sammy). I just could not have asked for more...it was a BLAST!!!

Even though I have many memorable experiences in Johannesburg (most positive and few negative), few illuminates my inner spirit:
1. Seeing the King of the Jungle - a male lion - roar in its majestic tone few meters away whilst sitting in the safari truck.
2. Meeting Judge Zak Yacoob of the most progressive courts in the world - South African Constitution Court.
3. Being divided into Blacks and Whites as we entered the Apartheid Musuem - a "very miniscule experience" of what black South Africa faced during apartheid.
4. Walking through the cells at Constitution Hill where Gandhi, Mandela and others were imprisoned for "being black".
5. Solemnly imagining Winnie and Nelson Mandela time in their small house on 8115 Vilakazi Street, Soweto at the same time striking a pose in-front of Bishop Desmond Tutu's house right down the road.
6. Leaving my purse in the library for 5 minutes only to return and realize that almost 2,000 rand had been stolen but all else in tact - DEVASTATING.
7. Having serious trouble taking public transportation from Honeydew to University of Witwaterstrand.
8. Eating bitter leaf stew and Simonella (not the gram +ve bacteria but a wheat flour) with my ten fingers at a Nigerian restaurant in the city center
9. Returning from the grocery stores around 8pm only to realize that somebody was following us - I quickly turned and said to him "you're not going to get what you are looking for because we'll fight for our lives."
10. Instantly realizing that the whole city is literally "embellished" in barb wires, iron bars and security alarms for fear of being robbed or killed.

Overall, my time is Jo'burg was AWESOME except for the sounds of "fufu sellers" (vuvuzelas) at the airport...

The Epitome of Academic Expedition: My First Book Publication

Anyone in academia will know that publishing is crucial. It is one of the major expertise potential employers (mostly universities and colleges) look for when assessing resumes of job applicants. The pressure to publish gets even more intense after you have been employed. So, anyone who desires to teach, always find his/herself juggling tedious school work (if you are still a student) and/or teaching in order to maintain his/her job as a professor. For those hired with tenure track, the likelihood of losing their tenure position with the university is higher, if after a said period of time, s/he have not published or conducted major research. For me, the experience is a bit different as starting a career in academia is only one of the numerous opportunities education has offered me so far.

When I started out as a young lass in 7th Grade, I had always wanted to be a pediatrician. Though the dream has not faded, life's roller coaster has projected me into a melange of academic learning, which I think it's the most appreciable trajectory for any young person with similar background. I started writing since I was a little girl - in the beginning I kept detailed dairies of my daily experiences. Then, I kept records of my family and I experiences during the war in Liberia - which my mother destroyed for fear of losing our lives if caught with the manuscripts. Along similar lines, I still document my experiences as I travel around the world. Nevertheless, through all of these experiences it never occurred to me that I could publish any of my written work. In actual fact, I had been afraid to nurture the thought due to the biases, stereotypes, discrimination publishers (mainly Western companies) hold against emerging writers from the Global South. They usually say,

"English is not your first language"
"your writing is terrible"
"you have to read more fiction so that you can be able to write"
"you write like you speak"
"get use to rejection from publishers because your writing is not good enough"
and the list goes on.

For me, these discouraging lies are all the more reasons I dare to publish. As an intelligent human being, I am teachable and I have the ability to learn new things. So, I took on my first book challenge last year. I thought to myself, if I have received "A's" in most of my essay assignments then it's an indication that my papers are good enough and worth publishing. Sometimes, I wish my professors would have encouraged me to publish long time ago. Anyways, never too late as I am a self-motivator. After organizing one of the most successful conferences at York University's Centre for Refugee Studies, I decided to lead the conference speakers into a dream of their life - i.e., turning the papers they presented at the conference into an edited book. Without any prior training in the process, I got to work by preparing a format/guideline to send out to all speakers. By the end of the deadline (October 7, 2010) 11 papers were submitted - almost ready for publication.

The next step was to find a publisher. My first choice with Oxford University Forced Migration Review. Unfortunately, the Review does not take such large publication as it focuses more on non-academic publications. I was disappointed, but I continued my search. Whilst on Christmas holiday in Rhode Island, I stumbled against Brown Walker Publications. One email was all it took. By February 2010 Documenting the Undocumented: Redefining Refugee Status was published. This was the beginning of my "publishing snowball." The second book (Legal Discrepancies: Internal Displacement of Women and Children in Africa) followed in May with a book chapter (Mother Passed It On) in September. Since January 2010, at least four journal articles and two non-refereed papers have be produced with more underway.

Noteworthy, the process I have described above is not as simple as it is written. It requires lots of commitment, diligence and focus. But in the end, the reward is great. At this juncture, there is no stopping - titles are already lined up waiting to complete including the Good Citizens Project Human Rights Series for children in Liberia/Africa.