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Seun Dawodu 's TIGBlog
Seun Dawodu 's TIGBlog


Priority!
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I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world - the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.
I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries - but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity - reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.
I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

It took me decades to find out.

During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year - none of them in the United States.
We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren't being delivered.

If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: "This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving."

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: "How could the world let these children die?"

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.
To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps

Let me make a request of the deans and the professors - the intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please ask yourselves:
Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?
Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty ... the prevalence of world hunger ... the scarcity of clean water ...the girls kept out of school ... the children who die from diseases we can cure?
Should the world's most privileged people learn about the lives of the world's least privileged?
These are not rhetorical questions - you will answer with your policies.

This is an extract from Bill Gates address to the graduating set of 2007, Harvard.
My question is this, are you doing something? anything? Nothing?
it's your call.



March 17, 2008 | 8:48 PM Comments  0 comments

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Getting on

It's been a long time here. And really i've missed leaving my tots out here for you all to read.

The more i think about life the more i wonder if we will ever get the hang of it. Sometimes I wonder what I would really miss if everything just ended and guess what? Nothing. Maybe that ain't so true cos i'm gonna miss my family, a few friends and really a lot of my mentees.

My life is really very simple. As simple as they ever come. And it is only getting simpler. How? you may want to ask. By getting rid of all the un-necessaries. like what? like a whole lot of baggage friends that add no meaning to live except take away from you.

I'm learning to major on the major (my family and those close to my heart (and off cause those of whom i'm close to their hearts) and give less and less consideration to the minor. This was really a hard one to sell even to myself. Why? cause now everyone says you are proud. so? Now i have to work on thier perception cause that is what sells and how the h*** do i do that? I talk with them when i have to but seriuosly going out of my way to help people to whom i mean little is becoming less and less of a norm.

Life is beautiful and I plan to enjoy it. At least now I can say that of life, i think i'm starting to get a hang of it.

seun

November 3, 2007 | 11:18 PM Comments  0 comments

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Living a Little Extra!!

I am one of them people that don't believe in the word impossible and usually i say that people who use the word are not willing to use their minds.

I was at a training on saturday and in the course of it, we were introduced to Possiblity personified! Nick Vujicic.

O my! what strenght, what tenacity, what courage.

i could go on and on cause it is something that my mind could never have comprehended.

Thanks to him, i made up my mind to be more open in sharing my life, my heart and my wallet (?). I am coming to appreciate more and more the little things in life that we often take for granted.

In spite of all Nick is pulling through. living a better life than most fully able bodied people (imagine someone without limbs, and i mean no limbs, going for a swim!)

Check out Nick at www.lifewithoutlimbs.org

Let me know what you think.

Have a great life!

September 18, 2007 | 3:19 PM Comments  0 comments

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Our World!
Related to country: Nigeria


This all happened about three weeks or so ago i.e about the second week or third week of August, 2007. I had gone to join a christian fellowship at their camp ground. The venue was a school.

Later that night a vigil of sorts was going on when i saw this little boy, i'm sure not more than 14, at the entrance to where we were having the programme.

Of course i invited him in. that is just the begining of the story. After the programme that night we offered him some food. He refused and only asked that he be allowed to sleep in the auditorium where the programme took place. That we didn't see how we were going to allow to happen. We didn't know him from anywhere and what if he was planted by some crooks so hat whn we were asleep they'll come in and clear the room of all the instruments that were being used?

Much later we got to know the truth. He had walked a distance of more than 10km! Much more. It was then i understood why all he wanted wa to sleep. i could feel that. I had a similar experience of being lost at about the age of ten, though i'm sure i didn't do 1okm, yet it is an experience that has stayed with me.

He was even threathend with being handed over to the police. His reply was "i don't mind if i can get to sleep there" (translated from my native language, yoruba).

He slept there that night and was gone before dawn. His story, he was going back home (from our observaion he was completely lost) because the guardian he was staying with was abusive. All these didn't come out until after much threats.

Today i still feel pained. My heart still weeps and my eyes too, that there was nothing i could have done to make sure that the boy does not become a street boy. I still remeber his name, Tijani.

I pray and hope everday that he finds his way home.

Let's make our world a little better. Show some love.


September 11, 2007 | 4:21 PM Comments  1 comments

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Reflections of a birthday celebrant.

what is in a birthday except that you a one day older? old age they say is a thing of the mind, what about young age? i was indeed pleased to get some greetings this day felicitating with me on my birthday. Great. but what next?! i'm not getting any younger no matter how i try to see it. and my strength wont last forever.
i live very much in the NOW, trying to learn as much as possible to be able to help as many as possible. love is all i have to give now that i know that people care much for the love you show them than the money you try to impress them by.
life is short and i intend to enjoy every breath and imomen that i'm still walking. to leave life or living to chance amounts to stupidity and lack of commonsense.
i dig my spurs into life and grab all that it offers me reaching out with love to all i come across along the way.

March 27, 2005 | 3:22 PM Comments  0 comments

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