Documentary Films: Witness of the Real
Highlights from our sisters and brothers across the world.
Vilnius, Lithuania, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as I enter one the many baroque cathedrals, I see a church choir rehearse for an upcoming performance. I am so moved by the music I sit and listen for 20 minutes.
Aileen Lee, Founder, Infinite Goods, explains the difference between fast and sustainable fashion. Lee’s love for retail, the planet and humanity started at an early age growing up in North Carolina at her high school part-time retail job.
Five years ago, Columbia Business School Professor, Bruce Usher, watched in horror and frustration as millions of Syrian civilians were displaced from their war-torn country to find shelter in neighboring Jordan, Turkey, Europe and elsewhere.
People can spend their entire lives in search for purpose. We understandably seek it in family, education, work that engages us. But sometimes that is not enough and some of us fall into a rut of the continuous grasping for power and prestige items like fast cars and McMansions that we think will satiate us and give our life purpose.
But the externals often fail to offer the balm we seek.
Continue reading “Leadership In Africa: Are You Leading A Purpose-Driven Life?”
Being a leader takes courage, patience, resilience and vision. Deogratias (Deo) Niyizonkiza, Founder and CEO, Village Health Works, has those leadership attributes and many more.
Deo was born into a loving yet poor family in Burundi. At the outbreak of the 1994 Hutu/Tutsi genocide in Rwanda/Burundi, Deo was attending medical school in Bujumbura, Burundi. One day a group of Hutus came to his dorm looking to kill any and all Tutsis. Deo hid under his bed. After the perpetrators left, he fled to the woods of Burundi and Rwanda where he hid, while witnessing senseless slaughter, for six months. Continue reading “Leadership In Practice: Rebuilding A Nation After Trauma”
Africa is a region that has long been on the radar of the international investment community. With the rise of mobile finance, agriculture and according to the UN, a labor force of 225 million young people ages 15-25, which is expected to 450 million by 2055, the continent is ripe for opportunities. Continue reading “Is Investing In Africa For You?”
En route to Tehran from Isfahan, we drove a couple of hours to the holy city of Qom. The day of our visit happened to be the Day of Ashura, the remembrance of Imam Hussain Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Continue reading “Dispatches from a U.S. Tourist: Day of Ashura Qom, Iran”
Iran. What it conjures in the American mind. When well meaning friends and family learned I was “vacationing” in Iran, they assumed I would be jailed or beheaded by ISIS or kidnapped by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. These western impressions could not be further from the reality. Continue reading “Dispatches From a U.S. Tourist: Iran’s Greatest Asset? Its People”
The Bund Tourist Tunnel takes people from Pudong New Area, the financial district in Shanghai, to the Bund or older center in Puxi, another district in Shanghai. About four minutes underneath the Huangpu River, the only locals we saw in the tunnel were the ticket takers. Most Shanghaiers take the wifi-friendly and highly efficient subway in a third of the time and a fraction of the price. Continue reading “Bund Tourist Tunnel, Shanghai: A Video Mashup”
With the 20th anniversary of the war in Bosnia Herzegovina, we thought it might be useful to review a 2006 interview with Activist and Author, Dr. Svetlana Broz, at her home outside Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. She is the granddaughter of former Yugoslavia President, Josip Broz Tito.
Continue reading “Dr. Svetlana Broz, On Bosnia Herzegovina: Aftermath”