Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / Inspiring Young Minds: Careers in Sports and Social Impact

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Inspiring Young Minds: Careers in Sports and Social Impact · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

• 0:03
  Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Chatting with the Experts,
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  the TV show in which I, Paula Okonneh, the host speak with women from Africa,
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  from the Caribbean, and in the diaspora.
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  These women are professionals and successful entrepreneurs, and they
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  share my mission, which is to educate, to inspire and empower women globally.
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  On a few episodes we've had men, but most of the time I'm speaking with women.
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  So, today's episode is called Purpose Perseverance Passion- Preparing
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  Youth for Careers in Sports.
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  And Purpose Perseverance Passion is a subtitle of a newly released
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  book by Champs for Change.
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  In collaboration with We Will Lead Africa.
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  So in today's episode, we will use this release as a starting point
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  to discuss pathways to experiences in careers and careers in sports.
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  So with me to do that will be Dr. Memuna Williams, who is
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  an award-winning executive and thought leader dedicated to driving
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  sustainable change through education, leadership, and entrepreneurship.
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  She's had over 30 years of global experience spanning nonprofits
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  and social ventures, and she's led impactful teams and projects across
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  Africa, North America, and beyond.
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  I. I'm always so impressed with my guest bio, but I can
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  never say enough about them.
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  So with that, why don't I welcome Memuna to Chatting with the Experts
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  where she can expand more on anything I may have left out in her bio.
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  So welcome to the show, Memuna.
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  Thank you for having me, Paula.
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  It's really nice to be here.
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  It's such a pleasure to have you here.
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  Wow.
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  Wow.
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  Wow.
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  So first and foremost, I wanna congratulate you on co-authoring,
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  or is it co-editing the book Purpose Per, no, I can't speak today.
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  Purpose Perseverance Passion- Preparing Youth for Careers in Sports.
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  So I'm the lead editor.
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  Okay.
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  And, my co-editors are Clarisse Machanguana and Randy Soumahoro.
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  And, we're really thankful to the team at We Will Lead Africa who have dedicated
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  five volumes before this collaboration.
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  With us on a sports volume to telling leadership stories about people in
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  Africa and in the African diaspora.
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  They've had focuses purely on leadership, focuses on women, focuses on community,
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  and so we're really privileged to have been able to leverage their
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  platform and their voice to bring out this volume of stories as well.
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  But one thing that I love doing is collecting the books of my guests.
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  Any book that my guests have authored, I try and get a copy of it.
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  So wonderful.
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  Trust me, I'm gonna get the copy of this to have...
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  Great!
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  To add to my collection.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, thank you.
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  And it'll be money well spent because I found that I've enjoyed
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  reading all of the stories in it.
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  We ended up collecting 40 stories from people who adults in Africa, professionals
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  in Africa who are currently in careers and sports entrepreneurs, very senior
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  executives, former athletes, and the sentiment I had as the stories were
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  coming in and then as I was reading the manuscript afterwards, was that each story
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  was so unique and such a delight to read.
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  And then the first external validation that I had was when we
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  sent the book, the manuscript for final professional proofreading.
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  And the proofreader final note was this was a fun read and
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  congratulations with your project.
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  So I think that you and others will definitely enjoy it.
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  Well, I'm celebrating you for your contribution to that.
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  Even though I haven't read it by the time, yeah, probably next meet
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  I would've read it and I would congratulate you even more.' I mean I'm
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  always so thrilled when I get to meet authors, authors, you know, who have
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  written books for whatever purpose, but knowing that it's gonna impact
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  certain segments of people are sometimes gonna impact the world, and so...
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  Mm-hmm.
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  That's why we are here.
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  And oh my gosh, I'm so excited about it.
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  Yeah.
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  No, no, absolutely.
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  And it was written with a specific impact, intent in mind.
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  So I said that it's about professionals who are currently in careers and sports.
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  And so what we intend is for this book to be a resource for young people who
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  are interested in careers and sports so that they can see themselves in the
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  stories and kind of see what it took for people to get into those careers today.
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  And maybe find a faster way forward into getting into their own careers in
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  sports, which seemed to be starting to be a little bit more accepted today as,
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  you know, a place to go for a career.
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  For a lot of the people in, this book and a lot of them tell the stories, they
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  grew up at a time when parents frowned on young people going into careers in sports.
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  And now we are starting to see families, parents being more accepting of those
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  careers but also careers in adjacent areas such as the arts and other
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  creative endeavors and stuff like that.
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  So, we really hope that young people will take this up and read the stories.
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  Again, they're really enjoyable read.
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  We've got people like Clare Akamanzi, who is the current CEO of NBA
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  Africa, who contributed a story.
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  My husband, who's actually the former CEO of NBA Africa also contributed a story.
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  We've got a number of former athletes who have played professionally in the
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  NBA, but we also got stories about how a Polo League started in South
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  Africa and the Pickleball League started in Cape Town and, you know,
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  a social enterprise in Mozambique.
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  So it's quite a variety of stories, people in the media, some amazing
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  media personalities from the diaspora working in, you know, the
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  Olympics channel, so Benny Bonsu.
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  So just yeah, are some amazing people who I think young people can look up to and
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  hopefully will also enjoy their stories.
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  Exciting.
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  Notice how I'm leaning forward.
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  I'm leaning, it's almost like, can you tell me more?
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  Oh my God.
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  Right?
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  Yeah, yeah, sure.
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  So I think one of the things that I would love to share is about my co-editor,
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  Clarisse Machanguana, who maybe those who follow basketball closely would recognize.
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  But the thing I love about Clarisse is that she's at one at
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  and the same time, very humble, but also very sure of herself.
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  So, she's almost humbled to the point of being self-effacing, but you also
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  see her describe herself as the most successful Mozambican basketball player.
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  And I think that that's not hyperbole.
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  Even though she's a woman, you know, she played, I believe it was
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  34 years in professional leagues.
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  Around the world, including 22 years in the WNBA.
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  And she played in major markets like New York and Los Angeles, and
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  actually Charlotte, where you and I first met many, many years ago.
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  So yeah she's a phenomenal person.
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  You know, yeah.
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  I started to get to know her when my husband was at NBA Africa, and I would
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  be fortunate to be seated with her at dinner, and she would tell me about
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  how she wakes up at four o'clock in the morning every day in retirement now.
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  And like goes for long walks, you know, to maintain her physical fitness.
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  And so it's just been a joy to get to know her.
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  And I was just lucky to have co mentored during a program that
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  NBA Africa has called BAL for her.
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  Where on the sidelines of the BAL tournament and NBA Africa there's
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  a full day mentoring workshops that are done where young women who are
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  interested in careers in sports come to be mentored in different verticals.
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  And Clarissa and I ended up twice in a social entrepreneur's vertical.
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  Because when she retired from basketball, she started a very, very successful social
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  enterprise where she focuses on health, education and sports for young people.
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  And we came away from those co-mentoring sessions, feeling like young people, the
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  young women there seemed to want more.
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  We could have talked to them beyond the day that we had with them,
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  and it might not have been enough.
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  And so that's how we came around to starting to think about doing
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  an initiative that would deliver.
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  More sustainable interventions for all young people interested in
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  sports, and the book is intended as our first permanent resource into
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  the hands of those young people.
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  Absolutely love it.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  We absolutely love it for what both of you are doing in collaboration with
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  so many because, you know, we can't be what we can't see or what we don't see.
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  It's important for young people to see themselves in whatever, you
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  know, it's sphere of life that they are aspiring to be in, you know?
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  Mm-hmm.
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  When we have examples that are tangible, we hear about them.
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  Some of us can even feel them or have been around there.
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  It's like, so if they can do it, so can I.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And that's definitely the story that our third editor, Randy says he's
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  quite a bit younger than Clarisse and I, and he happens also to be a young
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  man and he's one of the contributors.
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  And he tells the story about how he came to be inspired to want to be in a
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  sports career, but also in a marketing career especially by another of the
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  contributors, Christopher Williams, who's an executive that has worked at Nike and
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  Adidas and some of these major brands.
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  And also was an executive at in residence at African Leadership
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  University for a time, which is where he and Randy met, and Randy describes,
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  you know, being inspired by him.
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  So I just imagine that meeting on campus between Randy and Christopher
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  you know, that's a special in-person experience, but I think that
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  through these stories as well.
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  One of the things that we're proud of is the diversity we have you
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  know, African-American males, African males African women maybe only
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  African-American women not represented, but I'm technically African American
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  as I'm also an American citizen.
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  And you know, we have Caucasian women, we have everybody across the
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  spectrum represented in the book.
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  So hopefully everybody will find somebody that they can see
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  themselves in these stories.
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  Yes.
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  So, you know, you mentioned a lot about storytelling and that, you know,
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  that's almost like the foundation of this book and in the business world,
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  we hear a lot about storytelling.
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  But tell me why storytelling matters in particular with this book.
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  Yeah, no, absolutely.
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  That's such a good question.
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  And we actually just officially launched this book last week Thursday at an event.
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  You know, where we brought together speakers and one of our panels was
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  on the importance of storytelling.
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  And one of our panelists made the point that, you know, you can have
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  like bullet points or make the point, you know, in a succinct way.
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  But that almost doesn't land as much as when you elaborate through the story.
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  And it can be, you know, prose or it can be poetry, but when you bring in, you
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  know, when you color in those lines with a story, it brings it to life and makes it
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  more accessible and makes it more lasting.
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  And that's why one of the reasons that it's important.
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  And of course as, you know, people of color we're talking to people in the
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  diaspora, people in Africa our stories are not often told, you know, there's not
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  a lot of ownership around what stories are told when it comes to people like us.
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  So, that's the reason for being, for example, for our
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  partners at We Will Lead Africa.
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  They want us to own our stories and tell our stories.
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  You know, just own that and put that out into the world so that can be used.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  So really and truly in some ways it's a first.
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  Is it?
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  Well, let me not assume 'cause I was about to say it's a first of a kind dialogue
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  that is showcasing sports professionals as well as who are also positioning
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  themselves as social innovators and leaders is, am I assuming correctly
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  or am I actually speaking a fact?
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  Yeah, no, I think that there's something to that.
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  I mean, one would have to go out and look and make sure that there
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  isn't anything else, but I think it's fairly unique in that way.
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  And you really see this thread through the stories of especially the former athletes.
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  They've been fortunate in many cases to have sports be something that catalyzes
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  them into a different kind of life.
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  They feel lucky, they feel responsible, and they almost all invariably seem
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  to want to come back and give back to the communities that they're from.
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  And so, Clarissa's story, which is one of the stories that is captured here, is
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  a quintessential story just like that.
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  And that is, you know, I know her story very well now, and I can tell
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  it without rereading the story.
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  But it's fundamentally about feeling so lucky that she got to do the things
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  that she got to do through basketball.
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  The part of the reason that she does the foundation now is that it's her way of
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  giving back and their stories from all across the continent like that in the
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  book, you know, from Benin to Dakar, to you know, to Mozambique and beyond.
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  I'm not speechless, I'm just musing what you have said.
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  But maybe I'm speechless because it thrills me to see that, you know, we
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  are now in positions where we can, you know, haven't gone through or haven't had
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  experiences that we can now be comfortable enough in whichever way, whether
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  emotionally happy, whether financially and many times it's financially,
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  where we can now go back to our roots and say, Hey, been there, done this.
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  Here's how I can help you do the same thing.
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  And even elevate that, you know, make better.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah,
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  And like everybody's doing it a little bit differently, right.
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  Clarissa and I are some level of social enterprise.
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  That's how we met.
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  But there are several stories.
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  And here I mentioned Benin.
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  We have a story from Ian Manhimi who used to play in the NBA and he's
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  giving back through entrepreneurship.
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  I think he lists at least three entrepreneurial ventures that he
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  has through which he's creating employment, demonstrating, you
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  know, how these things can be done.
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  I think he's a franchise owner of something according
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  to the story that he shared.
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  So lots of different examples of how it can be done and how one can give
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  back to the community and how one can model you know, that are captured
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  through these particular stories.
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  But I think more importantly, are happening in a range of
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  different ways in Africa today.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  So, still hammering on the paths of stories.
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  Yeah.
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  Can you gimme an example of like a community?
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  Mm-hmm.
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  That is going through these pathways and experiences of all the individuals or some
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  of the individuals that you've outlined?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, I mean, I think I'm hesitating a little bit because I've talked
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  so much about about Clarisse.
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  But maybe I'll talk about Benny.
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  So she's in the diaspora and before she joined the Olympic Channel doing
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  Olympic news she was an educator.
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  And if you Google her and look at what she's been doing in the communities
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  that she came from in the UK.
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  She is beloved by her former students and they look up to her
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  you know, they want to emulate her.
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  And I think that even though I might not fully know Benny's stories, whenever
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  I see snippets of that either that she shows on her social media or that I pick
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  up somewhere along the way, I think that those people who are being inspired by
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  her, it's making a huge difference in their communities and in their lives.
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  Yeah, so that's just one story.
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  And of course, Clarisse's.
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  She tells the story of kind of starting the Clarisse Machanguana Foundation at
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  a time when HIV AIDS was really out of control in Mozambique and the campaign
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  that they did to bring awareness to HIV AIDS and to take away the stigma
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  from people who had it and just how successful that campaign was and how
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  much of a difference it made in the lives of young people in Mozambique to
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  the point where she was named a 13th point of light for the Commonwealth.
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  So continuing to black brag on Clarisse, but that's like a huge community impact.
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  Tens of thousands of young people impacted and potentially life saved.
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  So, yeah, so there's like stories about individuals.
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  What they were able to do, how they were able to get themselves outta communities.
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  My heritage is Sierra Leonian.
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  So many of the stories I have some, a few other Sierra Leonians in the book
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  have the privilege of having been able to go beyond their circumstances through
• 20:02
  sports and through these stories.
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  So yes, there's no shortage of of good news stories in the book.
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  I'm definitely getting the book.
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  I mean, it's, yeah.
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  Yes, yes.
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  I love to hear such things.
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  I mean, as I say, it's not just for my generation.
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  It's not even for my generation.
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  I mean, the whole purpose is for the upcoming generation
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  and, you know, just knowing how impactful that would be, that is.
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  That...
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  Yeah.
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  Used to be.
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  Gives me nothing but joy.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolute joy.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  I think, I mean, it has the potential Paula to be a gift that keeps on giving.
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  We'll have another conversation about me as a doctoral practitioner.
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  But one of the things that I am able to have the patience to do is to
• 20:59
  analyze the stories and see what the thread is across you know, the stories.
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  And so, kind of what I see is, you know, almost like, here's how it
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  used to be with you know, parents not wanting kids to play sports 'cause
• 21:17
  they thought that it interfered with their schooling and their academics.
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  And today it's about actually sports can inspire and if you do both your
• 21:27
  sports and your academics and you do them well that can actually catapult
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  you you know, further than if you were just doing one or the other.
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  Because it gives you this strength of attributes, you know, you know,
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  people don't always like this word anymore, but resilience, ability to
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  do teamwork you know, all of these kinds of things which then sets you
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  up well for either your first part of your career or your early education.
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  You know, because you have that grit to keep on going back.
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  You know, and then you are able to get a fairly good job, you know,
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  leveraging your education and what you learned through sports.
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  And because you have a specialty skill, whether it's finance
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  or something else, then.
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  And if you might be a sports fan and or somehow you are curious about, you know,
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  an opportunity that comes on in sports, well then the people who are hiring
• 22:25
  in those sports jobs, they want you.
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  Because they know that you know what it takes because you've not only
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  been there as an athlete somewhere along your path, but you've also done
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  well and you've shown that you can you know, do work in another career.
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  So that's something else that I'm doing and looking at thinking about how
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  can we potentially use some of these stories as, you know, case studies
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  as we go forward with the work of kind of supporting young people who
• 23:00
  want to go into careers in sports.
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  Because it's not just about the book, it's about the start of an
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  initiative to support young people who want to go into careers in sports.
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  And this really gives us a starting idea of how to go about this beyond,
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  you know, whatever else people are doing out there, and ideas that we might have
• 23:21
  about how we might wanna go about it.
• 23:24
  Yes.
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  Because these stories are not just powerful, but they're relatable.
• 23:29
  And they're uplifting and you know...
• 23:32
  Absolutely.
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  Yeah.
• 23:34
  Ooh, this book, so Purpose Perseverance Passion.
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  Yes.
• 23:39
  So yeah, this is what it looks like.
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  Yes.
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  I'm just about to say what does it look like?
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  There we go.
• 23:45
  Yeah.
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  And it's available today on Kindle.
• 23:49
  This is a hardcover even if I say so myself.
• 23:52
  It's a very pretty book.
• 23:53
  It's, you know, printed in color on the inside.
• 23:56
  So it's, you know, something that's nice to have and feel and touch.
• 24:01
  But if you somehow just wanted to access it quickly you could
• 24:05
  also access it on Kindle.
• 24:07
  So it's available currently in two two types of formats.
• 24:11
  That's the Kindle and hard copy?
• 24:14
  That's correct, yeah.
• 24:16
  Okay.
• 24:17
  Okay.
• 24:17
  I'll be getting the hard copy.
• 24:21
  Lovely book.
• 24:22
  You know, when you have a hardcover book or a book, you know, you
• 24:28
  can keep on going back and paging through it and stuff like that.
• 24:31
  So, you know, I would definitely recommend it.
• 24:34
  And it, you know, it's got the pictures of the authors.
• 24:39
  Yes.
• 24:39
  You know, consistent with how We will Lead Africa has done its books historically.
• 24:43
  We maintain their format and so you can actually see who the
• 24:46
  people are and get to know them.
• 24:49
  There's a woman who I didn't know very well Maureen Ojung and when I finished
• 24:54
  reading her story, and this is when, you know, before we finalized the manuscript.
• 24:59
  It was a full picture of her from a distance and you
• 25:03
  couldn't really see her face.
• 25:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:05
  And I said if I want to see her face as the editor when I finish reading her
• 25:11
  story, because now I've gotten to know her and I think that she's so phenomenal.
• 25:16
  I want everybody to be able to see her face.
• 25:18
  So I chased her for a closer up picture and I love the picture
• 25:23
  that's ended up in the book of her.
• 25:25
  Oh, I won't put you on the spot because I was gonna say, can you show
• 25:28
  us a picture in the book, Maureen?
• 25:31
  I'll flip through and see if I can find it.
• 25:33
  But I like the picture.
• 25:34
  Wow.
• 25:35
  Thank God for technology that enables us to get things at our
• 25:40
  fingertips almost immediately.
• 25:42
  Yeah.
• 25:43
  Yeah, I'll be ordering this.
• 25:47
  So why you look for it.
• 25:48
  Don't worry about that.
• 25:48
  Why we look for it.
• 25:50
  Yeah.
• 25:51
  I would love you to tell people where they can find you online.
• 25:55
  Oh, you found the picture?
• 25:57
  Oh yeah.
• 25:57
  Can you see that?
• 25:59
  Yeah.
• 26:00
  And she's so pretty.
• 26:02
  Isn't she?
• 26:03
  Yeah.
• 26:03
  I love what she's wearing too.
• 26:05
  Yeah.
• 26:06
  Yeah.
• 26:07
  So, yeah.
• 26:09
  So yeah, I can be found.
• 26:11
  So Chance of Change has its own website, so that's the first place
• 26:14
  that we can be found so that you can see what's going on with that project.
• 26:19
  And for my own work I have a website called sustainable-change.org.
• 26:24
  I'm on LinkedIn.
• 26:26
  I'm on Instagram.
• 26:27
  Those are my kind of public facing personas so people can
• 26:30
  find me in all of those places.
• 26:33
  Are you on Facebook?
• 26:34
  And the only reason I say that, 'cause I'm still getting
• 26:37
  more acquainted with Facebook.
• 26:39
  Yeah, I am.
• 26:40
  I'm on Facebook.
• 26:41
  I'm on Threads.
• 26:42
  Yeah, so Threads is also public facing, so I should have said that.
• 26:46
  Yeah.
• 26:46
  I'm maybe a little bit old fashioned with social media, so I tend to have Facebook
• 26:51
  as a personal place for my family and friends, but I am on Facebook if people
• 26:55
  wanted to look for me there as well.
• 26:58
  Okay.
• 26:59
  Okay.
• 27:00
  Wow.
• 27:01
  Thank you so much, Muna.
• 27:02
  And for those of you who are watching this after it's been recorded, I
• 27:07
  want to say that Memuna and other remarkable inspiring women become guests
• 27:16
  on my shows by reaching out to me.
• 27:19
  So if you'd like to be a a guest on Chatting with the Experts, please
• 27:23
  reach out to me on my website, which is called chattingwiththeexperts.com.
• 27:27
  I'm also on LinkedIn as Paula Okonneh.
• 27:30
  I have a business page there now . I'm on Instagram.
• 27:34
  And my handle there is at chat_experts_podcast.
• 27:40
  I'm on Facebook getting there and I also have a YouTube channel.
• 27:45
  So they have so many different ways of reaching me, if you'd like to be
• 27:50
  a guest on Chatting with the Experts.
• 27:53
  And wow, Memuna.
• 27:55
  This is just, I mean, I'm still leaning forward because it's been such an
• 28:01
  interesting conversation about the change that is coming about through all these
• 28:06
  phenomenal people who are wonderful.
• 28:10
  Giving back.
• 28:12
  Giving back.
• 28:13
  So for those of you who are in the audience, I'd like you to
• 28:16
  stay back and have a one-on-one question and answer time with Memuna
• 28:21
  because I can't ask every question.
• 28:24
  There's so many other questions that you know you may have that I haven't asked.
• 28:28
  So this is an opportunity to do just that.
• 28:31
  So thank you again, Memuna, for saying yes to being Chatting with the Experts,
• 28:36
  and I am going to order this book today.
• 28:40
  Wonderful.
• 28:41
  Wonderful.