Selah. Pause and Reflect.

a child of the warm heart Malawi, 21, varsity student me, myself and the pandemonium and beautiful chaos that is my mind. In the images and the words of God's beautiful world my soul lives , flourishes and rejoices

[sweetalchemies]

[donamina]

guys...

[curating-africa]

PRESIDENT Mugabe yesterday said Africa would have long been industrialised if men emulated women in not being wasteful with resources. He said while women worried more about taking their children to school, most African men were preoccupied with buying flashy cars and fancy suits.

Contributing to the discussion at the Comesa Summit, President Mugabe said African women were good at organising themselves into groups to form small to medium-scale enterprises.

“While it’s true that there is extravagance in Africa in utilising resources, it’s the male species that is extravagant.

“Females are absolutely careful. If they (women) were men, we would have long industrialised,” said the President to applause from the delegates.

He said during drought and economic challenges “women always make sure they provide for their families, but men are different”.

President Mugabe said he would have been disappointed if the summit, whose theme is “Enhancing Intra-Comesa Trade Through Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Development” ended without discussing ways to assist women technically and financially to uplift their businesses.

He said the summit should find ways of linking up women who would have formed small to medium-scale enterprises with big businesses and ensure their finances were safe.

“We men are very bad. We buy Mercedes Benz, suits, shining portfolios and compete to see who has the most recent model of a car. Women don’t speak that language. They ask themselves, are my children going to school?”

[donamina]

Interesting

[curating-africa]

Africa has two major leadership problems: firstly, its leadership is fragmented. And secondly, its leaders are stagnating. We need a bold new vision that will integrate the continent and engage the new generation in building its future.

“We are angry, we are restless. We are sick and tired of mediocrity and corruption. We want to make our future. Can our leaders make way for us? Can we have a meaningful dialogue without being lectured about the liberation struggles of the past?”

This was the popular refrain among the over 400 youth leaders who met at the Mo Ibrahim Annual Conference in Dakar, Senegal, over the last few days – where they discussed the rather charged topic “African Youth: Fulfilling the Potential”.

Today, half of the population of Africa is under 20. By 2035 the African labour force will be bigger than China, and by 2050 a quarter the global workforce will be African. At that time, nearly half the global youth population will be African. How do we ensure that Africa benefits from this demographic dividend? How do we ensure that African youth compete at a global level through their sheer numbers?

[luvyourmane]

[donamina]

<3

[beautiffulcurls]

[dismantlinginsecurities-blog]

gorgeous!

[handcversbruise]

[basicfitblrblog]

Oh how true it is! When you see a trigger, it is suppose to help you understand what happened and to learn to deal with it. Instead we go back to where we were and wonder why we can’t get better. :(

[ezibota]

Our Skin

I didn’t know what skin bleaching was until I was eleven and I asked my mom why one of my aunties was much lighter than her sister. My mother explained that she lightened her skin using creams and that you can tell by looking at her knuckles. I didn’t quite understand but I surmised that it was the reason why my auntie’s skin looked blemished and uneven and I wondered why someone would choose that over the smooth and even beauty of her sister’s skin and my mother’s skin and all the other women I admired in life.

I’ve always known black to be beautiful and I’ve never despised my lighter brown tones, but there has always been something about the deepness of my mother’s black skin that I find irresistible. Maybe it’s the way the light reflects or the way brightly coloured lace and gele look next to it, I don’t know but I’ve always thought it to be perfection of some sort.

continue reading

[jkubee92-deactivated20140530]

[theeducatedfieldnegro]

I find it’s distressing, there’s never no in-between. We either niggas or Kings, we either bitches or Queens. The deadly ritual seems immersed, in the perverse. Full of short attention spans, short tempers, and short skirts. Long barrel automatics released in short bursts. The length of black life is treated with short worth…

Yasiin Bey (Mos Def)

[curating-africa]

Photographer:Aubrey Jonsson

Model :Flaviana Matata

Magazine: Grazia South Africa

[politics-war]

Founder of a free school for slum children Rajesh Kumar Sharma, second from right, and Laxmi Chandra, right, write on black boards, painted on a building wall, at a free school run under a metro bridge in New Delhi, India. At least 30 children living in the nearby slums have been receiving free education from this school for the last three years.

[xluakin]

I fell.

I fell in love.  More like tip toed Cause I bared every part of Me and asked, Do you still want Me?  and He did.  I smiled, scrunched my nose, and doubted.  Then I went deeper.  I said aloud to Him things only His ears have heard.  And He said I got your back we riding till the end.  I glanced, I smiled, and stood quiet.  Until I realized He was the only one who knew Me,  But  I got jealous.  He had others. So I went deeper until I was His complete focus.  He has the scars of intimacy, the pain of tears, and the bruises of compassion.  I fell in love and it’s the sweetest thing I know.

[killingheels]

[donamina]

Tell your daughters they are beautiful, so the first time they hear it, it's not from a man with no intention of loving her.

[ezibota]

Who are you denying?

Skin bleaching is reaching a terrifying popularity within the African continent. As nations look to build their economies based on a capitalistic model, it seems the people are chasing beauty based on a European model and the only solution is from a bottle. Young women have begun to use skin bleaching to achieve the fair skin of our western cousins instead of the rich tones of our ancestors.

At the core of this practice is the narrative presented on the meaning of beauty, worth, and identity. When a woman buys a potion hoping to change her skin tone because she equates fair skin to beauty, it also means that she believes dark skin is less beautiful or cannot be beautiful at all. If she believed otherwise, there would no reason to alter her appearance. It also tells us that having fairer skin is a more beautiful feature, that thought alone elevates an individual with dark skin from invisible to visible after bleaching. In that one act she communicates to others that she does not think she is beautiful, but she also says that her mother is not beautiful, her sister is not beautiful, and all other women of dark complexion are not beautiful by this standard she has accepted. By extension her ancestry cannot be beautiful unless they somehow also have this desired, fair skin.

continue reading

[curating-africa]

It is time once again for some well-meaning Africans to ask what an elected or re-elected US President has in store for Africa. I am yet to grasp fully the logic of the fuss. That these last two elections have sent and re-sent to the White House a part-Kenyan president makes the issue all the more urgent. People, Africa (read Uganda) is not Israel.

Shut up and get on with your business. “Africa’s future is up to Africans,” the said leader of the free world, Barack Obama, said three years ago on a quickie visit to Accra. Maybe we should be asking what Africa has in store for the United States and the rest of the world regardless of who is in the White House.

Seriously, though, the US, or Mr Obama for that matter, has something for Africa. But that something is not altruistic – coming from the good heart of the White House to benefit the teeming masses of Mother Africa. It is all about America. As it should be, I say.

[elastique]

8511 by ‘sholgk’ on Flickr.