This week on the podcast we have Part 1 of a two-part conversation centering a favorite topic of mine - education. The effectivenss of LinkedIn and it’s networkinng superpower facilitated our connection through common connects, Adja Maymouna Sakho and Laureen Adams.

My guest, fellow educator Kwame Sarfo-Mensah holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from Temple University. For nine years, he served as a middle school math teacher. Currently, he is the founder of Identity Talk Consulting, a global educational consulting firm that specializes in developing K-12 teachers into identity-affirming educators. Throughout his 17-year career as a classroom teacher, author, and consultant, Kwame has worked in the United States, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, and Zambia.

Additionally, Kwame has earned numerous accolades for this work, which include being honored as the 2019 National Member of the Year by Black Educators Rock, Inc. and being recognized as a Top Education Influencer by brightbeam, Inc. in 2021 and 2022.
His newest book, "Learning to Relearn: Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Classroom", recently won the 2025 IPPY Award for Best Education Commentary Book and the 2024 Foreword INDIES Gold Book Award for Best Education Book.

Another dimension of Kwame’s glocal citizenship is the way that he, as a “trailing spouse” has forged forward despite the obvious challenges and has found success and expansion in his craft. I hope your listening will shed additional light on the ways that borderless mindsets are indeed manifesting a new world!

Where to find Kwame?
On Amazon
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On Youtube

What’s Kwame reading and watching?
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Untold Fall of Favre
Coach Prime

Other topics of interest:
About Mampong, Ghana
Where is Nsima, Ghana
About the Akwamu Empire
Lusaka, Zambia
A bit about Nyanja and other Zambian languages
Education past and present in Sierra Leone
Why Are All of the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Special Guest: Kwame Sarfo-Mensah.

This week on the podcast we have Part 1 of a two-part conversation centering a favorite topic of mine - education. The effectivenss of LinkedIn and it’s networkinng superpower facilitated our connection through common connects, Adja Maymouna Sakho and Laureen Adams.

My guest, fellow educator Kwame Sarfo-Mensah holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from Temple University. For nine years, he served as a middle school math teacher. Currently, he is the founder of Identity Talk Consulting, a global educational consulting firm that specializes in developing K-12 teachers into identity-affirming educators. Throughout his 17-year career as a classroom teacher, author, and consultant, Kwame has worked in the United States, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, and Zambia.

Additionally, Kwame has earned numerous accolades for this work, which include being honored as the 2019 National Member of the Year by Black Educators Rock, Inc. and being recognized as a Top Education Influencer by brightbeam, Inc. in 2021 and 2022.
His newest book, "Learning to Relearn: Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Classroom", recently won the 2025 IPPY Award for Best Education Commentary Book and the 2024 Foreword INDIES Gold Book Award for Best Education Book.

Another dimension of Kwame’s glocal citizenship is the way that he, as a “trailing spouse” has forged forward despite the obvious challenges and has found success and expansion in his craft. I hope your listening will shed additional light on the ways that borderless mindsets are indeed manifesting a new world!

Where to find Kwame?
On Amazon
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On Youtube

What’s Kwame reading and watching?
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Untold Fall of Favre
Coach Prime

Other topics of interest:
About Mampong, Ghana
Where is Nsima, Ghana
About the Akwamu Empire
Lusaka, Zambia
A bit about Nyanja and other Zambian languages
Education past and present in Sierra Leone
Why Are All of the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Special Guest: Kwame Sarfo-Mensah.

This week, we’re flashing back to my trip to Cape Town last November. I met my guest, Yaliwe Clarke through sister-to-sister connection, literally. Her sister and mine are friends and as we (my sister and I) were in SA together our meeting was inevitable. Yaliwe, who is of Zambian and British parentage found her way to South African nearly two decades ago from Zambia, where she spent most of her life. She is the immediate past Director of the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Prior to this, since 2000, she worked with civil society organizations and interacted with a wide range of social justice activists, peace-builders/conflict resolution practitioners, diplomats, and peace and security personnel in over 11 countries in Africa. She is a skilled conflict resolution practitioner, trainer, and facilitator who has experience in assisting nonprofit organisations, and government officials across the African continent, particularly during her time as a Senior Trainer at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, based in Cape Town. Alongside this work, Yaliwe has taught and written on African Feminism, peace, security, and development at the University of Cape Town since 2008. She has a Ph.D. in Social Development that investigated the micro-politics of women’s ‘peace activism’ in northern Uganda. She is also interested in post-conflict reconstruction processes; social change processes in times of crisis; and notions of respectable femininity, marriage, pleasure, and (hetero)sexuality in Africa. In entrepreneurship, she is co-founder of Maliya Tours & Transfers which focuses on travelers seeking out sites and histories in South Africa that are distinct from those in other countries and based on hers and her co-founder's experiences living in the Western Cape. If you’re ever in the Western Cape, definitely book your tours with Maliya. We did and they did not disappoint!

Where to find Yaliwe?
Maliya Transfers & Tours
On LinkedIn

What’s Yaliwe reading?
Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown

Other topics of interest:
Sara Longwe and her Women’s Empowerment Framework
About Roy Clarke
Nigeria’s Women’s War
On Uganda’s Long Civil War
Klein Goederust Winery
Pregs Govender’s Podcast - Love and Insubordination
Mont Rochelle
About Table Mountain
Xhosa Expressions
About the Lotus Sutra
About the Ōbaku School of Zen Buddhism

Special Guest: Yaliwe Clarke.

This week on the podcast it’s flashback February. Inspired by last year’s Black History Month compilation episode, for this week, also dedicated to Black History Month, I’ve selected glocally speaking, mindset hacking and solution-scaping excerpts from conversations over the past year. Starting with the Science Mercenary, Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi on how reconceptualizing our ideas on time and how the evolutionary continuum of human intelligence need not be as complicated as we think. Cognitive-Behavioral Research Scientist, Dr. Juleen Christopher reinforces his thoughts by introducing us to her mindset hack, a technique called positive intelligence and how a commitment to telling ourselves and living a story contrary to those embedded in social injustice are at the bedrock of her activism. Cultural practitioner, Kobby Graham furthers the story as he elaborates on his mindset hack - collaboration and how its revival in the African psyche is critical to progress. Communication specialist and cultural curator, Samba Yonga then illustrates how our African histories reinforce this collaborative ethic and is using her museum as the narrative activism necessary to reinform a new now. Finally, glocally speaking, the Money Maker, Eric Collins, puts his money where his mouth is investing in the change that he and his partners at Impact X Capital intend to see in black communities across Europe.

The common thread in my selections is activism which is the why of Black History Month. Waking each morning in parts of the world rife with injustice is itself an act of courageous resistance. We must challenge ourselves to uplift untold stories and unheard voices, so that by valuing global Black histories, we can collectively build, simply put, a better today. That is the definition of Glocal Citizenship.

Visit the links above for full episodes and extended show notes.

Special Guests: Eric Collins, Hakeem Oluseyi , Juleen Christopher, Kobina Ankomah Graham, and Samba Yonga.

This week’s herstory comes to us from southern Africa. We’re exploring Zambia in a big way, especially the role that women have played in forward movement in the country. My guest is award-winning journalist, communications specialist and cultural curator, Samba Yonga. She is Founder and Head Communications Strategist at Ku-Atenga Media and co-founder of the Women’s History Museum of Zambia, established in 2017, with the mandate to research and restore African indigenous narratives, knowledge and 'living histories' focused on women. She has curated exhibitions and written papers focused on indigenous African knowledge systems and narratives in Zambia but also for art spaces, museums and universities such as National Musuems of World Cultures in Sweden, Yale University in USA, Windybrow Centre in South Africa and many others. In fact, she joined me in conversation just as she was headed to Shanghai University to present her works in the museum space at Museums, Decolonisation and Restitution: A Global Conversation.

Samba has been recognized as 100 most influential Africans by Quartz, New York, and one of 40 most influential Africans. She is also a Google Podcast Creator, TEDx Lusaka speaker and a Museum Lab Fellow for 2022. It’s always a treat to connect with other podcasters and after you have a listen, be sure to head over to the museum’s Youtube channel to check out the Leading Ladies animated podcast!

Where to find Samba?
www.whmzambia.org
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On Facebook
On Twitter
On YouTube

What’s Samba reading?
Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman by Malidoma Patrice Some
491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69 by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Wallpaper Magazine
Vanity Fair Magazine

What’s Samba watching?
Luther on Netflix
Chef’s Table on Netflix
East Asian Dramas on Netflix

What’s Samba listening to?
Ratchet & Respectable Podcast
The Comb on BBC
Hidden Brain Podcast
The Moth Podcast
Selam & Hello Podcast

Other topics of interest:
The Old Drift: A Novel by Namwali Serpell
Lusaka, Zambia
About Trendsetters Magazine
On Settler Societies
Glocally Speaking in Zambian Languages
Mass Design Group
Third Culture Kids

Special Guest: Samba Yonga.