For episode 8, I had the honour of having a conversation with Suraiya Essof, founder of Kites for Peace and the Zimbabwe Cares Network. Nonprofits are dedicated to community upliftment and helping others through philanthropy. The main things I learned from our conversation were:
Sharing shreds of light
Rising by lifting others
Using painful experiences to transform yourself
To listen & watch the full episode check out the link below:
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To support the Zimbabwe Cares Network or Kited for Peace you can reach out below:
My favourite excerpt from our conversation
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Dumi: "To end off, I was listening to an interview that you did recently. And said suicide is up, depression is up. And everyone is jaded, which I find very jarring, but true at the same time, because you can't run away from the truth it is what it is. I guess the question I have is, what is shifting this narrative look like for you?"
Suraiya; "Okay, so there's a, there's a famous story about, about the little boy who, who was in the car with his mother, and he and they drove past an accident. And he was very distressed. And his mom said to him, don't look at that. Look at the helpers. It's a big accident. Something terrible has happened.
But look at all these people that are helping. And that is the perspective of the Zimbabwe Care Network, I mean, just personally speaking so many times, you know, when I'm feeling really down and just totally out of hope. And then I'll just look and somebody will be saying, oh, we're doing this today, or we've done this, or look at this donation we received or we did a medical outreach or whatever it is,
These people are in the same battle, we're in the same boat but look at them. But these people are out there going out on our terrible roads, and they go in with full boxes of medicine, and they're going in there helping people. Why? You know, they don't they don't have to. They don't have to be doing it. And you look at these people and you think, this situation is so terrible.
And it's so easy to just give up. But when you look at people like this, and you say, wow, these are the helpers, this is the light, these people that are still shining light, and sometimes you shine your light, and for them, because they're not superheroes, I'm not a superhero. So sometimes, you know, I'll shine my light for them, and then they'll shine the light. But as long as they have some source of light some way we will be okay.
So this is the narrative to focus on. I'm not telling you to focus on the past, I'm telling you to focus on the negative, acknowledge it and then look, look to the people who are helping the situation and get inspiration from them. Let them give you ideas of how you can help."
Be Inspired!