How Do Internally Displaced Persons Access Healthcare?
**Note - please excuse the typos. This transcript was automatically generated.**
Hetal Baman (00:01.780)
elves how are you
Elvis Ndansi (00:04.714)
fine head good to see you
Hetal Baman (00:05.720)
it's so awesome to have you on the podcast um so welcome to the global health pursuit podcast
Elvis Ndansi (00:13.554)
it's a pleasure to be here i'm excited
Hetal Baman (00:15.140)
awesome i know that we have so much to go over you have such a remarkable origin story
Hetal Baman (00:23.420)
i i want to start out this podcast by asking you to paint a picture of where you're from because i know that you've come a long way
Elvis Ndansi (00:39.394)
really a long way i try to be brief because sometimes i tell take a lot of time to tell my story i was born and raised in cameron specifically in a village called mag it's a last mile community or most at a botertal with nigeria and so i was raised by a single mother and growing up in ms i had the opportunity to really fast real time what poverty looks like in a remote community like me i went to primary school with
Hetal Baman (00:39.700)
uh uh
Elvis Ndansi (01:10.274)
th kids that came to school with out shoes and i came back from school every day to follow my grandma go working the farm so i never assignment for the first of four years of my grandma school life so all i knew was come back from school go work the farm and come back beth grandma at home and till the time i got to now stay with my mother who had just left nursing school and was supposed ed to one of the nearby remote village and i had the opportunity to live with her a was the time i started at least doing assignment with bush lame at lace
Hetal Baman (01:12.200)
wow
Hetal Baman (01:33.080)
yeah
Elvis Ndansi (01:39.254)
had two lamps to carozinlambs which i could use one and story why she used the other one on like when i was with grandma where we had just one caronalam where the whole family has together in the evening to sit for dinner using the lamps or no privilege to go that i experience first hand what growing up like a kid in a very remote part of the world that is not deprived from electricity what are just the basic amenities that makes life really what living so
that's one of the in the beautiful part of where i come from because that alone has inspired me in the things i do and the journey and to where i come today just like you said so i went to school in mesa went to secondary school in another nearby community so went to university in the boy still in the northwest region of cameron and then i had my master's degree still in the same university nursing and then before my master's in public health as mark
mike journey but professionally i'm a nurse and a public health expert
Hetal Baman (02:44.160)
is so amazing i one second let me fix this i have like an echo on my side um i just when you said that you would go to school with kids who didn't wear shoes and i mean that's it's almost like you have this culture shock right coming here and being like oh my gosh is this what privilege looks
Elvis Ndansi (02:45.114)
i
Elvis Ndansi (03:17.014)
well that was not for the whole country that was just for a remote part of cameron at that time and of course this was around nineteen eighty eight ninety eighty nine so a lot has changed the last time i visited mesa in two thousand and thirty don't think you can ever find any child going to school with out s anymore a lot of community but at that time that was a reality and when i moved to secondary school in a nearby community i could not see any child going to school with out so it does
Hetal Baman (03:20.580)
right
Hetal Baman (03:28.760)
yeah
Hetal Baman (03:35.180)
okay
Hetal Baman (03:39.160)
yeah
Elvis Ndansi (03:46.934)
difference when you're in a country where when you move from a remote community last mile community to submit oban community to one community you kind of have a complete different perspective of what life is and that's where a lot of development partners nee to know that when you go to a country and you end in the capital city don't write a don't write your report here about the country when you even go to the subban community don't in your report that you need to go to those last mile communities to appreciate and have a complete picture of what
life's look like
Hetal Baman (04:18.780)
i completely agree because that reminds me of my home country so my parents are from india and it's interesting because there's like almost like a paradox of how people live and there would be like a wall where it would separate the big buildings and like the more wealthy people and then poverty
the other side it's just really insane to look to to even experience you know and what you said about don't just go to a big city and write your report you need to go and study every area because you just don't know like what the full picture is
Elvis Ndansi (05:11.734)
that's true
Hetal Baman (05:11.980)
yeah i i wanted to ask you a little bit more about your mom because i know that she's inspired you and motivated you to almost be the person that you are today can you tell us a little bit about how how she's motivated you
Elvis Ndansi (05:32.754)
my mom is my inspiration for whatever i do in life today on the journey of a she s a o hi super woman she is a single mother that you know they are nigh to raise me up this bike her you know very little income she she was a nurse assistant and not even a register nurse in cameron a nurse assistant is the last on the hierarchy of nursing right at the bottom so is a nurse assistant but you know posted in this remote commun
she called them where i was a thing at a time when she took me from grandma i was already a thing at the age of six years old and i don't know the difference between a registered nurse no nurse no doctor but at all in that community they called her doctor so i knew my mom was a doctor because even at night when we sleep people come knock our dough to wake her up to present to children that had high fever or just some relative that is sick and she had to administer some treatment so in our home we had
Hetal Baman (06:26.280)
wow
Elvis Ndansi (06:32.494)
a moment i saw her came you know some forceps and i saw her you know bo hot water at a hundred degrees to sterilize our forceps because there was mostyralized that i was a locawrofsterlizing stuff and i will see how you clean wounds in for patients who come for their own dressing at home i will ee how administer some injection where because the health center where she was working was really far off from the centre of the hommunity so at night people can track that long distames to go to the head center so prepare to come
the dog of the nurse near by and i saw her perform this role and being called a doctor and that was my inspiration so i knew i would want to become a doctor like my mom until when i went to second the school and started under standing the difference then i realized she was not a doctor but how amazing the work she did to me even some doctors today cannot do the things my mom did i helped babies to for her to seconvercize when i was still like eight years old and she will do this a conversation while i watched so i think as a little kid at times i would even
Hetal Baman (07:18.400)
m
Hetal Baman (07:25.060)
wow
Elvis Ndansi (07:32.534)
to pretend things of my nose that i want to be a surgeon i ven top she was a surgeon but she was just a nurse assistant so i got this inspiration really wanting to be like her and when i left high school with very good grades i thought i was going to go to medical school but there was just one medical school in my country and the competition was really stiff you have a mtsoseoftuden applying and i was not privileged to be selected and so i that did not discourage me i said okay if i cannot be a doctor then
to still be in health and that's how i went to the university of bora to study nursing and i graduated with a bath the great nursing and that was exactly the ree i wanted to be able to provide the same kind of care my mom was providing to those nevers nd and children that came home sake and people that came home for their own dressing but then it happened that immediately after i left university the gofmanrecuited me and posted me to community that was even more in clive and last mile than the one i grew up in
Hetal Baman (08:30.880)
wow
Elvis Ndansi (08:32.414)
so the question was why and i might class mate were posted in cities as a bum communities and where i was supposed ed to was not just the last mile community but it was a war torn community at that time camera was distupid disputing that territory with nigeria is called a kasi highly oirish territory but it's like an island that was bung disputed cut off from the community i entered flying boats through creeks river creeks to go to my job my walk station and walking there i saw first hand the suffering that
Hetal Baman (08:45.720)
hm
Elvis Ndansi (09:02.414)
you know you know people in last my community faced even worse than the one i experienced as a kid people would check long distances just to come to the head center where i worked to consult and this kind of really inspired me to continue to provide care to this community up to the point where you know i had a hard moment you know where a lady had trade for almost three hours would her baby on her back just to come consult and after walking this long distance she arrived to her centre i stepped out of the heart center to receive her too
Hetal Baman (09:25.280)
wow
Elvis Ndansi (09:32.474)
welcome her to the house and helping her to untie the baby from her back then i realized the baby is dead and i was really a horror for me and tromatic but i pretend that some kind of intuition as if i was trying to resuscitate the baby took the baby to the ward but i knew the baby had died maybe that was just a kind of intuition that came to me to allow this woman get some breath and rest before get the bad news but when i told her hey the baby is not more and it was really a painful experience for her and myself and i asked myself this woman this woman might have lost this baby just
for malaria malaria is a very easy diagnosed and easy to treat infection i think with five dollars you can treat malaria so why should a child die of malaria so that was a big question and i realized if this one had had just a thermometer at home she might have known when to start tracking or when to start the journey to come to the herd center not maybe when the fever is already at the time when maybe the child had conversed every time and she didn't know so i personally told myself i have to do something and that was when i really knew that i've seen my call
Hetal Baman (10:10.440)
yeah
Elvis Ndansi (10:32.454)
and you know to care for women and children in last ma communities that do not have access to her care so i resigned from my job at the age of ten before i just just for a year and half and i decided to create unite for her foundation i didn't know what it was going to be like rented a room in a single in a community in your own day with some box of medication and estetescope on my neck started doing what mom was doing but this time around with a little bit more knowledge than mom had and then people came in cameron
Hetal Baman (10:56.000)
yeah
Elvis Ndansi (11:02.514)
since have the opportunity to consult you know patients and even administer some essential medication i did that but before i could see the need and they might become more overwhelming we had to get more space you know get some beds and then before i realized a whole micro clinic had been formed that's when i realized okay there is an approach we can solve this problem by providing access to helanonthesev communities using micro clinics just having it fascilaty that people can get to and get the first
treatment before seeking for advance care and i think that's exactly what mom did she simply a fever met in the night when they're knock at her door to prevent those kids from going to convulsion she simply clean those wounds to prevent their wounds from getting infected and she simply referred some people with severe condition to take the trip to the nearby hospital to aconsult and i felt like i'm doing what she's doing but at a larger scale now
Hetal Baman (11:41.200)
right
Hetal Baman (12:01.880)
wow i one second my computers being weird there we go okay um why am i hearing myself this is weird
Hetal Baman (12:21.040)
hello hello
Hetal Baman (12:25.380)
okay that's better
Hetal Baman (12:29.100)
so
Hetal Baman (12:32.040)
one second l s i'm sorry
Elvis Ndansi (12:34.734)
that's all right
Hetal Baman (12:37.840)
computer just wants to be a little awkward today everything is fine
Hetal Baman (12:45.020)
hello hello okay perfect so um that was
Hetal Baman (12:54.100)
i want you to give perspective to people who are listening in terms of the real health care situation in these last mile villages like how many doctors were there how many nurses were there how many i don't know like midwives you know like what was the situation like because you were saying people would trek you know three for five days to get to
clinic
Elvis Ndansi (13:27.174)
well let me penapamangur kind of visual image of what the health center look like first of all this was a district this was kind of like a subdivision al health centre that covers the population of about maybe fifteen to twenty thousand people and but you have other little villages that are far off that tent on that head centre so they have to track like three to four hours or five hours walking because then there are no there re no taxes first
Hetal Baman (13:55.600)
right
Elvis Ndansi (13:57.214)
no bikes so it's an island every thing you have to walk or you take a flying boat though you walk through take a boat through the creeks or the rivers to get to another community but those who didn't this community served by this center will have to walk long distances to come to this house center which comprised basically i was a senior nurse at that time of the bachelors degree nursing and we had a medical doctor who had been dispatched there who rarely came there because of the in clive nature of the place most of them never show up and then
Hetal Baman (14:26.260)
m
Elvis Ndansi (14:27.634)
we had two or state registered nurses and one one love technician and that was all about it for the help for the entire head center so we did most of the job we conduct deliveries as a registartners are we have to conduct deliveries you know and we did so many things that even when we only be done by doctors but when you re faced in a situation where there is no doctor you have to save a life you just have to go and save that life and so it was a small her center but not really equipped no
tracity we use bush lam in the hell center a lot of the time when we had a generator but sometime they no feel to put in the generator or we will use us lam in the health centers you know it's not it seems like movie when you say to someone in america right because then you amaginolthe lo we have being able to just get a ride to the hospital and get the best of seven an i want to pick
Hetal Baman (15:23.600)
call nine one one you know
Elvis Ndansi (15:27.234)
from you do who have people in bacaseother time where they will be sick at night and they cannot get the flying boat to fly across the creek to come to the house unto because it is not yet it is high tight a low tide and the water has left the shore so you can take off until water comes back to the show for you to put your boat nd take off even even natural is like that can restrict you from even evaquationso but that was erificta was a kind of a unique
Hetal Baman (15:52.360)
oh my gosh can you just
Elvis Ndansi (15:57.294)
uhinclaved area that's not how the whole country is does know how even eighty percent of the country is but that is the kind of reality you find when you visit last mile communities
Hetal Baman (16:07.580)
can you just explain what is a flying boat
Elvis Ndansi (16:11.414)
it's just kind of a boat that has an engine and the way it has to call it like you just enter the the steam the gin and then you're able to ride but on like the local one where you know you have to part with all so there the local language to call it a flying be because i believe that the age is dead so it's great at the faster speed for people i like to use that a fly but it never because that was called it when i was but it's just an it's just a po o
Hetal Baman (16:22.380)
you paddle
Hetal Baman (16:34.100)
oh
Hetal Baman (16:36.840)
so it would be like a motor boat
Hetal Baman (16:40.640)
with a motor i was like wow that's interesting i was like i know you did get me i was like wow well i mean you had technology and a flying boat there what happened that is too funny so
Elvis Ndansi (16:41.474)
i mean yes with a model
Elvis Ndansi (16:47.894)
you saw a boat flying in the sky i got you
Elvis Ndansi (16:59.074)
oh
Elvis Ndansi (17:02.934)
yeah
Hetal Baman (17:05.780)
you had the idea for a microclinic um and you explained okay it was just kind of couple of nurses you had your stethoscope you had your like you know some tests and things like that what are you doing now to i guess
Hetal Baman (17:33.720)
what are you working on now because what when you say microclinic
Hetal Baman (17:40.960)
what are you focused on serving
Elvis Ndansi (17:46.274)
so this is we're talking about sixteen years from when i started unite for health foundation with the object and unite for her foundation had objective to provide access to help can on the self communities right so if you asked me i would say when i started a mission as no change our mission is to combat in fantanmatana mortality and fight infects and non effectual disease by providing a fordable held care and education to undheself communities and we reach out to the com
it is using micro clinics and other community average programs but then to paint a picture of a micro clinic we think that if this woman had an opportunity to just visit a facility where she would receive the first line care of just knowing the temperature of her baby getting some fever met to reduce the temperature before go into a bigger facility where she would receive real specialized care she would not have lost her baby so micro clinic
Hetal Baman (18:37.180)
hm
Hetal Baman (18:44.580)
right
Elvis Ndansi (18:45.974)
it's a small concentrated unit of of of a clinic that has the consultation a laboratory first line medication famacy where you can get all the first line medications hen you have specialized unit where women can give birth in the safe hands without you know you know in the hands of help provider o we have a level room and delivery unit that we have you know another section
Hetal Baman (19:01.340)
right
Elvis Ndansi (19:15.854)
where you can actually admit those who have high fever and treat them for malaria maybe you have to give them infusion and observe them so we have some hospitalization beds where you can actually observe them so it's a kind of really a small structure of a clinic that provide this first hand you know health service for people in those communities that are really cut off from access to her an by doing so not only do you save their lives in those really critical moment
by doing just those basic things first eight and consultation but also it helps you to it help as to be able to do good repairers identifying those conditions are you know more serious and advice in them to maybe travel out of the community to see care first before the situation get worse so unite micro clinics actually have saved a lot of people over more than forty five thousand people since we started uniteahod in our micro clinics and h micro clinics now has a medical dog
Hetal Baman (19:53.400)
yeah
Hetal Baman (20:10.700)
wow
Elvis Ndansi (20:16.154)
has nurses have assistant and a lab technician to run the lab and laborat practice now is really getting modern with so many rapid diagnostic tests so just with some rapid diagnosic tes we can run so many infection disease test and be able to have at least diagnosis before doing prescriptions to our patients and we have you know the delivery unit we've actually had so many women give in atlantic good newses for of sixteen years that we state lifehadweve never record
and i matanawuchad in our clinic and we've never recorded and in our clinic so it appeared it's a good feeling for us we might not have done anything just so specially not have had such an unfortunate situation people don't die in hospital because hospital were not good sometimes when it's the time they have just can't help people we might use have been fortunate it has the incident had not record in our micro clinics
Hetal Baman (20:46.900)
uh
Hetal Baman (20:51.460)
knock on wood
Hetal Baman (21:14.200)
i'm looking at your website right now and i see the prototype of your microclinic and it really looks like so well thought out you have like a ultra sound you have an ultra sound room you have a lab you have a vaccination room all of that wow even a courtyard
Elvis Ndansi (21:30.774)
yes that yeah that that is the prototype when i became one of boma choler colonial university i had opportunity to work with some to them at the school of architecture and we had to ask ourselves this question what is the modern micro clinic that i want to see united with help and have what is it i want to see that is different from the earlier thoughts that i had about micro clinic and we thought about if you're providing help care to materna to pregnant women you have to give them help a midst standard so they have to do
at so so you need a ultrasanroom if you do in providing delivery services you have to think of those babies they have to come for the vaccination so we have to have an immunization room and so we have to think through some of those things that early on we never thought about and also we want a micro clinic to be self sutstanding so we we make sure we have water that we have a water bore hole thar provides water to the structure and we have solar panels that would provide electricity to the structure and just a kind of a design that can
a ton alone without depending on maybe the electricity greed or maybe what pipe what from the city or rovernment man it so we had to think through all this to come up with his prototype which we are really excited to start the construction of first prototype may be sometimes in twenty twenty four
Hetal Baman (22:50.720)
that's awesome i love that i know that so you focus on maternal and like health of babies and what was it that drew you to that specific field of medicine
Elvis Ndansi (23:10.974)
to the story i told you about the woman in baas and her child that was a woman a mother and a child as maternal and child held there just as we care about the health of that baby that she lost she might not have lost if she had access to care that's how we care about those pregnant women that lost their life every day just because they are given birth at home because they re given under circumstances that are not the best so you look even statistics in two thus as far s data is concerning two thousand and seven in the statistics show that cameron
Hetal Baman (23:14.120)
yeah
Hetal Baman (23:32.180)
yeah
Elvis Ndansi (23:40.834)
i had one of the highest cameron was eighteen among the twenty countries or the highest contributors of motanamortality in the world at about five hundred sixty that hundred thousand deliveries so that was really high so cameron is one of those countries as has a very high matanamortality rate and also in fun mortality and so these are things that are preventable most of these mortality or that be preventable and so we focused on that if you have a society where we meant to die when trying to give birth that is not fair
i find that to be kind of injustice and when i think about those women who pregnant i still have to track walk along distance is just antenatal care it's still part of the injustice and i think that what foundation is doing is just being providing what what what he deserved they deserve care women and children deserve the same kind of care that every other person in society will have just they are always the you know
Hetal Baman (24:18.860)
yeah
Elvis Ndansi (24:41.074)
this enfranchise group that so far the burden of every aspect of society calamities when there is war women and children are the ones at so far the most you know when there is conflict women and children are the one that so far the most right nine cameron there is a conflict in the angler phone zones of cameron we have internally displaced to women and children who have left their home driven from the home because of conflict some of them even give birth in bushes because they have been driven from their home in by a conflict so this is this is a population i care so much abou
Hetal Baman (24:49.140)
right
Hetal Baman (25:04.680)
wow
Elvis Ndansi (25:11.474)
well of course when for women i care so much about my mother and i not want any woman to go through anything sad because i want the best for her and when i think about every woman out there i think about my mom and i think they deserve the best
Hetal Baman (25:14.900)
right
Hetal Baman (25:28.300)
yeah sometimes i just have to think about it because it's like
Hetal Baman (25:36.520)
it's just thank you for doing that thank you for saying that um you mentioned women who are internally displaced persons can you explain what that means
Elvis Ndansi (25:39.614)
thank you
Elvis Ndansi (25:52.954)
a
Elvis Ndansi (25:57.354)
yeah you know when there is conflict in a country the global community always pays attention most terrifuges and by international definational refuges are those have been driven from their homes and they are sick in refuge in another country in another country they re consider refuges in this country but when you have a conflict in a country most people leave from one part of that country to another part of that country and the burden of the suffering is the same because when you leave
Hetal Baman (26:12.840)
hm
Elvis Ndansi (26:27.734)
a community that is your own where you've lived on breath and gone to school and maybe what your farm and everything your livelihood depends on that community and when conflict breaks on you have to run away from that community to another community far off in the same country that is not your own you are still like a stranger in the new community but then your definition is different your an internally displaced person because you are within your country you are not consider a refigy so you don't benefit from all the donations
Hetal Baman (26:46.640)
right
Elvis Ndansi (26:57.134)
and all the global founding that are meant for refuges so internally displaced people of really huge burden of crisis because the atentinalists not focus so much on them because they still consider them to be a responsibility of their country but the same country that is at the origin of their conflict so it's a big issue we have women who have been displaced from the northwest and southwest region of camera because of the conflict that is going on there and they are now in the other regions of the country some of them even begging for
Hetal Baman (27:11.260)
m
Elvis Ndansi (27:27.154)
yea some of them sleeping on the streets because they don't have what to do where to sleep and then you know we in two thousand and twenty one we had a program at unite for her foundation providing free delivery services to pregnant women that were internally disclosed these are women that are pregnant and they've run away from their community they don't have any income generating activity but they are pregnant they have to prepare for their baby so we we have to provide free delivery to some about forty seven women
and two doesn't antwentyone who internally displaced and were found in the barn community in yonder where we had one of our microclinics so we still pay a lot of attention to this internally displaced person because they servi a lot but camera really doesn't get to them easily
Hetal Baman (28:17.040)
that is huge i never even thought about that the that the aid would most often just go to refugees that flee their own country but then the people who actually within their country he are going to just another community they don't get the help that is so interesting wow so i want to talk about research and what you're doing
to collect data because i think it's so important that in order to grow and create new programs and create new innovation to help more more people you need to have the data right so what are you doing to gather this research
Elvis Ndansi (29:11.334)
ah that's a very interesting question i think i do that really professionally because first as i told you the master's degree in nursing and and masters in public health and really in the past in my career professionally what as a clinical research professional and participated in so many clinical triers and i understand just how important data is for everything they are problem that you're second to look for a solution and so at a level of united her foundation
Hetal Baman (29:37.320)
yeah
Elvis Ndansi (29:41.214)
have you know the responsibility to collect this data in a way that can be interpreted on you know produced in formation that can from the scientific community for the work that we do and so that is why we make sure that we capture this data in a very specific way on one of the vision i had about unitrohel is that some day when we have all this microclynic pread around the different parts of the country and africa
those microclynics could be a very good host for clinical triers for those who want to actually run try our community level where the disease burden is highest than the fine our structures bread all over and this we would be able to provide you know an avenue where a lot of data can be generated on what infections are non infectious disease we conduct a lot of community outrage program as well last year we screened about four hundred and fifty women in one of the communities in the norwestregion for breast and sevaca
Hetal Baman (30:20.660)
m
Elvis Ndansi (30:41.274)
so we also screen one thousand five hundred people in twenty twenty one for divatshypottin and a obviacity and we found really interesting resultts that people walk on the streets and they don't even know the high potent if they don't even know they have high sugar and sometimes they drop that and you know of sometimes in a community where there's a lot of superstition to thing that may be which cover something so we have to go out to the community because when covidninteen heat in twenty twenty and our clinics became empty because
Hetal Baman (31:03.240)
hm
Elvis Ndansi (31:11.254)
all the conspiracy tory that cared people from seeking help care and facility health and facilities we still thought that there was a need and with all the lock downs that were implemented we saw that it was people still needed help care but could not go out of their their home so we said okay one of the ways we should think about providing access to help care as united for health is taking health care to the people and not just waiting for them to come to our cleaning and that's how we started our community outrage program which is really vibrant and we doing a lot of com
Hetal Baman (31:26.640)
hm
Hetal Baman (31:32.940)
yep
Elvis Ndansi (31:41.174)
the rage programs to screen people for different disease this year we held a bout meeting we have plans to screen thousands of people for infectious disease in some of those last mi communities and this is just one of the ways we are also generating data by doing this work that can actually form a base line of just uncovering the burden of some of this disease in those communities that maybe no one is thinking about
Hetal Baman (32:03.880)
community health workers are the future like they that's just amazing that you're doing that and i feel like with community health workers you're also providing education to these patients you know
Elvis Ndansi (32:21.194)
exactly when we go out for community outrage program there is no way you would want people to come test for their lot sugar for their potential without your telling them what those two things mean so there is first of all the education components that is very important and
when they come to the pressure when it's high you have to give an explanation to them and tell them about the risk so that's education taking place when they have higlodsugar you have to explain to them the risks and what they need to do in terms of changing behavior on the diet in order to manage the conditions that's education first hand at the level of the community before they even meet a doctor so community average compas are really really important ways of reaching out to a larger
part of the community when it comes to setting serious help problems like infectious and especially with a recent rise in non communicable disease in africa were experiencing high rise and cancers and you know kicknedisease and you know leave disease you now these are all things that really increasing in prevalence as the days go by and we always say that if you don't look for something you will not find it and so one of the ways we want to be able to really paint
picture of the burden of some of these diseases to actually look for them go to the community and screen for this infectious disease rather than see it and assume that they don't exist just because maybe people don't have access to care
Hetal Baman (33:49.460)
yeah well so all this i want to talk about your book the hope and you thank you for sending me this you sent me a beautiful copy with your signature in it as well thank you so much you speak a lot about your inspiration that comes from baba i mean you were from you actually got into this boma scholars program
Elvis Ndansi (34:07.034)
welcome
Hetal Baman (34:21.160)
which is incredible um what made you apply for that program and what about baba inspired you so much
Elvis Ndansi (34:34.814)
the story of baba to me is a story of dream come true is the story of dream come true not just for him but also for me when i was in two thousand and seven i first of all was very politically active in my country i was a student leader in the university when i graduated in the universe from university at the age of twenty three and i at twenty four i joined the national politics and i ran for election to with mayor in my community and that was when abama was fire brand so each time i was very keen
you know listening to the news and wanting watching him speak and make speeches and i felt like this this a kind of person again inspired and i i would watch videos just to hear him speak and just to collect like him and when i went for my company to tosonanser end everybody was saying this is our own baba this is our own baba and i felt proud that they were making reference to a great man like baba and i kept a pursuit of my political career back home i became the national president of one of the leading political part
Hetal Baman (35:22.740)
wow that's great
Elvis Ndansi (35:34.634)
in cameron i ran election to be a member of congress into in two thousand and thirteen and i was keen about just you know how i wanted to be part of the kind of story of change but one thing happened in two thousand and sixteen when i was applied when president of ama he was now president he found he started the young african leaders initiative but responsible the us state department that was just selecting you know opriteand leaders from
fricka giving an exposure in the united states to a fellowship program called adela washington fellowship program and i applied it was a highly competitive program and i applied and i was selected and i came to the united states and i studied at what college in staten island and for the fellowship of the civic leadership we had the opportunity to learn a lot about civic leadership and a lot of different things and i remember baa saying something when we are i think you know
he made a statement that you cannot only become a leader through being elected you can be a leader by just being a change make in your community by creating impact in your community and all that so my views about politics and started changing when we ask a question baa remember him saying do not bother so much about who you want to become bought up
the work you want to do and do it well that thus talk that go talk with me and i went back to cameron after that fellowship continue to pursue my work we unite for her foundation at that time we had just to micro clinics we opened the micro clinic and i continued to focus on the united for her work creating impact in the community providing access to her care and in twenty eight and i got nominated when he started when he had left the office and started the bamascolars program the very first cohort it was by
domination it was not an open application so someone had to nominate you and it was global across the world it was not like so i got this email some day that alviusy've been ominated to applied for the bamascholars program so that was amazing i don't even know who nominated me at that point in time so i had to follow all the process applied very regardless process went through all the stadias of the interview and in ten that was a corse twenty eighteen when i got that very best email
Hetal Baman (37:37.380)
wow
Elvis Ndansi (38:04.554)
my life that i've been selected as a abamascolar to story at columbia university now i knew that that was a dream come true i knew i was going to meet president of boma face to face i knew i was going to be in the same room with him through that program and i said okay it's true that dream come true because this is someone but in pied me right from two thousand and seven right from a last mile community in cameron in africa where you don't even think that you will you know want to be in the same even in the same
that with him talk lyssolf in the same room in the same country but then i found myself in this privileged position and i came to the program really inspired and the program itself was amazing one of the best programmes ever ever ate in my life were selected just twelve of ours from around the world to attend the first cohort of the bammascolas program at colomb university where we really pass through the hands of really amazing people including our rail hints who is now the director of now
Hetal Baman (38:35.220)
h m
Hetal Baman (38:51.940)
wow
Elvis Ndansi (39:04.594)
no intelligence and even blinking we had to be with sectrablinkon in the same room during one of our trips in chicago and the metithobama met michel amazing people got inspired and that took me now to another trajectory of the work i the abama foundation program really inspire us to look at a world to look at a problem through a global lens and not just through the lens of we know the micro clinic in mis or the micro clinic in came
but no thinking now like leaders who are really change makers who are resilient change makers that are really to face you know i'll solve the depressing challenges that our world is facing including climate change in you now the terrorism and all the things you can think about so after the program i've really found really different ways of doing things united for her foundation has really grown tremendously is now a register five or one
he and the united states would really fully function a board of directors really amazing part of directors my borch florence is an amazing lady and we are shaping the future unite for held in a way that is amazing not just looking at cameron but looking at africa and pioneering some of some initiative cut cross health care and energy poverty and really doing amazing work in some of the communities and cameron of course she is some of those vides but you can find them on our website also jos
Hetal Baman (40:05.120)
congratulations
Elvis Ndansi (40:35.094)
creating a initiative to bring together camonaheprofessionals from around tertifcountries on the platform where we met every fortnight to talk about her problems in cameron and hotedaaspora can contribute i find myself moderating this panel that so membership of about one thousand of under fifty participants and these are just some ways in which you can be part of a change without being occupying a political office i resign from politics in two thousand and nine on it
okay i'm not longer looking at life through the layers of becoming a mayor or converse mon president some day but just the impact that i think we are about to create through united for her foundation the number of pregnant women we are about to put smiles on their faces when they deliver on gefberthand are told that they don't have to pay anything because they have been covered by united for her those are the kinds of things that well keep me you know being thankful of just a person knowing the abamaon
Elvis Ndansi (41:34.874)
the benefits that i've had from just being alabama's color and passing through that program and also even from when i was manella washington fellow which was still part of his initiative that's why i talk a lot about him
Hetal Baman (41:48.520)
yeah
Hetal Baman (41:52.100)
the fact that you mentioned um being a leader doesn't necessarily need mean that you need to have authority you know that's huge um and that all you need to do is create some type of change and i think that in the book that you wrote the hope in you it's
really all about how to become a change maker in your society you know how to actually
Elvis Ndansi (42:22.634)
it
Hetal Baman (42:31.560)
do something however small it is you know and how to become kind of a better human
Elvis Ndansi (42:38.294)
yeah those little acts that sometimes might go and notice but that impact life that's the leadership and that's why throughout the baba foundation if you look at the cause of their program is just about inspiring and connecting the next generation of change makers and they do that at different levels they have the baba leader african leadership program they have their baa fellows they have baba community
leader so most of this work is around empowering people and given in the ability to solve their own problems and i really agree when he says that you can be a leader and a change maker without occupying any put position because leadership is you know is behavior is not position is not something that yu have to be kept in a position before you actually become a leader i flash back memory line when i was in the university in our first
holiday that we had in my first year university are benefited from one hundred dollar grant from a foundation call for a foundation and wish that tales go to your community and solve any problem that you find there with a hundred dollars i went to my neighborhood and there was a public tap that everybody used to come line up to carry water from the public and because of people fighting to be the first or to be the second to carry water they will sometimes plash water and watewrdirty because now the head of the tap was not very
Hetal Baman (43:51.960)
hm
Elvis Ndansi (44:02.874)
was really high up there and then they will keep their pocket right down there and so what flash in the pocket and it could be easier to get the water thirty so i came there and i call a technician so we can solve this problem why not just construct a surface that is a little bit higher so when people come they can keep their bocks on top of the surface to meet the head of the top up there so that the distance should not be much from the water and ring the bloke and thus spills of or from the soil to the pocket will not occur and we bought some some san an
Hetal Baman (44:09.900)
right
Elvis Ndansi (44:32.874)
sement and concrete time i paid the money the hundred dollar was just enough to pay for that and workmanship and we built that structure and people came there few days later when it was already solid they could keep the buckets the carry the time it occurred to me like that was a very big thing i did i just thought that was i thought it was simple but when i became when i left university ten years later and i drove past that community and
Hetal Baman (44:51.620)
the most simple little act
Elvis Ndansi (45:02.474)
still so that same surface i constructed that is when i realize how much of impact that little act of community service was to the neighborhood that i once lived in so sometimes we just on that estimate how on power of being change makers sometimes we estimate just how much we can contribute to community building and that's what i try to say in my book looking at just the first of all inspiring people
to believe in themselves we all a lot of people have had a lot of challenges in their life i've had want my stories that of resilience if you read my book coming from a very poor background struggling with a single mom know to be able to bet all those challenges of life to be where i am today i think you know everyone can do something and we got a lot in this country in the united states we just got a lot that we can really change at will sometimes when we look at
Elvis Ndansi (46:03.334)
the television and the media and all the problems we think that we have the poor problem but i would say that you know everywhere there are problems but there are change makers that even within the deepest of the are crisis that thrive to make life better for some other people
Hetal Baman (46:21.880)
amazing my last question for you is
Elvis Ndansi (46:25.794)
my last
Hetal Baman (46:29.620)
what would you tell your younger self
Elvis Ndansi (46:30.814)
what was
Hetal Baman (46:34.640)
today with all of the with all of the experience that you have now what would you tell him
Elvis Ndansi (46:45.794)
maybe you said it asks a question again so i know what to say i didn't quite understand it
Hetal Baman (46:49.040)
yeah yeah yeah so imagine yourself as a six year old seven year old boy in cameroon
Elvis Ndansi (46:55.094)
i
Hetal Baman (47:01.440)
what would you tell that little boy about what your life is going to come to be
Elvis Ndansi (47:08.334)
i get i said that to my six year old boy i said that to jason all the time and i tell i tell him and i tell you know his younger sister i tell them one word never give up i tell them never give up the other day where i put a cat movie and were watching and the character said don't give up don't give her that say what you always tell us say yes
does the secret never give up we get really used troubled by society and we get leveled society is full of you know we come to this world with all our potentials right all the opportunity to become the best of what we are but through our developmental stages from birth to childhood to grown ups we get through a lot of societal levels on that that makes
you know forget that we have all what it takes in this world to be the best of ourselves we get leveled right from early childhood either as do or as intelligent a d based on grading system in schools we get levelled as either you know route of polite based on society judgement we get a lot of those levels black or white and we grew up just really losing that fact that we come to this world with all these potentials to be the best of her we are
society really beat us too much so that if you don't have that fighting spirit of never giving up it is easy to you know to decline as we find a lot of kids nowadays on drugs we hear that there's a lot of internal in america a lot of kids getting drugs there is a problem somewhere when children start losing the oserfexteam at a very early stage because of how society beats them around with social media now and so more
society expectation on how they should dress or behave or you know what they should know and not know a lot of kids get having depression that is on diagnosed all this is because of what we are going through and facing a present their life and all i tell my six year old is believe in yourself you are the best you have all it takes even if anybody makes you feel you always have to feel high and know you're the best and never give up that's what i tell the six year old you ask me
because that's just who i was when i was six years old i never gave i never thought i could give up i went to school here kids talk about my daddy my daddy when i never had a daddy at that point in time because i know i never knew where my dad was but you know i knew that one day i find him i finally got him and we are good friends but i think that some of those single moms that are raising male kids you don't know what they go through when those kids come home and they don't have the male favor
and just how they walk through that experience to become who they are it's another story so it's a story of not giving up
Hetal Baman (50:12.660)
thank you for sharing that
Elvis Ndansi (50:13.934)
thank you
Elvis Ndansi (50:16.374)
a pleasure version
Hetal Baman (50:16.760)
thank you all is this is such a great conversation um really touched my heart so thank you for your time
Elvis Ndansi (50:26.934)
thank you so much as really been my talking to you and thank you for the work you're doing on your podcast
Hetal Baman (50:31.540)
thank you