gentlemen in the next eight
it’s 2844 children will be born in the
next 18 minutes 2,000 people will die in
the same amount of time of those 2,000
people who died four hundred and forty
five of them will die because of
communicable diseases 383 due to hunger
58 because of HIV and AIDS 30 of them
will be because of contaminated water
and eleven women shall die at childbirth
in the next 18 minutes half this room
will die every single minute of
contaminated water communicable diseases
hunger all these reasons are reasons
that we can solve for and these people
shouldn’t have to die so look up the
person next to you and think which of
you is going to die in the next minute
so extreme poverty was defined by the
United Nations as a condition of severe
deprivation of basic human needs
including water sanitation access to
health etc all of these things are not
just about access to income but also
access to basic services I am Charles
Marita a pragmatic idealist and in the
next 18 minutes I want to share with you
why we all have a moral obligation to
help all those who are less fortunate
than we have if for nothing else so that
we who have more can be able to live in
a more secure more happy more peaceful
place I am also hoping that in the next
18 minutes none of you actually die
before I finish talking so over the last
few years I have spent every single
November going to Cape Town for work
every November the first week of
November all people from the
telecommunications industry converge on
Cape Town for Africa comm one of the
largest technology and
telecommunications conferences around
the world in addition to this particular
conference we also have people who have
a lot of site meetings from different
companies talking about different
emerging trends and topics from subject
matters arm experts so a few years ago
for the first time I was invited to Cape
Town and I vividly remember my first
trip my flight from jo’burg was
relatively uneventful
and as we descended into Cape Town I
could not help notice the vineyards
below the beautiful landscapes and also
Table Mountain it was everything you
think and you’ve been told it is
absolutely mesmerizing so I walk out of
the baggage claim TURN RIGHT pick up my
luggage and go into the arrivals hall
while I’m there there’s a car waiting
for me and we get on the highway and
drive out shocked on me not far from the
airport to the right and to the left was
a glaring there was a glaring sign of
poverty juxtaposed against this
incredible beauty and the pragmatic
idealist that I am I had to struggle to
really put these two things together
unfortunately this is not an isolated
case this right here is an image of
Masafumi Lele
on your left it is a community 20
kilometers southwest of Cape Town city
where 40,000 people live in extremely
tough conditions amenities are scarce
and overcrowded school no police station
and an understaffed clinic yet over 30
to 40% of the population of Masafumi
Lele are actually infected with HIV and
AIDS over the weekend the University of
Cape Town students health organization
comes to staff it hardly sufficient and
here’s the irony of massif Mlle
it’s actually a casa word that means let
us succeed next to my Sifu Mallan lay
less than 20 second – is the beautiful
gated community of Lake Michelle
multimillion-dollar houses multi storeys
overlooking this amazing lake surrounded
by an electric fence but this is not
just a challenge in South Africa let’s
come back closer to home someone told me
that behind every single affluent suburb
in Nairobi is a slum deep sea how many
of you know about deep sea how many of
you have heard of deep sea I see some
hands going up for those who don’t know
it’s actually smack in the middle of
Messiah and parklands but it’s not the
only one
so even further away is Mexico City
whereby the vastness of the disparity
just across the road is absolutely
shocking when you look at these images
by Johnny Miller of unequal scenes he
does such a great job bringing to life
this big challenge that we’re facing
around the world it’s absolutely
fascinating as well as surreal to look
at the wealth inequality between the two
sides and it stretches as far as the eye
can see according to the latest World
Bank estimates poverty rates have fallen
50 from 56% in 1990 to about 43% in 2012
now this is a great thing unfortunately
the number of absolute poor people
across Africa has actually risen from
280 million people in 1990 to 330
million in 2012 and what’s crazy about
that is that that’s the entire
population of Kenya poverty and
education has actually been going down
but and unfortunately it’s actually been
hard to reduce it in the more rural
areas whereby this still exists the
picture of inequality across Africa is
incredibly complex ten seven out of the
ten most unequal countries in the world
are actually here in Africa in addition
to that most of them are from southern
Africa and South Africa itself is
actually the most unequal country in the
world and when this inequality hits
disproportionate levels the worst
manifests itself so we have to solve for
inequality and speaking of inequality
the worst that manifests itself the case
in point is history and looking back so
I’m sure most of you know about the
French Revolution the French Revolution
was one of the darkest times of France’s
history it was about ten years between
1789 and 1799 it kicked off with
Bastille Day when the people actually
stormed into Bastille prison and what
happened was at this particular time
France was going through an economic
depression whereby most people were
hungry there was no food to go around
and unfortunately for the upper class
who was stable comfortable they did not
know what was happening beyond the doors
or the gates of their homes worse off in
Versailles at the Royal Court
they were completely oblivious of the
challenge that was happening
most people were so destitute at this
particular point that they had to resort
to prostitution and theft just to put
food on the table what happened was with
this level of indifference the popular
people actually arose and in this
escalating crisis they revolted and they
captured the king king louis xvi
decapitated his head and it took this
great cost to actually transform france
into a republic unfortunately for the
next ten years as I mentioned it was one
of the worst and darkest periods of
France’s history whereby it was known as
the reign of terror but out of this
ideals of Inuk out of this the ideal of
liberation equality and fraternity were
born now what’s interesting is that this
notion of fraternity is the essence of
Ubuntu which most of us as Africans know
very well about what do we say it takes
a village right at the end of the day we
have to think about what we do for each
other
to make sure that we’re taking care of
each other so this is tale my godson
he’s under about two and a half years
old and he’s one of my foger children
who I absolutely love to death I’m sure
each and every one of you here has a
tale in their lives now I know that you
want the best for your tale you want to
make sure that the loved ones that you
have have the best quality life that
they can have over time however as long
as these inequality crime goes up in
security increases etc and at the end of
the day how high can your walls be how
much security are you going to hire to
protect your family your loved ones and
those that you really care about for
those of us who have we’re continuing to
find ourselves in our own prisons and
the reality is there’s the prophet that
says that if you want to go fast you fly
alone but if you want to go far you fly
together there’s also a Kikuyu saying
that goes this way go today with Naqada
what that means is that nobody berries
themselves we therefore must give each
other a hand with this in mind I want to
close by telling you of how you can do
this in your own simple way which
doesn’t cost much but makes such a big
difference in other people’s lives so
I’ll give you a story about a few years
back when I moved back to Kenya when I
started interacting with a lot of
artists I discovered that
it was really hard for up-and-coming
artists to be able to showcase their
work and their talent and for those
established ones it was hard for them to
actually earn a decent living and the
reality of it was such for those
established ones they had to pay
somewhere between 30 and 70 percent of
the proceeds from their work to the
gallery owners so what happened was I
met an artist who had been looking for
for quite some time and this artist his
work is incredible
Patrick Kanodia I don’t know if any of
you know him and Patrick had a studio in
banana and when I was with a group of
friends of mine they were talking about
how much they were trying to find this
guy and I said I know him so we
organized that they would go to
Patrick’s studio and once I spoke to
Patrick it was a bit too far for most of
the people to actually go so what I did
was I told Patrick how about you bring
your work to an apartment that I was
renovating and basically we cleaned this
place on a Saturday afternoon at 12
o’clock as you can see there are no
lights the flow is bare barely a place
where you can have what historically
people think of as an art gallery but
what happened was that while people came
the first one Patrick actually sold
about 18 pieces of work that was in
December 2014 in January 2015 a whole
bunch of people kept asking me are you
doing that odd thing again I hadn’t
intended to do it but I called Patrick
and he said I’ll actually get a few more
artists to do this
with me so they brought their work and
someone else actually came in and his
name is Sal so what happened with some
is that he sold two pieces of painting
that afternoon and while he was working
out at the end of the day he pulled me
aside and said Charles I just want to
thank you for having this given us this
opportunity and for the work that I’ve
sold the money and the process that I
have made will go towards finishing up
the roofing of a house that I’m building
and buying doors and windows for my new
home seven months later he sent me a
photo of himself his wife and twin boys
sitting in front of their newly finished
home from that moment on every single
time that I think that I’m not going to
do these archers again
I remember him how such a seemingly
small thing that was on my part had such
a big deal to do with him and what
happened is that that has now become a
fully-fledged exhibition every last
Saturday of the month in fact today we
had one and now we hold it at dusit
Capital FM kids club promoted we have a
nice kids corner and that is what keeps
me going every single month that we do
this so what I want to say is that each
one of you have to think about what is
your small act that you can do that will
change someone’s life and what is your
small act that you can do that will help
reduce the inequality because at the end
of the day it is our moral obligation to
help those who have less than we do
and again if for no other reason because
for those who will of if we’re going to
make sure that they live in an equal
safe society we have to make sure that
we all rise together thank you very much
[Applause]
it’s 2844 children will be born in the
next 18 minutes 2,000 people will die in
the same amount of time of those 2,000
people who died four hundred and forty
five of them will die because of
communicable diseases 383 due to hunger
58 because of HIV and AIDS 30 of them
will be because of contaminated water
and eleven women shall die at childbirth
in the next 18 minutes half this room
will die every single minute of
contaminated water communicable diseases
hunger all these reasons are reasons
that we can solve for and these people
shouldn’t have to die so look up the
person next to you and think which of
you is going to die in the next minute
so extreme poverty was defined by the
United Nations as a condition of severe
deprivation of basic human needs
including water sanitation access to
health etc all of these things are not
just about access to income but also
access to basic services I am Charles
Marita a pragmatic idealist and in the
next 18 minutes I want to share with you
why we all have a moral obligation to
help all those who are less fortunate
than we have if for nothing else so that
we who have more can be able to live in
a more secure more happy more peaceful
place I am also hoping that in the next
18 minutes none of you actually die
before I finish talking so over the last
few years I have spent every single
November going to Cape Town for work
every November the first week of
November all people from the
telecommunications industry converge on
Cape Town for Africa comm one of the
largest technology and
telecommunications conferences around
the world in addition to this particular
conference we also have people who have
a lot of site meetings from different
companies talking about different
emerging trends and topics from subject
matters arm experts so a few years ago
for the first time I was invited to Cape
Town and I vividly remember my first
trip my flight from jo’burg was
relatively uneventful
and as we descended into Cape Town I
could not help notice the vineyards
below the beautiful landscapes and also
Table Mountain it was everything you
think and you’ve been told it is
absolutely mesmerizing so I walk out of
the baggage claim TURN RIGHT pick up my
luggage and go into the arrivals hall
while I’m there there’s a car waiting
for me and we get on the highway and
drive out shocked on me not far from the
airport to the right and to the left was
a glaring there was a glaring sign of
poverty juxtaposed against this
incredible beauty and the pragmatic
idealist that I am I had to struggle to
really put these two things together
unfortunately this is not an isolated
case this right here is an image of
Masafumi Lele
on your left it is a community 20
kilometers southwest of Cape Town city
where 40,000 people live in extremely
tough conditions amenities are scarce
and overcrowded school no police station
and an understaffed clinic yet over 30
to 40% of the population of Masafumi
Lele are actually infected with HIV and
AIDS over the weekend the University of
Cape Town students health organization
comes to staff it hardly sufficient and
here’s the irony of massif Mlle
it’s actually a casa word that means let
us succeed next to my Sifu Mallan lay
less than 20 second – is the beautiful
gated community of Lake Michelle
multimillion-dollar houses multi storeys
overlooking this amazing lake surrounded
by an electric fence but this is not
just a challenge in South Africa let’s
come back closer to home someone told me
that behind every single affluent suburb
in Nairobi is a slum deep sea how many
of you know about deep sea how many of
you have heard of deep sea I see some
hands going up for those who don’t know
it’s actually smack in the middle of
Messiah and parklands but it’s not the
only one
so even further away is Mexico City
whereby the vastness of the disparity
just across the road is absolutely
shocking when you look at these images
by Johnny Miller of unequal scenes he
does such a great job bringing to life
this big challenge that we’re facing
around the world it’s absolutely
fascinating as well as surreal to look
at the wealth inequality between the two
sides and it stretches as far as the eye
can see according to the latest World
Bank estimates poverty rates have fallen
50 from 56% in 1990 to about 43% in 2012
now this is a great thing unfortunately
the number of absolute poor people
across Africa has actually risen from
280 million people in 1990 to 330
million in 2012 and what’s crazy about
that is that that’s the entire
population of Kenya poverty and
education has actually been going down
but and unfortunately it’s actually been
hard to reduce it in the more rural
areas whereby this still exists the
picture of inequality across Africa is
incredibly complex ten seven out of the
ten most unequal countries in the world
are actually here in Africa in addition
to that most of them are from southern
Africa and South Africa itself is
actually the most unequal country in the
world and when this inequality hits
disproportionate levels the worst
manifests itself so we have to solve for
inequality and speaking of inequality
the worst that manifests itself the case
in point is history and looking back so
I’m sure most of you know about the
French Revolution the French Revolution
was one of the darkest times of France’s
history it was about ten years between
1789 and 1799 it kicked off with
Bastille Day when the people actually
stormed into Bastille prison and what
happened was at this particular time
France was going through an economic
depression whereby most people were
hungry there was no food to go around
and unfortunately for the upper class
who was stable comfortable they did not
know what was happening beyond the doors
or the gates of their homes worse off in
Versailles at the Royal Court
they were completely oblivious of the
challenge that was happening
most people were so destitute at this
particular point that they had to resort
to prostitution and theft just to put
food on the table what happened was with
this level of indifference the popular
people actually arose and in this
escalating crisis they revolted and they
captured the king king louis xvi
decapitated his head and it took this
great cost to actually transform france
into a republic unfortunately for the
next ten years as I mentioned it was one
of the worst and darkest periods of
France’s history whereby it was known as
the reign of terror but out of this
ideals of Inuk out of this the ideal of
liberation equality and fraternity were
born now what’s interesting is that this
notion of fraternity is the essence of
Ubuntu which most of us as Africans know
very well about what do we say it takes
a village right at the end of the day we
have to think about what we do for each
other
to make sure that we’re taking care of
each other so this is tale my godson
he’s under about two and a half years
old and he’s one of my foger children
who I absolutely love to death I’m sure
each and every one of you here has a
tale in their lives now I know that you
want the best for your tale you want to
make sure that the loved ones that you
have have the best quality life that
they can have over time however as long
as these inequality crime goes up in
security increases etc and at the end of
the day how high can your walls be how
much security are you going to hire to
protect your family your loved ones and
those that you really care about for
those of us who have we’re continuing to
find ourselves in our own prisons and
the reality is there’s the prophet that
says that if you want to go fast you fly
alone but if you want to go far you fly
together there’s also a Kikuyu saying
that goes this way go today with Naqada
what that means is that nobody berries
themselves we therefore must give each
other a hand with this in mind I want to
close by telling you of how you can do
this in your own simple way which
doesn’t cost much but makes such a big
difference in other people’s lives so
I’ll give you a story about a few years
back when I moved back to Kenya when I
started interacting with a lot of
artists I discovered that
it was really hard for up-and-coming
artists to be able to showcase their
work and their talent and for those
established ones it was hard for them to
actually earn a decent living and the
reality of it was such for those
established ones they had to pay
somewhere between 30 and 70 percent of
the proceeds from their work to the
gallery owners so what happened was I
met an artist who had been looking for
for quite some time and this artist his
work is incredible
Patrick Kanodia I don’t know if any of
you know him and Patrick had a studio in
banana and when I was with a group of
friends of mine they were talking about
how much they were trying to find this
guy and I said I know him so we
organized that they would go to
Patrick’s studio and once I spoke to
Patrick it was a bit too far for most of
the people to actually go so what I did
was I told Patrick how about you bring
your work to an apartment that I was
renovating and basically we cleaned this
place on a Saturday afternoon at 12
o’clock as you can see there are no
lights the flow is bare barely a place
where you can have what historically
people think of as an art gallery but
what happened was that while people came
the first one Patrick actually sold
about 18 pieces of work that was in
December 2014 in January 2015 a whole
bunch of people kept asking me are you
doing that odd thing again I hadn’t
intended to do it but I called Patrick
and he said I’ll actually get a few more
artists to do this
with me so they brought their work and
someone else actually came in and his
name is Sal so what happened with some
is that he sold two pieces of painting
that afternoon and while he was working
out at the end of the day he pulled me
aside and said Charles I just want to
thank you for having this given us this
opportunity and for the work that I’ve
sold the money and the process that I
have made will go towards finishing up
the roofing of a house that I’m building
and buying doors and windows for my new
home seven months later he sent me a
photo of himself his wife and twin boys
sitting in front of their newly finished
home from that moment on every single
time that I think that I’m not going to
do these archers again
I remember him how such a seemingly
small thing that was on my part had such
a big deal to do with him and what
happened is that that has now become a
fully-fledged exhibition every last
Saturday of the month in fact today we
had one and now we hold it at dusit
Capital FM kids club promoted we have a
nice kids corner and that is what keeps
me going every single month that we do
this so what I want to say is that each
one of you have to think about what is
your small act that you can do that will
change someone’s life and what is your
small act that you can do that will help
reduce the inequality because at the end
of the day it is our moral obligation to
help those who have less than we do
and again if for no other reason because
for those who will of if we’re going to
make sure that they live in an equal
safe society we have to make sure that
we all rise together thank you very much
[Applause]
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