Kathleen Hale: "I Am Not the Image of a Typical Change Maker": An Interview With One Young World Ambassador Ajarat Bada

We're guessing One Young World Ambassador Ajarat Bada doesn't have much time to sleep. A trained nurse, 25-year-old Bada has been a tireless advocate for global health and helped organize the Inaugural Healthcare Summit for African First Ladies. More recently, her focus has been on interfaith cooperation. In addition to her work as the youth representative for the United Nations Religions Initiative, Ajarat has founded her own advocacy initiative, the Missing Millennium Development Goal. The Missing MDG, as Bada calls it, is interfaith dialogue and peace. Because without first building real cooperation on the ground, many of the other Millennium Development Goals will prove impossible to achieve in some countries.

On September 1st-4th, Ajarat will be in Zurich attending One Young World, a global summit for your young leaders. We spoke with Bada recently about The Missing MDG and why people are surprised she's a global activist.

One Young Newsroom (OYN): Did you always want to be an activist and leader?

Ajarat Bada (AB): I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, one of Africa's most populous, dynamic and metropolitan cities. I am the youngest of nine siblings. My father is a retired attorney while my mother is a retired civil servant. At an early age, I did not like the notion of people merely getting on day-by-day i.e. "surviving." Psychologically, we needed to move beyond surviving and living to "thriving." Any less of an aspiration is an insult to the genius in each of us.

OYN: What are some of the issues in Nigeria that you feel most passionate about?

AB: I am currently completing my studies in the United States; assessing Nigeria's current situation from thousands of miles away is a bit tough. My home country faces multitudes of problems. Our greatest menace is corruption, which ensures a largely skewed distribution of the nation's resources. Poverty is also a huge problem, along with all the menaces associated with it: unemployment, inadequate health care facilities, high infant and maternal mortality -- the list is endless.

OYN: How would you fix these problems?

AB: The way forward for Nigeria, and the way to alleviate our problems, is to focus on fresh, young leadership. We need to stop recycling leaders between brothers and their offspring (we are not a monarchy), military and civilian regimes, or between positions in government.

In essence, we need to move away from tribalism and nepotism; there is nothing wrong in having two southerners, northerners, easterners, two women -- or whatever combination of tribes as President and Vice President -- if they can do the job effectively. This challenges the norms of government in most parts of the world but perhaps it holds advantages that need to be explored.

Lastly, we need transparent accountability from EVERYONE when it comes to the use of our resources -- especially from our government and the foreign partners who do business with us. I recommend that the oil companies threaten our government to improve the social conditions of our people or cease doing business with them. We produce so much oil yet the people who live in the oil rich regions suffer, and we need international support -- not just aid money to alleviate Nigeria's problems.

OYN: How has your age affected people's perceptions of you?

AB: The few times I have been taken less seriously, it has been because of my ethnicity, religion and gender. I am an African Muslim Female and I happen to wear the headscarf; I am not the image of a typical change maker in today's society. People have been slow to accommodate my intellectual contributions because of this.

In all honesty, I don't pay attention to negativity so I don't remember too many specific criticisms. One that might have come close enough to being the most condescending has been echoed by a few people who say, "Why are you wasting your time? Why don't you just focus on your professional aspirations to be a medical doctor? That would be a great achievement; there are not too many black female doctors around ... you will be worth a lot when you are done" -- etc. The last one makes me cringe a little, and I respond, "I am worth a lot already."

OYN: Your Missing Millennium Development Goal project aims to convince the United Nations to adopt a new goal. Does that make you an unreasonable person?

AB: When Bob Geldof equated true activism with unreasonable people during his speech at the London summit, I struggled with the use of those terms. It turned into a eureka moment when I realized that it was about reaching out to young people before they believe that it is na?ve to be idealistic. It's about re-appropriating the idea that rationality and idealism are at odds with each other.

So yes, maybe I am unreasonable -- perhaps that's why as a young black female Muslim who wears a headscarf, I believe that I can challenge any government, monarchy or authority.

The UN is led by of a group of people who bleed red blood just like the rest of us; there is nothing extraordinary about them. I hold the UN accountable the same way I hold myself accountable; I believe that people should be fulfilling their duties. Perhaps that's a part of being unreasonable ... I'll let you decide.

Keep up with Ajarat and the One Young World summit at the One Young Newsroom.
Twitter: @oneyoungworld, Facebook

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-hale/i-am-not-the-image-of-a-t_b_941864.html

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