Tag: stories
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Keep the joy of eating jollof rice together!
My jollof rice is joyful, so it’s heavenly taste with my people. Every Sunday afternoon is joyful. So the smiles of my people. Joyful also are our gathering. Joyful also are these memories with my people. I have been reading Braiding Sweetgrass and the idea of the holder and the braider reminded me of what…
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Keep the memories of LIGHT Year 3 and Rest in Peace, Dr. Ivis M. Richardson!
Our LIGHT festival just ended. I was supposed to close and inform people about the plans for next year. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Our last speaker, Christell Roach lost her grandmother, Dr Ivis M. Richardson yesterday. She could have cancelled, she could have called and told us about her death. We would have understood. My…
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Keep the 3rd annual LIGHT festival for the public by the public with public health!
When we started this three years ago, we imagined we would do as Audre Lorde’s once noted and bring a burst of light to public health. The world was in a pandemic, health was in a disarray, everything with the public was complex and messy and at that moment we knew that light was needed.…
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Keep things delicate!
The word was delicate. In a class assignment tonight (yes I am taking classes hence my absence here), I joined late but just in time to begin writing the first thoughts that came to mind with the word delicate. The assignment without using the word, tell a story, write a poem, do or say anything…
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Keep the knowledge and birthday of our Belle.
I would liken her to a star. Not those up in the skies, but the stars within. I would liken her to the moon. Not the kind that appears in the sky at night. But the moon within. I would liken her to the sun. Not the one that shines so brightly on a clear…
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Keep this self-portrait!
A dreamer, a believer, star gazer and breeder, and a lover of full moons. Steady like black ants, marching, unwavering, persistent. Chatty, tenacious, stubborn, bold, full of hope, for no certain outcome and for certain outcomes. Impediments and struggle, Together with legacy and tomorrow Are like the sun and it flowers, A duality that matter,…
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Keep these STARS!
Our NIAID-funded STARS summer program began yesterday, with many new faces wondering what it’s like to become STARS. We shared our stories, we gave them a bit of context and opened up the door on what it means to be STARS. Today, we sat through a masterclass on the landscape of HIV research in the…
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Keep the lessons of cicadas!
We saw the limits of everything, for cicadas, saw them delicate like old skin, shedding their innermost being. They would give anything, it seems, as they suckle on the trunk of trees, to live. Now I see why rest, even if for 13 years, is the beginning of everything. I pray nothing, not even the…
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Keep the beginning of Nnem&Nnem at Korede house (or why motherhood matters)!
The second paper I authored as I began my academic journey highlighted the need to focus on the role of mothers with health. It’s the first paper that centers the primacy of mothers for health and life. It’s also began my journey into understanding the full spectrum of mothers, how we are not only birth…
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Keep dream, like flowers, like grants that begin again!
We are writing grants again. We began on Monday to prep for what maybe the start of a journey toward returning home. For the past 15 years all my grants have been global, focused on my birth country Nigeria. Lately, and because home is really Saint Louis, really the US, as I have spent most…
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Keep listening and learning from communities!
I have been thinking lately about how we listen and learn from communities. Couple of weeks ago, I was in a room full of experts who noted that young people as a group do not have the right to speak for themselves about things that matter to them like their health. Imagine, in 2024, we…
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Keep listening and learning from young people!
Young people do not need adult-centric rules. They need you to see them in all their diversity. To listen and learn from them to. Not as afterthought. Not with limited voices. But with wisdom and grace for the lives they lead. I have always known young people to be creative, resourceful, with informed ideas that…
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Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 