Glocal Citizens

Greetings Glocal Citizens! In case you missed us last week there’s good reason. My glocal speak for the week was #UNGA80. The streets and sounds of NYC all pointed to the United Nations General Assembly and myriad sideline events. My week was about all thing #PanAfricanProgress and I look forward to sharing stories from the ground in the coming months. One thing is for sure, the giant that is Afri...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week we continue to reflect on GlocalCitizens@5 and we’re flashing back to our Womens' Herstory series in March 202. Ghana-based, London-born international award-winning journalist, playwright, global public speaker and entrepreneur, Esther Armah – a self-described ‘global black chick’ – has lived, worked, loved, and created across three cities in three countries on...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! As the season of academic studies begins in many institutions across parts of the world, including New York City where I have spent many years working with charter schools to open their doors to children and families, it’s a flashback moment for my guest and me to the days when she was first granted a charter to begin her social enterpreneurship journey as a school leade...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week’s interview was recorded while my guest and I were on the same time zone in Western Europe--she in Portugal and the UK for me. My guest, Serene Lewis Lyles spent most of her 30-year career making complex things simple. She was on the forefront of launching technologies that, today, are foundational to our lives including digital video recording (the predecessor...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week on the podcast we’re flashing back to June 2020 when we first met Emmanual Agbeko Gamor while he was based in South Africa attending Wits Business School . Now glocal in his native Ghana and South Africa he continues to evolve on the personal and professional fronts. Widely known as Palmwine DJ, Emmanuel is a trailblazer in Ghana’s music scene, a digital profes...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week on the podcast we have Part 1 of a two-part conversation centering a favorite topic of mine - education. The effectivenss of LinkedIn and it’s networkinng superpower facilitated our connection through common connects, Adja Maymouna Sakho and Laureen Adams . My guest, fellow educator Kwame Sarfo-Mensah holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a Master’s Degr...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week on the podcast we have Part 1 of a two-part conversation centering a favorite topic of mine - education. The effectivenss of LinkedIn and it’s networkinng superpower facilitated our connection through common connects, Adja Maymouna Sakho and Laureen Adams . My guest, fellow educator Kwame Sarfo-Mensah holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a Master’s Degr...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! The spirit of summers past visits with us this week; it’s another Glocal Citizens @‌5flashback forward episode. In 2023, my guest this week, Hawa Kombian joined us for a two part conversation while she was based in her adopted home country, Canada. Today she's back in Ghana spreading new wings as a leadership strategist, resilience coach, and organizational advisor dedic...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week on the podcast we have another gift from the Glocal Citizens community. In this two part conversation we meet Dr. Osei Alleyne. A joint PhD in Anthropology and Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and former inaugural postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography at Penn, Dr. Osei also holds an MA in Communications from Temple U...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week on the podcast we have another gift from the Glocal Citizens community. In this two part conversation we meet Dr. Osei Alleyne. A joint PhD in Anthropology and Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and former inaugural postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography at Penn, Dr. Osei also holds an MA in Communications from Temple U...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week’s guest, Tina Mbachu Obodozie first joined me in conversation in 2021, thanks fo the #BWiD Connect Whatsapp group. Since our first chat, she has shifted to a bi-continental lifestyle, based mostly in Nigeria as the new Exectuive Director of the Innovate Africa Foundation , while also managing her business activities in Canada. As a business and sustainable deve...

Republic Day Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week’s guest is another Glocal Citizens connection. In spring 2024, Amma Gyampo reached out to me me about connecting me with a like mind in education. That was the beginning of ongoing conversations with Laureen “Laury” Adams. With over 20 years of experience spanning both international and U.S. contexts as a classroom teacher, school leader, coach, de...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! I met this week's guest last month as a fellow AfroTalks 2025 speaker. Our collective charge for the event was to present our ideas about the "how" of Pan-African progress from mindset, to skills development to migration policy and the future of work. While I shared insights from the future of work salon series, our guest this week, David Hutchful participated on a panel...

Greetings from East Africa Glocal Citizens! Well, kind of…this conversation was recorded last weekend from Nairobi on the eve of Father’s Day and a day after the opening of my guest, Michael Soi’s current group exhibition, The Print Press , an exhibit of woodcut prints by various Nairobi based artist at the Alliance Française de Nairobi 13th - 29th of June. I met Michael in his studio at The Go Do...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! We’re picking up more momentum toward African progress sharing the stories of dynamic diasporans making impact in the reparatory justice space. On the eve of Africa Day, I attended the premier screening of Omitted , a short film exploring reparatory justice and the legacies of colonialism by Lavinya Stennett, founder of The Black Curriculum. Raised in the UK with Jamaica...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! As we hit the halfway mark on 2025 our treat this week is a thought-provoking conversation with Wana Udobang, a multifaceted writer, poet, performer, curator, and storyteller based in Lagos, Nigeria. I met Wana last year during the Pa Gya! Literary Festival in Accra where she faciliated her own unique writing workshop - “Comfort Food” a storytelling and poetry workshop t...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week we have another flashback forward episode with experienced television host, reporter, producer, public speaker, published writer, and returning guest, Ivy Prosper . Since leaving her role working with the Ghana Tourism Authority she’s laser focused on her creative media company, Prosper Creative Group, which produces content, consults with clients and supports...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week Hélène Himmer, a French national with roots in the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, now based in Portugal joins me in conversation about her current work at African Futures Lab (AfaLab) leading a project on climate reparations. I met Hélène last November at FORGE: Harnessing Creative Arts for Reparatory Justice, a convening of artists, media, cultural workers, c...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week’s guest is a dynamic activist that I had the pleasure of working with while distributing a documentary (see other topics of interest) featuring the work that has become his origin story in the world of Pan-African development. Hamzat “Hamzy!” Lawal is a global citizen, community organizer, an award-winning advocate and humanitarian who has successfully led gras...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week returning guest, Yasmina Fagbemi , is flashing forward with us with an update on her latest projects and evolving glocal citizenship. Having emigrated to the United States in the 1990s, she began her career in marketing with major international corporations. Building on this experience, she developed her network to fuel her passion for cinema. She produced her...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week on the podcast, after the inspiring conversation in our last episode with Wesley Watkins about The Jazz & Democracy Project and more, I couldn’t resist giong back into the GC archives for an encore presentation of my conversation with Maestro Wynton Marsalis. We recorded this conversation when the podcast was just a toddler, back in the days when we were ju...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week’s conversation comes in two parts. Like it’s geographical spread, northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere, think of this two part discussion as a way of engaging both hemispheres of your brain--the creative and the analytic. My guest is fellow Stanford alum and founder of The Jazz & Democracy Project® (J&D) , Wesley “Dr. Wes” J. Watkins. After severa...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! This week’s conversation comes in two parts. Like it’s geographical spread, northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere, think of this two part discussion as a way of engaging both hemispheres of your brain--the creative and the analytic. My guest is fellow Stanford alum and founder of The Jazz & Democracy Project® (J&D) , Wesley “Dr. Wes” J. Watkins. After severa...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! On this first day of April, we are trying to fool you, but just slightly. Though herstories month has just ended, we have the treat of catching up with one of featured voices from last week’s compilation episode. Returning with an update on Fourth Phase which was in the launch phase when last we caught up in 2020, is co-founder Nana Eyeson-Akiwowo. Nana is a dedicated so...

Greetings Glocal Citizens! Every March since launching the podcast, we dedicate the month to women - it’s our Women's Herstory Month series. Closing out this year’s series are excerpts from conversations over the years with Glocal Citizens working to empower, develop, support and uplift women in Africa and beyond. We’ll hear social development scholar, author and facilitator, Yaliwe Clarke discuss...