EP. 10 The Systems Architect: Amabelle Nwakanma on Funding, Innovation, and the "Unwritten Rules"

Amabelle Nwakanma is a professional builder of "enabling environments," but her approach is rooted in understanding the human mind. We discuss the critical difference between looking at a problem as a "hands-on counsellor" versus a "systems architect," and how she bridges the gap. She reveals the "unwritten rule" for making social change ideas compelling to donors and discusses the systemic barriers preventing the creation of leadership pipelines for young African women. Throughout, Amabelle emphasizes her personal responsibility to design a more resilient architecture for nurturing leadership on the continent.

Transcript

Speaker 0:01

Hello, hello. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to today's episode of the WeWin Podcast powered by Accelerate Her Africa. I am your host, Lolita Ejiofor, and it's great to have you here listening with us today. Today we have the pleasure of hanging out with Amabelle Nwakanma, who's joined us today. She's a social change agent and an international development expert with over 13 years of experience transforming lives across Africa. As the current director of programs at Leap Africa, Amabelle leads initiatives spanning 13 African countries, having equipped 7,600 entrepreneurs, and reached 24,000 students in public secondary schools. Amabelle also works as an international consultant, collaborating with governments, private sectors, and non-profit organizations to improve project effectiveness. We're so glad to have you here today with us, Amabelle. I'm very, very excited to be here actually. I'm looking forward to it. And we are really excited to have this conversation too. Your career is fascinating because it's built on a unique foundation. So you have a degree in behavioral neuroscience and hands-on roles as a crisis intervention counsellor and behavior management specialist. How did studying the intricate workings of the human brain shape your approach to helping people navigate very real and very human challenges on the ground?

Speaker 1 1:57

That's a loaded question. You know, before I went into the start of my first degree, I always felt like I was just very drawn, very fascinated by the human behavior, just by human beings. Like, why do you do the way you do, you know, why do you talk the way you talk? Why are human beings the way we are? And also always purpose-driven. Like I always knew I wanted to be a helper of sorts. I derive joy and fulfillment from really supporting people and helping them fulfill potential, helping them achieve something, whatever that might be. And I've always been that way. So it made logical sense. In fact, even before I ever studied anything, people used to always say, you should be a psychologist. You should study psychology. Like you're so good at just understanding people. So I've always been fascinated by people. And it just made sense to study behavioral neuroscience. And for me, I wanted to marry understanding behavior, but understanding the physiological drivers of behavior, the neurological drivers, understanding that it's chemicals, it really, you know, a lot of things we do. So that was very fascinating for me. And I would say that that was such an interesting course because it went from the biology of the brain, the chemicals of the brain, the body, and behavior, what it expresses itself in terms of what people do, what people say, how people behave, how it shapes the way they think, and they think that it's independently thought, but it's really been driven internally a lot of the times, and also how thoughts also drive the physiology and the neurology of the brain. So it's just very fascinating. And so when I finished and I had the opportunity to work, of course, the jobs that I was drawn to were jobs that had to do with human behavior. And a lot of the people, when you're working in that field, are people that we would say are broken or disenfranchised, disempowered. So I worked with a lot of people who were dealing with mental health and addictions, a lot of families that were dealing with violence, so a lot of the negative things of human behaviors. And I got to see that really early. You know, one of my first ever cases was I was given a baby who was like two weeks old and it was put into my hand, and he was taking, literally taking from the mom in the labor room because he was born into a very violent and drug-fueled home, and it had to be in charge of like taking care of him and making sure that he was placed in a home that was conducive alongside other cases as well. But it really underscored for me the importance of understanding people and meeting them at their point of weakness and learning to give grace. Because I I always say when you understand people, honestly, you wouldn't struggle as much with resentment, unforgiveness, and some of the harder things you struggle with because you understand them. It's not that you're excusing it, but you understand, so there can be some sort of empathy. So that's sort of how I started to foray deeply into the helping profession, human services, as we called it then, which is now social development, international development. It's really at the center of it all for me is people.

Speaker 5:03

Oh wow, you just gave me goosebumps. I just love the fact that you understood your purpose quite early in your career, and you followed that purpose through into just understanding people in order to help them. So in your earlier roles, you were on the front lines providing direct support to vulnerable children and families. Can you share a story from that time? So a specific interaction or a small victory that solidified your conviction that your life's work would be in architecting systems of support for others.

Speaker 1 5:43

I think of one particular family, like a man and his his wife, or they were not married, they were common law, and this was in Canada. In their case it was drug addiction, so they had three of their children taken away from them because they were supposed to be on some sort of rehabilitation journey. And I was the team lead for the case management for the children. So I oversaw a team of five or six that would take shifts taking care of those kids. And when the kids came, they had a variety of very poor behaviors, and they were young. I think the oldest was nine, the youngest was I think two, and a lot of maladaptive behaviors, a lot of unruliness, and of course you can understand because they're they come from dysfunctional homes. And I worked with them more intensely over the summer because of course they were out of school, and we put in some behavior management or child management, like the caseload, the process of just supporting them and some of the things that we're doing. Now, being a Nigerian, I come from a framework of you spank the nonsense out of the child. And so in my mind, I'm thinking these behaviors just need a good whipping. And of course, you can't be whipping other people's children, definitely. But one of the things that my studies did give me was an alternative perspective about how to raise children, how to raise people, how to help them unlearn bad malabitative behaviors. And I saw that just with patience and consistency and structure, we didn't need to do anything extreme. These children started to slowly but surely start to thrive. Just their reports from school were shifting, their conduct, their outlook, it was just amazing to see. Just the flourishing that started to happen in real time. It's just really amazing. And that's sort of a representation of many different scenarios. Of course, there's also ones that didn't quite happen like that. Some didn't go as well for many reasons. But just being able to see that, it changed my whole paradigm on vulnerable people, vulnerable children, so much so that now being in Nigeria and seeing some things with young children or seeing some things with teenagers or and my approach to them, people like, oh, you know, she's westernized, she doesn't believe in she's western. But it's not that, it's because I I actually have a proof of concept that there's a better way, more effective, and more dignifying, humane way to do some things with people.

Speaker 8:16

I just love the fact that your knowledge of behavioural issues is coming from a place of studies and facts, and it helps us to understand why people behave the way they do. So, what are the key insights or moments that made you decide to pivot from your work in the Canadian social service sector and bring your skills back to the African continent?

Speaker 1 8:42

So that's a bit of a winding, convoluted story. Never wanted to come back to Nigeria, but at some point, and I believe my journey is a journey of faith. You know, I feel at every point in time I'm always asking God, okay, what next? What should I be doing? And for me, the sign is always a restlessness in my spirit. I can't even explain it. I just know it's time for something. Something is changing. It's almost like you're you're trying to birth something, right? So you know when you're leaving, you're like, what's going on? You know, so I was in Canada, I was working in a very lovely job, and and that job was working with um persons with disabilities, developed cognitive, physical, mobility disabilities, and it was also overseeing a caseload, so overseeing a team of people who were supporting them in the city. So the goal of that role was to support these people to live dignified, independent lives, semi-autonomous lives, so getting the support they needed in their own space, not any facility. So that was sort of the role. So I was overseeing the staff that was working with them directly, and I did that for like a couple of years, and I my brother had gotten married in UK, and I visited my family there, and my spirit just said, you need to come and do your graduate school here in the UK. Of course, UK is just one year, Canada is like two years, and like just the time alone is you know, but I it became a strong conviction. So when I moved, when I went back after the wedding holiday, I just started applying and I said, Well, Lord, you know, I'm taking a step of faith. Um, whatever happens, happens. The provision, all of that. So I applied to Queen Mary, University of London, and also London School of Drupal Medicine, and I got into both, but I I chose Queen Mary, and it was more of a global health public policy, also because the work that I'd done, behavioral neuroscience, they had a very strong health focus, you know. But for me, I was thinking about behavior-based, not necessarily um like if you're sick and you have like a headache, and it was more for me psychological health, like behavioral-based health and policy. So I I went there and I did that, and as part of at some point, they they came and said there's an opportunity to go work at a WHO for just a few months, and you know, they offered it up for you to apply. And so I was like, you know, Lord, I'm just gonna apply. And I was the only person in my cohort that got in, and so I moved to Geneva, and so I was there, I was working in the emergency unit, emergency department. So we're overseeing all the different regional emergencies across the different parts of the world, the different regional offices of WHO. And of course, Borneo was always coming. In fact, there was an active emergency intervention happening there because of the insurgencies and all of that. And I'm seeing these non-Nigerian expats go to Maiduguri very happily, and I'm thinking to myself, what is wrong with us Africans? Like, what's going on here? Why am I not doing that? And I was very, I think I was convicted there because I wasn't planning to come to Nigeria, I plan to be done, come back, go to Canada. But I'm like, these guys are leaving their comfort, they're not Nigerians, they don't have the connection to the continent, the country, like we indigenous people here, and they're happily earning a lot of money while doing so, going to these interior regions and working in in difficult, hard regions. I was very convicted by that, and I just said, you know, if anything, I should just go and visit Nigeria. Let me just go three weeks, four weeks. I will just chill, just see what's going on, see my family, my parents, because my siblings are not here, anyways. So I made a plan that I was gonna do that. I wasn't doing that that year, I did it the next year, and so and when I came, there was so much trepidation. I was like, oh my god. I I just had associated Nigeria with just like trauma. So when I was coming, I was so afraid. People kept saying, Don't worry, don't worry, just go. And I was like, Lord, I'm in your hands, I don't know what's gonna happen to me. I just I'm so afraid to go, but I know I just I know that you're telling me to go. And I did. And what three weeks became like three years. Because when I came, I quickly could see that there was need here. I could see that I had a potential, the potential of being a lot more value being here than in Canada just because of the great need here. In terms of when you talk about wicked problems, poverty, lack, lack of education, lack of opportunities. And God has so made it that I've had opportunities, I've had an exposure that I know would serve well here, even serve that much where I am. Not that it's not useful, but it's just useful to plug into a well-oiled machine as opposed to being useful in building the machine that can work here for our people. And so I felt very convicted to stay. In fact, the opportunities just kept opening themselves up, anyways. And of course, the support I was giving to a lot of people there, a lot of the disenfranchised, disempowered, was even more accentuated here. Because, I mean, if you talk about people that are lacking and have all sorts of concerns there, they have a whole system that at least caters to them, they have a welfare system that can at least cater to them. But here, what do they have? They have the goodwill of people who are mission-driven, like myself, like yourself, you know. And so that was the four-way back to Nigeria. And I tried to leave at some point because I got headhunted at resort with an organization that was trying to do work in Nigeria, in Africa, they do work across other continents, but they were trying to start interventions here, programs here, and so me being Nigerian and Canadian, because I was able to naturalize, they were like perfect person, and also they brought me, you know, took me to Nepal to do some work with them there, then moved me back to Canada. And then while we're there, they now flipped the stretch and said, you know what? We've been looking for someone to replace the founder. And they said we've been looking for years. But when we saw you, we just knew all of us were like, she's the one. I'm like, Wow, okay. I think I could be the one, but I don't know if it's now, I just didn't feel like it was time, and we're still working together, but then that next year I came back to Nigeria to do some preliminary work for them, just looking at what's feasible in terms of starting out interventions, and COVID happened, and the world stood still. So many things changed, funding priorities changed instantly, so it shifted everything, and everybody wasn't sure. It was just the apocalypse, the world really going to end, you know, it was just sort of a confusing time. Um, and so that fizzled of sorts. I felt like they weren't happy with me. They they weren't happy with me that I didn't take up the offer so gleefully and willingly, and I felt bad about it, but I I knew there was something more that I needed to do here. I just my spirit wasn't settled that it was time to actually leave. So came back and COVID happened, so it just kind of that was that. It was a mood point at a certain point, right? And then here we are.

Speaker 16:06

Awesome journey. It's never straightforward. It's winding I just love how you always aligned yourself to your purpose and your values, despite all the potential opportunities that you were presented before you. I just love that. So your journey took you from the on-the-ground work in Canada to the global policy level at the World Health Organization in Geneva, and then to program direction in Nigeria. What was the biggest unlearning you had to do to move effectively between these vastly different contexts?

Speaker 1 16:49

I think I had a bit of a savior complex because I was in a world where the average person there has a savior complex, you know, the the global south, global north, even even the nomenclature is divisive. Like the South is to be saved. The North doesn't come with the saviors, and so here I am steeped in that world. So, oh, I'm a savior, and then I'm doing this work at the HO and I'm seeing my colleagues who were mostly white folk, global European, American, and they're saving us in Brno, you know. So I think coming here, there was a sense of superiority almost. Like, yeah, I have all this exposure. I mean, I'm coming to fix you guys. You guys, you guys are, you don't, you don't, you don't have a clue. You know, I have a clue. So much pride, right? You don't even realize you're operating such pride. And I think God had to humble me. These people are some of the most enterprising, the soundest people you can ever meet. Talking about Africans, give them a little, they can stretch that little. The system has failed them, truly, but it's so much more nuanced than you're these people that need to be saved. The the structures, the system that almost connive to keep things, keep the status quo what it is. It's outside the control of many people. And understanding that indeed I'm not a savior, I also need as much help as many of these people. In fact, I have a lot to learn was humbling, and and I am so grateful for that. So, so grateful because you don't realize that you are being indoctrinated of sorts, using that word very loosely, or entrenched in a mindset. So when you're here and you're immersed in here, it allows you to have a balanced perspective because you've seen both ends and you've immersed yourself from both ends. So you know you kind of you can discern what is really true, what is the honest middle of both worlds, and how to somehow marry them. So the unlearning was that these guys don't need saving, they can perfectly save themselves, they just need supporting, they just need agency that we all collectively need, anyways. So I was humbled by the learnings of just saying these are absolutely amazing human beings. Whether high socioeconomic status, low socioeconomic status, educated, uneducated, exposed, traveled or not, that entrepreneurial resourcefulness just it blows my mind. And I see it every single day. Like sometimes I'm looking at my colleagues and looking at people I meet, and whether it's constituents or beneficiaries, and I'm staring at them. I literally I like people watching. It's a bit creepy, but I do it. I just love it. I love staring at people and watching them. So I can literally go to some bench in the middle of somewhere and just sit and watch people and just imagine their stories, what what lives are being lived by these people, you know, and it fascinates me endlessly. But I look at people that I work with or I have the privilege to serve, and I'm amazed by them. I stare at them in awe, and they don't know that I'm saying they're in awe, but that's actually what I'm doing. Like just so moved. Yeah.

Speaker 20:08

Yeah, I guess it can be really humbling when you really understand these people just because you've taken the time to observe them and understand what they're going through. When you look at a complex social problem, what is the first step your mind takes now as a system architect that it wouldn't have taken when you were a hands-on counsellor?

Speaker 1 20:34

So the difference for me is moving from a narrow thinking of problem solving to a systems-level way of thinking, thinking systems change and thinking why is this true for you, instead of thinking about why is this true for a person A or B right now? And I can solve for person A or B, but does that change the fact that person B to Z have the same issues? And I cannot solve one after the other. It's very inefficient to solve for just the one, yeah, because how many hours do we have in a day really, and how many hands we have, and how many brains, like you're one person, versus thinking of the solutions that affect persons A to Z equitably that allows them to solve for those problems. So that systems-level way of thinking is what one thing that I do differently now. So when I come across a complex problem, and pretty much most problems are complex, it's really not usually black and white. There's a world of things that are feeding into or constraining that problem. I think about I I want to go deeper to understand what is the reason why this is happening. Because if, let me use an analogy of a tree, if the fruits of a tree, I pick one and I see that's rotten. I pick a couple and I think, oh my gosh, I need to now go ahead and start picking all the rotten fruits from this tree. The question is, why are there multiple rotten fruits on this tree? So it's a deeper issue, it's not a fruit problem, it's a root problem. And if you're gonna solve for all the fruits, you should be solving for the root. What's wrong with the root? And then once the root is solved, I know this is a simplified way of thinking about it, but it does help. Once that root is solved, then it allows for the fruit to start to come out better. And that's how I look at problems. What are the reasons? What are the things contributing to this? What's within my locus of control? Because I cannot control everything. If it's systemic, what do I need to do to influence the system? Is that engaging policy actors, influencers, decision makers, as well as working with you, the fruit, the tree, to say, okay, let me see how I can support you to take out the bad parts of the fruit. But that is not an efficient way of problem solving. And so that's the difference between when you're doing case management, individual, team level versus systemic. You're thinking one, one, one here, but systemic, you're thinking the collective.

Speaker 23:19

And that's just the best perspective to have, to have that systemic understanding of what could be the root cause of the problems. So you are a professional builder of enabling environments. You're turning ideas into tangible funded programs. What is the most critical unwritten rule that you've learned for taking a brilliant idea for social change and making it compelling and fundable to donors and partners?

Speaker 1 23:53

One of the things I've come to understand about funding and donors, you know, there's this saying in the development space that people give people money. And so what that says is you might have an amazing idea, solution, but you're not necessarily getting the funding because you're not friends with anyone. And by friends, I don't mean my brother or my cousin, I mean relationship. One of a huge, a huge new paradigm in the philosoph in the philanthropic spaces, trust-based philanthropy. It's been coming up over the years, but way before that was a thing, I've always believed that relationships are the bedrock of successful endeavors. So if I have ideas that I know they have the potential to solve real problems, and I'm thinking of how to make that fundable, I'm thinking of the relationships I need to build. Firstly, to make it even visible that what I'm doing is happening at all, and to collaborate, to create an ecosystem around how that solution will actually be implemented. But you know, there's so many different unwritten rules. They say things like, if it's not visible, then it didn't happen. So you might be doing a lot of amazing work that you're not necessarily amplifying, or you're not friends with anyone, you're doing it in silo. So you're not getting what you need, you're struggling to even get it off the ground. So that question is loaded because there's so many dimensions to what makes a high-impact project or program something that actually comes to life. There's so many, it's nuance, it's it's the people you know, it's the problem itself, it's the fact that are you measuring it well, are you able to communicate the solution well? Because it's almost like a business. You can have an amazing product, but people don't know what the product is, they don't know what the product can do for them, they don't know how it can solve their pain points, whatever that is, and you don't have a network of people, you can start to leverage real quick. Chances are you have an amazing product that's just on the shelf. It's not gonna be, and it's true for impact work, impact-driven work. If you have a great idea that needs to see the light of day, you have all these things that you need to be able to do and and people you need to connect with to make it something that is realized. Right.

Speaker 26:20

Yeah, because relationship building is supporting that connection and making it meaningful to gain people's trust. Okay, so from your leadership position at Leap Africa, you have a unique view of the challenges and the opportunities in developing the next generation of African leaders, right? What do you see as the most significant systemic barrier that prevents the social impact sector from creating sustainable, long-term leadership pipelines for brilliant young African women? Where do the current models of support tend to fall short?

Speaker 1 27:00

A huge barrier to women in leadership is how society looks at women. And this is a pan-African problem. So we talk a lot about patriarchy, it's a true way of our culture. A lot of men they have entrenched beliefs about what a woman should be, can be, that sometimes they don't even know they have, even when they think they're exposed, they're out there, but it comes out in different ways when opportunities allow for an opportunity for them to showcase the true belief. And then a lot of women have a limiting beliefs in their own potential because it's never really been called out, so they've also entrenched us an identity that doesn't see them as so much more than what they are, which is why you rarely, rarely hear men talk about imposter syndrome. Almost all the women I know, big boss women, successful, talk about imposter syndrome. That in itself just underscores just a different way we approach how we think about our leadership, our potential. That's one barrier. And I think it starts, I start with that because that filters into everything. If we change the way we think, if we change what we believe, it starts to manifest and find expression in things we do, in how we show up, in our ways of being, in our ways of doing. So it starts with that. I don't know if it was you I was speaking to about this the study that I read about in Latin America, where they had done quite a number of training and capacity building for entrepreneurs, male and female, and they observed that in spite of the fact that these groups of people were having the same kind of training, same kind of mentorship, same kind of support, everything was equal, but the outcomes were different in terms of the business outcomes. So the men were still outperforming the women, and so it made the researchers ask a different kind of question. What informs business outcomes if we've done everything? If we're saying that we're making sure that you have the same level of knowledge, skills, competencies, and we are providing the same kind of hand holding, what's going on really? And the second part of the research showed that it just was a difference in how they thought about the capacity to do the business, and so the thinking about it influenced how they did the business. So, what they discovered was the women tended to be more self-doubting, questioning their decisions, whereas the men tended to be more, even when they had less knowledge, to more what's the word, confident, braggadocious, maybe, and it worked for them because there's a phrase that says, you know, fortune favors the brave. So because they were out there talking, and they might not have a clue, but they're acting like they do, they tended to get a lot more clients for the businesses, they tended to get a lot more, and again, it's relationships, so they're able to get that goodwill. Whereas the women were more self-doubting, self-questioning, and so maybe a bit timid, even, although they had excellent competencies and skills for the business, but it showed up differently. And I've seen that in my own work. I'll give an example of something that happened, I think it was like two years ago. So we had a fund that we started, it's just uh $100,000 fund. We wanted to give 10 enterprises $10,000 each from our alumni pool, and we had this organizational assessment that we were deploying for all of them. And you know, we were looking at whoever scores high, and then you know, those are our superstars, those are the people, and what we noticed is that the women scored lowest. And in fact, one of my direct reports, he came to me and he said, This these ladies are not doing great. Um, they're pitching everything. I I think we're gonna have to go with 10 male, 10 male enterprises, less not. I said, not on my watch. This time around, we'll choose, we'll just do affirmative action. Women are gonna be part of the 10. It's not it's impossible for me to say yes to that. That's a no. And so we had a bit of a disagreement there. I could tell he wasn't like, oh my gosh, this person, like he felt like we were taking opportunities for men because it was women. I said, no, let them go through. Now, one of these women who was the bottom three, so at one point of the program, we had to go and do site visits, which was the learning was do site visits first. So we did site visits, wanted to go see them in because they were all across Nigeria. We wanted to go see them in their spaces, what they're doing, the enterprise, the work, the impact, the all social enterprises. And our superstar guy, who was so proud of him, like this guy is just a superstar, went to do a site visit for him, and my team was scrambling. They were like, We are in trouble. This is a guy that we have pretty much put our name on. We need to call, contact our people and tell them, no, don't, don't, don't let's do that. Then the lady that was lower, and he was the highest performer on this assessment. The lady who was one of the lower, like bottom three, went to see her and was so blown away by her work, the impact, that when we were invited to the States to do a presentation, she was our first choice. The only reason why she didn't go was because she didn't have a visa. This was she was supposed to go last year to do the presentation. I was really gutted by that, but you know, that's part of the barriers, honestly, to opportunities. We're amazed by her. The only thing she lacked was noise. She wasn't making any noise, she was just doing the work. What he was doing made all the noise, but wasn't doing the work. That's sort of a case in point. Yeah.

Speaker 33:20

Yeah. The thing is, we can also see it's a mindset. I mean, it's not just systemic, but the mind then controls how women see themselves and how they respond in such situations. Whereas the mind tells the men that you can do this, you have nothing to lose, and then they go for it. So there needs to be a mindset shift in women to actually believe in themselves when they come to these situations that they are leaders if they allow themselves to be. Okay. So a major hurdle for innovation in your sector is the chicken egg problem. So new ideas need funding to get on a track record, but they need a track record to get funding. From your experience, how does this specific barrier stifle bold new solutions? And what kind of new funding mechanisms or partnership models do you think is needed to bridge this crucial gap for promising early-stage social impact ventures?

Speaker 1 34:31

So earlier this year, we're members of ANDE, which is the Association for Network Development Entrepreneurs. And so we had this London meetup earlier this year, and I met a guy who's based in Mexico but works with enterprises from Africa, and he was talking about Venture Studio. Now, this is me that has known about Venture Studios, and even we have one of our partners in Senegal, they run a venture studio, one of our partners in Nairobi, Kenya run a venture studio. So I thought I knew someone about venture studios. So when he was asking, how many people know about Venture Studios? Um, tell me what you know about it, and and the different people answered that even answered as well, we're all wrong, basically. We we had an understanding, but it wasn't really what it was. But what he made me understand in terms of what a venture studio was is the fact that not only do they incubate and accelerate, but they ideate, they they create a space where they can understand the problems and foster the solutions that are monetizable, and then have that model the ideation, and then they can start to incubate that idea to see what is you know, test models basically, then they can accelerate and grow. And one thing that I am a huge proponent of is that people with ideas should be invited to the table. People some people have amazing ideas, they'll never see the light of day because, like you said, the chicken, the egg, we don't have a track record. We need this much traction to show, and that's fair, that's fair, but there needs to be there needs to be a space for all those models to to complement themselves. So we should be able to support early stage or early even ideation phase ventures or really early stage, help them test out those ideas, incubate. Is this does this work? Does this make sense? Is it possible? And we have enough models and expertise competencies to kind of know what may be viable, and we we should be allowed to fail forward. So sometimes it's not going to be viable, and that's okay. We're learning and we're unlearning, and then feed into funders who are interested in early stage but who have gone past incubation, and funders who are interested in growth stage. So we need to be able to work together. So some funders, which is I'm very I'm very passionate about, should be willing to ideate, should be willing to support that within parameters of testing, making sure not just everything that comes and say, Oh, yeah, let me fund because it's new. No, there's measures and there's metrics you can use to kind of determine and even like prototyping and you know, modeling to see what is possible and then start to push it through. Some will fall, and that's good. It's good for those ones to fall because they were not viable then. And the ones that don't, don't, you know, and then they become something maybe world-changing.

Speaker 37:33

Yeah, I think that ideating stage requires a level of discernment which could come from the ecosystem of investors as a whole, so that yeah, you're right, they could be more selective in terms of what goes into incubation and accelerating from there. So, yes, I think that would be great if ideating becomes a point of focus at the early stages for startups. So, looking at the next generation of African leaders you work with, what gives you the most hope? And what is the one piece of advice you find yourself giving them most often?

Speaker 1 38:17

You know, it goes back to what I said earlier about how I was humbled. I really truly, and I'm not even saying this because I'm African and because I, you know, it's a good thing to say. I've had the privilege to live and work in different continents and experience young people and experience different cultures. I don't think there's a continent like Africa, honestly, in terms of diversity, but just the entrepreneurial resourcefulness of these people is absolutely mind-blowing. Like, you know, that there's some interactions I have that when I go back and I'm thinking about my day, I'm just like, God, you are something. Because you know, when you talk about diamond and the rough, in fact, there's a scripture that talks about hidden treasures in secret places, in dark places. I was just to think about it in terms of oh my goodness, you're gonna show me how to make a million dollars in like the most unexpected places, unicorn. But one day it occurred to me that a huge part of that scripture is people, it's people as treasures in secret places, and that's what I've come to see about this continent. We are truly diamonds in a rough secret or hidden treasures in secret places is what I really believe this continent's people are. So when I when I talk to people, the young Africans that I meet, one thing that I am committed to doing because I know how powerful self-belief is, I am committed to speaking what I truly believe to be true, but speaking like what they don't believe may be true. They question because they're not told that they're that special. They're told that they're in need of saviors, they're told that they are problems to be solved, not solution providers. I'm saying that you are the solution. You're not the problem to be solved, you are the solution. So I did this campaign training um just last week. Me and my colleague, I forced her to do it, and it was sort of like how to do a fundraising campaign. It was two days or four hours of training. It was very intense, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. for two days in a row. And one of it, they said, just randomly start pitching. People should pitch about their organizations and people. So I started pitching about Africa and African youth, and I said, you know, the African young person is the solution to the world's problem. With 2050, one in three young people be African. They are the productive workforce of the future and the now, they're the reproductive future, and they are the ones who, if they're not properly supported, skilled, upskilled, enabled, equipped, then the world is hopeless. They're the ones. So they are the solution. I speak that into them. There's a funny story I like to share, and I share with them a lot too. There's a story I read about uh a guy who was talking, a lady was talking about how she was such a poor performer coming out of university into the world of work, working in advertising and all. She was terrible at her job. People complained about her, her team members were tired of her, and one day her boss called her into the office and said to her, you know, I've been watching you for a while, and I'm so impressed by you. Like you're you have such an amazing feature ahead of you in advertising. Like you you have a gift. And she's thinking, Really? He said, Yeah, I've been doing this for 30 years. I don't think I've ever quite seen a gifted person like you. So she said, you know, she went home that day because she was thinking to herself, is this guy okay? Because she she already knew she was bad and she owned it, like I'm terrible at my job, whatever, you know. And she went home and she just felt that's very interesting. Wow, I didn't realize. But she said she noticed that by the next day, she was she was about to snooze like a couple of times, and she just realized she was like, I don't think a person that good actually snoozes. So let me get up at the time of my alarm is anyways. Long story short, she went ahead to become one of the most accolated advertisers. Wow, won a lot of awards, did excellently well, and this guy was a mentor. And how she knew that he tricked her into greatness is what I call it, was a time when she was visiting him one day, and he was talking to her and was complaining about this intern that was working. He's like, Oh my god, so terrible! He's just he's the worst, you know. Like, I don't even know. And then the intern, not long after, walks into the office, and so she's sitting, just giving him time to talk, and she tells she hears him telling him how wonderful he was and how amazing, and how he has such a gift. And she's like, What? So you mean to tell me you said this to me, you were actually lying to my face. She says, He's learned that people believe the things that they consistently hear, like there's certain things that they just take in, and he sees jokingly said, But it worked, didn't it? Because look at you now. And she says, That was defining about what you speak to people to make them know because there he had the credibility to say, Oh, I've been working at this for many years, I've never met someone quite like you. You're really good. It's like, Oh wow, okay, that's impressive. So just a very interesting story to speak to how important it is to say the right things to people friends, family, lovers, young people.

Speaker 43:59

I'm sure. Studied neuroscience or something or something to do with the human psychology. Yeah. I just love that story. He tricked her and flipped her into greatness. It's lovely. Considering your future as a builder of social impact systems, right? What do you see as your personal responsibility in helping to design and champion a more resilient and scalable architecture for nurturing leadership on the continent?

Speaker 1 44:33

So at the heart of everything that I do and how I think, how I think about the problem, and I think about the solution, and I think about the means. People, people, people. And so as I think about the way to approach what I do in terms of systems architecture, it's still people at the roots and the center of it all. It's people that make decisions that are good or bad. It's people that are predisposed to doing the right thing or not. It's people that are incentivized or being disincentivized to doing the right thing. It's people that are the solution. It's people that are the means to the end. So when I talk about being human-centered, I'm extremely human-centered because I understand a system doesn't exist on its own. It doesn't just make a oh I'm a system. It's you know when you talk about the country of Mexico, it's people. Nigeria, it's people, Africa, people. People build the houses, people lead, people loiter, people damage the environment, it's people. And so when I think about solutions and how to approach this, is approaching these segments of people. For example, Africa has a failure of leadership. I don't think that's something that anyone would argue. And I may not be able to solve for that, but I know that that failure of leadership is responsible for a variety of issues. So I know that leaders need to lead well, and my contribution to that is how do I create a critical mass of women, young people, that are enabled to be values-driven, to be incentivized to be values-driven, to be principled, and to be equipped to lead well. And my personal quota to that is, like I said earlier, speaking to that, bringing that to life, helping change mindsets, behavior change, behavior management, behavior modification, if you like. But also once you've changed that mindset, what do you do with that change? Because now you have a sword, but the sword has to do something. So now is how do I use this mindset, this capacity that you've been given to now craft something that works for the collective, for the for the world, for the continent, for the region that now solves problems, that can ideate, that can be inspired to ideate, that is not thinking there's no hope of the problem, or the problems are too many, but can see themselves as the solutions and the they can be ignited to be the solutions. So that's how I think I segment it that way so that it makes more sense to me.

Speaker 47:32

I 100% agree with you on the people front, this people for everything. As these young leaders look up to women like you who have built such impactful careers, what do you hope they see? What aspect of your journey do you feel is the most important lesson for them to understand?

Speaker 1 47:56

What do I hope they see? I hope they see that continuous learning is non-negotiable, continuous improvement. I really abore that this is who I am. I can't even stand it on any level. You know the funny thing? One of the things I learned it through neuroscience, there used to be this belief up until like the maybe late 80s into the early 90s that the brain was fixed in terms of what we were able to do. So the first five years, I even read a book in uni who said the first five years last forever. Oh come on. You know what I mean? Like the belief that we couldn't really keep reinventing. I didn't, I never believed that. I I don't like limiting things, I don't like the idea that you cannot. I struggle because I think my faith feeds into that as a Christian. Um, the Bible says you'll be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Your mind is renewable, so it's said in the word. I'm sorry, I'm not your word is not trump God's word. Sorry, right? And so I've always believed that the mind is, and then neuroscience and science caught up with that to say, oh, actually, the brain is very plastic. Up until you die, you can actually keep learning, keep improving, keep developing. Maybe the pace might differ, the incentives might differ as you're a certain age versus when you're younger. Then they talk about being more malleable, and those are fair points, but there is no fixed state that is impossible. And I also second point is I don't believe in the impossible. You know, I believe that everything is figured out. You just don't have, you haven't found a way to figure it out. That's all. So everyone people say, Oh, there's no cure yet, there's no cure right now. Listen, you can't tell me whether there's cure or not. You know what I mean? I I don't I don't even like those like kind of limiting statements. I think it's just our limited knowledge for the now. I believe there's that capacity to keep developing, and I want people to see that. I want people to see that you're not fixed, your story is not the end story if you do not want it to be. You are not the defined box that people have set for you. Because again, a lot of the things that I face, even with people with addictions, I've worked with a lot of people, you know, addicted to all sorts of things, just with drugs. And one thing I remember, one of the ladies I was working with in Canada, she was a drug addict, and she was also a former sex worker, and she said, Oh, you know, I have an addicted brain. They they found that we have addicted brain. I'm like, excuse me, excuse me, there's no such thing. Or she was gonna argue, and I didn't want to argue because it's a belief she has, but it just struck me as this is an identity that's been taken on that I couldn't help being an addict because I already am predisposed to addiction because I have an addicted brain. What does that mean? You know? So I my desire is that people see that you would are not, you don't have to be defined by especially the negative connotations, associations, identities that have been thrust upon you. No matter where you're coming from, no matter who you are, no matter the mistakes you even made, we've all made many mistakes. Allow yourself to continually improve and believe that you can. And I want people to see that I'm someone that's not afraid to be vulnerable, to make mistakes, to own up to my mistakes, and to to see me growing, to see that I have a growth mindset, because then I feel it makes them feel like I don't have all the answers. You know, a lot of my colleagues, even the young ladies that work with, you know, they they they look it won't put you on a pedestal, almost like you you know everything, you you can do no wrong. You and so when you even share a little bit of a struggle, it flaws them, but in a good way, because now they know that you're not this unattainable person, you're just a human being trying to figure it out in life, who cries sometimes, who laughs sometimes, who makes mistakes, who's awkward sometimes, who's like a cluts sometimes, and it's okay, it's wonderful, it's part of this beautiful story that you're crafting for yourself. So I want them to see that.

Speaker 52:19

They should keep growing.

Speaker 1 52:20

Yeah, never stop believing that you can do more. Never I don't believe in the whole, oh that that's not possible. I really honestly, I really don't. I just do not, it's just so hard for me to make people say oh that's impossible. I can't even stand that phrase. It's not possible in your sphere of understanding. That's okay, but it's not true for everything. You know, some of the things we learned, like even when you're doing the behavior in neurosciences, some of the more extreme, almost impossible feats of human beings. So, for example, savants that have this like almost superhuman skill in terms of pain, in terms of knowledge, in terms of like memory, and it's actually impossible by regular standards, but there's human beings doing exactly that. So, again, I just I I struggle with limiting words. I really struggle with it, you know, and I don't want I want people, that's the journey that they're on, is to don't take the first limiting statement as fact.

Speaker 53:24

I can definitely see you have a growth mindset, and I'm sure our listeners can see that too. Okay, so what is the one piece of advice you would give the younger Amabelle just starting her first job as a child and youth counsellor?

Speaker 1 53:41

You know, this is a question that I think about because you see people say a lot on social media, if I can speak to my younger self, if I can speak to so I think about that sometimes. And I think the one thing that I would say to my younger self is to do it scared. I think, you know, growing up, being younger, especially being so many different contexts, I think there was just this general fear about trying things, always the fear of failure is the word I'm looking for, is the phrase. So not trying because you didn't want to fail, not being bold and and almost like ballsy because oh my goodness, what if it doesn't work out? And I think a lot of women are in that box really. So I'll tell my younger self to do anything and everything in spite of the fear of failure. Fail if you're gonna fail. That's okay. You failing is actually the way forward. Failing is the way forward. Maybe that's you should pin that up somewhere, but yeah, I be happy, fail, fail many times. That's what I'll tell my younger self. Fail happily, yeah. I love that. Do it scared.

Speaker 54:51

For a younger woman listening who has a powerful idea for social change or feels intimidated by the system. What is the very first most practical step you would advise her to take to turn that passion into a concrete plan?

Speaker 1 55:09

So the biblical reference, again, that I always use, is what do you have in your hand? Every one of us has lore hanging food. Sometimes we don't know it, but we have whether it is someone to even share that idea with, just to even sometimes when you, you know, a lot of women are we're outwards, we call it outwards processing. That's how we talk a lot. When we talk, we get better clarity of what's inside. I use an analogy of you know, you have a box of so many different things, you're looking for one thing, but because it's all scattered, you know, you start picking, picking, picking, and then you find it. I see that almost like the analogy of coaching, or where you're getting them to talk and they're just saying, Oh, I have this issue, I want to solve it, I like I don't know what to do. And you get them to pick, pick, and then they like light bulb, and there they have it. Right. And I see it similarly to that. You have an idea, you're not you're not we're communal people, so you have people in your in media's sphere of even location, yeah, it could be colleagues, family, spouse, siblings, whatever. I would always ask you to share, share your thoughts, but beyond sharing, pen it down because sometimes that idea might sit somewhere in a notepad or a shared thought, but one day, and it could be the next day, it could be a year from then, it's ready to be birthed. Don't be afraid of the incubation of the idea in terms of in your mind or on your notepad. So the fact that you've written it down today doesn't mean that you need to rush the time that it takes to be birthed. So, you know, there's a scripture that says seed time harvest. One of my mentors he said we should look at it as seed, time, harvest. Time is non-negotiable for when you're thinking about an idea, you think about a solution you think you have, and when it's ready to be birthed, and in that time, there's work to be done. So it could be watering, in this case, learning how to projectize an idea, understanding the solution and the problem you're trying to solve. What are there similar things out there? Are there tested models that would be useful to you? Understanding where you're trying to solve it. So you have work to do in upskilling yourself, building your capacity to be able to. That's that is that is a self-responsibility that you can't run from. You have to be built to manage. I'll use the story of Joseph in the Bible. Joseph had a dream, he knew he was going to be this great person, but it was also a bit of a spalt tattletale that it wasn't really like it was spalt. I feel like if he was he went from his house to Pharaoh's house, he would have been probably a tyrant because he was not built, he wasn't formed character-wise, and God needed to humble him and form his character and allow him to see lack, allow him to be resourceful in lack, so that when he now had an opportunity to be resourceful with a lot, he did it excellently, and it was very plug-and-play for him because he's been doing it in the secret dungeon for a while. But character had to be formed, he had to build capacity, and and I think that process is something that we cannot run away from. So while you're birthing the seed, writing the ideas, ideating, and all of that, what do you need to do in between? It might be talking to people, it might be starting to test, even you know, test this thing that you have. So let's say you have a recycling idea. Oh, there's so many bottles in my community, and I know that they need to recycle, it's not environmentally friendly. What can you do in just that one space that you have, maybe in just your compound, to get the bottles to package, get it, and start building a culture of recycling. There's a process to it. Marry that process, immerse yourself in the process, understand the process because you need it during that time, so that when you're birthing, when funding comes, when opportunities come, preparation has meant opportunity.

Speaker 59:43

Wow, seed time harvest. That's a great thing. We need to apply in anything in life, and time is non-negotiable. So I know you are a woman of faith. But what we want to know is how does your faith help you navigate your thinking and following your purpose in your daily life.

Speaker 1 1:00:12

How my faith does all these things, you know? I I don't there's nothing I separate from my faith. Everything that I do, my way of thinking, my way of doing, my way of being, is grounded, it's permeated by my faith. That's why for the principles that I share, I I I have scriptures and and stories about for days because it guides how I think about, and it in fact it's it crystallizes how I understand what I understand about human beings, about our capacity, about our identity, about our purpose for good, what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to live, how we're supposed to execute. I think that God is the greatest strategist, the chief, proper chief architect when you talk about systems architecture, because think about how one man became a nation. That in itself is a thesis that we can do a PhD on. And the and the process into that. Think about how much of a God of excellence and detail when you think about how he would give the slightest cubic meter for the temple, this amount, this way, so detail-oriented, so excellent. It couldn't be not anything but that. So I think I'm an ex- I'm I'm a living, breathing expression of my faith. And I want to be that. I want it to be that I don't have to say, oh, thus says the Lord, or I want to be that when we sit and talk, you can see the evidence of my faith in how I speak, how I think, what I do, without me having to proselytize. Yeah.

Speaker 1:02:12

So showing and not necessarily just telling, a lot of showing and demonstration, and I can see it in you. Amabelle, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this session you've given to us. It's been so insightful. It's been a spiritual journey as well as an enlightening one, and I really appreciate it. And I'm sure our listeners will be enthralled by what you have shared today. I'd like to say thank you and thank you again, and I'm sure we'll be inviting you back.

Speaker 1 1:02:49

Thank you.

Speaker 1:02:50

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 1:02:51

That was amazing. And those questions, guys.

Speaker 1:02:56

What can I say? I mean, this session has been wonderful. We need to think about what we are doing on this earth. What is our purpose? How do we solve problems? What does our inner voice tell us? How important are people to the process of growth in Africa? Let's think about that. I'd like to thank you again for listening to the We Win podcast. Stay blessed and stay tuned. Bye.