A hashtag to spread education | Masingita Masunga | TEDxJohannesburgSalon

Masingita Masunga shares her ideas about how humans have created phantom systems that are completely irrelevant to current reality, and yet continue to run our lives. For Africans, these systems seem to unjustly render the destinies of many as hapless, foregone conclusions, long before they are even born. These systems, largely the consequences of the lingering effects of colonialism, have been especially damaging to the African child, she feels. The status quo is bound to continue unless we intervene. To that effect, Masingita has taken it upon herself to make a call to Africans, and the global community, to raise financial resources towards two important projects: firstly, to build the African Dream Village – a school that will teach an urgent and much-needed decolonised curriculum, and secondly, to open up access to higher education through her #R1PaysMyFees campaign in order to help with prohibitive university fees. This, she says, is one call you can’t afford to ignore.
“The world does not go out of its way to accommodate the disabled,” says Masingita Masunga. “You have to get used to that and just take on the everyday challenges.” That she was born with Cerebral Palsy – the tragic consequence of a lack of oxygen during her birth at a clinic in rural Limpopo, South Africa – is completely incidental, to Masingita at least. She presents her own TV show, manages her own media company, and is a regular speaker at schools, churches and conferences. For 10 years, she was the CEO of Miss Confidence, a beauty pageant for people with physical disabilities. Currently, she is the driving force behind the #Africa40440 and #R1PaysMyFees campaigns. These projects respectively seek to contribute to the decolonisation of education, and to help open up access to higher education, for the African child. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx