Mandela Day 2020: Our new walk to freedom (online parent conference)

Saturday 18 July 2020 - 14:00-17:30

Covid-19 and #BlackLifeMatters have left people feeling overwhelmed and uncertain. Individuals, families, businesses and institutions are grappling with the speed of change, the unpredictability of the future and the lack of control.

To celebrate Mandela Day 2020, we invite parents to reset, renew and redesign their minds, hearts, homes… and our world to enable us to achieve the dream and uphold the legacy of Madiba.

“Action without vision is only passing time, vision without action is merely day-dreaming, but vision with action can change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

We will explore how we use this time as an opportunity to embrace change, to use it as a powerful tool to move onto a new path rather than trying to retrofit our past lives into today’s world.

Our focus is to parent curious, confident, capable children who will act justly, contribute creatively and love fully.

Guest speakers:

Shelley Lewin: Living Deliberately: Relationships of the heart and home redefined

Chinezi Chijoke: Educating tomorrows thinkers and doers 

Lorenzo Davids: Active Citizenry and social innovation

Ayse Birsel: Thinking about a new society

Shelley Lewin

Topic: Living Deliberately: Relationships of the heart and home redefined

About Shelly:
Shelley Lewin is the founder/owner of ‘The Relationship Architect Coaching and Education’ which supports her passion to facilitate positive and effective change in and between people.

As an internationally accredited ICF-PCC coach, experienced counsellor and facilitator, Shelley designs processes for making progress, for optimal growing, relating and connecting. Her focus as a relationship strategist is to design processes that construct and restore connections between people. Shelley has been in the business of personal and professional relationship development since 2006 in her private practice as a counsellor as well as relationship coach and facilitator (in the corporate setting).

The change Shelley wants to see in the world is an increase in the volume of healthy, quality relationships in homes and businesses. Her intention is to contribute toward more loving homes in which children can thrive, and to enable more inspiring leaders to unleash the potential in their human capital. People influence people. Shelley hopes to encourage people to be influencing, leading, guiding and motivating with kindness and grace.

Having been married for 15 years and a mother to a teenager, she really understands the difficulties involved in navigating long-term relationships successfully and takes the opportunity to talk the talk and walk the walk.

Chinezi Chijioe

Topic: Educating tomorrows thinkers and doers 

About Chinezi:
Chinezi is the CEO & co-Founder of Nova Pioneer, a pan-African network of enquiry-based 21st century schools. Guided by its mission to develop generations of innovators and leaders who will shape the African Century, Nova Pioneer currently operates 13 primary and secondary schools across South and East Africa.

Chinezi was previously a Senior Specialist in education with McKinsey & Company, where he led the firm’s education work across the EMEA region, and co-authored a the firm’s 2010 report, How the World’s Best School Systems Keep Getting Better. Chinezi started his career as a mathematics teacher, during which time his students nominated him to Who’s Who of American Teachers.  He has founded and led youth leadership programmes in Nigeria and South Africa.

Chinezi serves on the Boards of Directors of Imagine Worldwide and of the Jakes Gerwel Teacher Fellowship.  He also serves on the Global Advisory Council of Teach For All.

Chinezi holds an MBA and a Master of Education from Stanford University, and a BA from Harvard University. 

He lives in Johannesburg with his wife, Khanyi, and daughter, Adanna.

Lorenzo Davids

Topic: Active Citizenry and social innovation

About Lorenzo:
Lorenzo Davids is Chief Executive and Solutions Designer at Community Chest South Africa. He is a global leader in social development who has worked for more than 35 years to tackle the root causes of poverty and to improve the lives of the underserved. His work helps address the stark inequities left behind by apartheid in South Africa.

He is a founding board member of The Big Issue and Christel House South Africa, a school offering world-class education to impoverished learners. He served on the Boards of Beth Uriel, Media Village, The City Mission World Association, The Viva Network, Beautiful Gate, Christel House, The Big Issue, The Carpenter’s Shop, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and Community Chest.

“I believe that our connected innovation, connected intelligence, connected influence and our connected integrity will build a safer, united and better world for all,” he says.

Ayse Birsel

Topic: Thinking about a new society

About Ayse:
Ayse (pronounced Eye-Shay) Birsel is one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People 2017. She is the author of Design the Life You Love, A Step-By-Step Guide to Building A Meaningful Future. On the Thinkers50 shortlist for talent, she gives lectures on Design the Organization You Love to corporations. Ayse writes a weekly post on innovation for Inc.com. Ayse designs award-winning products and systems with Fortune 100 and 500 companies, including Amazon, Colgate-Palmolive, Herman Miller, GE, IKEA, The Scan Foundation, Staples and Toyota.

She is the recipient of numerous awards including Interior Design Best of Year Award in 2018 for Overlay, a new Herman Miller system, multiple IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Awards) and Best of NeoCon Gold Awards, Young Designers Award from the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Athena Award for Excellence in Furniture Design from Rhode Island School of Design. Ayse is one of only 100 people worldwide to be named as one of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches—a program Goldsmith conceived during Ayse’s Design the Life You Love program—along with the President of the World Bank, the head of the Rockefeller Foundation and the President of Singularity University. She is a TEDx speaker. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the MoMA, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Born in Izmir, Turkey, Ayse came to the US in 1986 to attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY on a Fulbright Scholarship. Since then she has called New York her home, living there with her husband and partner, Bibi Seck, and their three children, who continue to inspire her life’s design.

Penny Tainton (Facilitator)

About Penny:
Penelope Anne Tainton is a dynamic, proactive presence in the South African government and political arena. In her current position, coordinating the Western Cape War Room located in the Department of the Premier, Penny leads the progress and delivery of War Room teams using Problem Driven Iterative Adaptive (PDIA) methodology to address complex transversal problems in government. 

Penny Tainton has held numerous leadership roles, having previously worked in the Delivery Support Unit of the Western Cape Government, managing two of the Premier’s Game Changers (priority projects), both working to transform education. Earlier roles included that of Executive Director of Policy & Governance for the Democratic Alliance and serving on the IEC’s National Party Liaison Committee for several years. Penny’s expertise includes an extensive understanding of the processes and practices of Governance, Organisational Development, Legislation and Performance Tracking and Management Initiatives.

An involved citizen of South Africa, Penny is passionate about extending her services to areas of society where she can make a difference, bring about positive change and realise improved standards. A major driver in her work is finding innovative solutions to the inequalities and injustices that remain in society.