Empower through Diversity

my name

is chishay salam and i’m from lusaka

zanki

home of the monsieur tuning also known

as the victoria force

i have lived in asia for nearly 15 years

it’s home for me and i work in

architecture

designing that is when i was asked to do

this tech talk

i found myself i found myself

i hope that’s better i found myself

buzzing with energy excitement and

enthusiasm

and for some strange reason a huge sense

of nostalgia

my mind took me to various places faces

and moments that i had come across

in my youth but hadn’t thought about in

a long time

it was there that it became clear to me

that these were a huge part of my

journey

and speaking about it would only come

naturally

so today i’m here to speak to you about

diversity

and the huge role that it has played in

my story of empowerment

i’m part of diversity whether i realize

it

or not diverse in social status

diverse in culture diverse inability

and well diverse in race too

i was raised in as in law housing

community

right on the edge of lusaka called

chinda

you may call it a ghetto or a shanti

well

we call it a combo and so

i shouldn’t have gone to the best high

school in zambia

in palembe and i shouldn’t have left

home

for the bright lights in the fast

growing far east

without knowing where i was going or

what i was going to do

i shouldn’t have learnt architecture

in a tiny island in china called shaman

in chinese with fellow chinese students

i shouldn’t have worked on the solar

decathlon competition that raked in

awards

for shaman i shouldn’t have

lived and worked in the always bustling

never sleeping

metropolis that is shanghai

and i shouldn’t have made my way to

sunny forward thinking

singapore or be here giving a speech and

telling you bits about my colorful

journey

because you see i

come from a family of 10 kids

and my father died young so i was raised

by a single mother so to say that

resources were tight

would be an understatement

but women women are superheroes

i’ve seen it i’ve lived it

they just are despite how difficult it

is

on a daily basis for black women

they still make it work

did you know that zambian men are

mommy’s voice

well of course we are

now so much so that in many places back

home

the word for mom is often

interchangeable

with the word for help and so

instead of someone screaming nitandizeni

meaning

help me in yanja they would scream

mayo meaning mum and no

these are not children or babies is a

fully grown man

and so some say this is this is tied to

the fact that we lie

in what is called the matrilineal belt

and historically in many of our

societies women have taken up

positions of power and strength

something that has been slowly diluted

by colonialism

and in more recent times urbanization

all in order to fit what we view as the

more acceptable

international norm the western

patriarchy

my mother as a teenager

in her eyes i see a big world that she

wants to explore and experience

fueled by all the books that she loved

to read and support from her father

she manages to achieve that she lands

herself

a spot at the best institution in the

country at that time

university of zambia and in no time

finds herself working as an inspector at

the bank of zambia

which she did for 30 years

mission accomplished right well the 90s

roll around

and they’re not too kind to the majority

of zambians including my parents

and they fall on hard times and we find

ourselves

in china now i grew up around

a lot of strong females

my mother my sisters my aunts

my mom’s friends we didn’t have much but

we had

a strong sense of community

in the mornings i remember being sent

across the street

to buy bread from this tiny minimunt

mesmerized by

all the goodies that they sold in there

i would spend too much time there than i

needed to

so much so that when my parents would

have friends over

they would ask me and my young sisters

what we wanted to be when we were older

my sisters would go astronaut doctor

pilot and when it got to me i’d go

shopkeeper

you know and they’d burst into laughter

i wouldn’t get it not that there’s

anything wrong with it

but just because they didn’t get my

master plan

if i were a shopkeeper i could eat all

the chocolate in the store

what more could i want and so in the

evenings my ancestors and i would sit

around and watch my mother as she worked

her second job

tailoring it was one of those evenings

that i asked her

why everyone would laugh each time i

said i wanted to be a shopkeeper

she stops and looks at me and say and

says

because you choose something that’s so

achievable

i go yeah she pauses and then says

shisha you should never be afraid to

dream

big then she follows it with what is my

favorite phrase

in bemba imitikula empanga

meaning the youth are the future

and so if you are the youth you can do

and be

whatever it is that you want to be

that was the day that everything changed

for me

i didn’t just want to be a shopkeeper i

now

wanted to be at all

as the years pushed on my mother does

move us out of this

my mother does move us out to the

suburbs and i land myself

a spot at this amazing high school

because of my good grades i go through

high school like a regular teenager

even though a majority of my schoolmates

are from well to do families

something that i knew absolutely nothing

about

i do manage to complete or graduate high

school

having accomplished a few things good

grades

and a strong network while there

i also realized that most of the

students wanted to act like they were

coming from

the combine you know try to get their

street cred up

now that i knew plenty about it was

there that i came to the understanding

that my experiences were not just a

disadvantage

but also an advantage especially when it

came to communicating with individuals

such as these

who came from a different social

background

to myself shortly after

i quit my a-levels and decided to move

to asia

to try something new i of course shared

this news

with my mother who was convinced that i

had lost my mind

after a lot of arguments and

a lot of stubbornness i did make my way

east

with my family’s blessing of course and

where did i find myself you may ask

shaman and when i did i should have

realized that i had dived

into the deep end if the language

barrier

wasn’t a big enough sign i don’t know

what could have convinced me a few days

in

i start to feel the nerves so i meet up

with this young gentleman who worked at

shaman university

that i had been previously in contact

with

because he had led me to shaman with

stories

of the beach life and palm trees now you

see

i’m from a landlocked country and so

this

this was paradise and so then he

encouraged me

to study mandarin get a language

certificate

and use my gcse results to apply and

enroll

into university which i did

a year later i had

sat for my chinese language proficiency

exam

and passed i was so excited

i had learned basic conversational

mandarin

i could walk down to the market and ask

the vendor

china

basically asking how much do the red and

green apples cost

i had managed in my head i was dashing

and this was all the validation i needed

to know that i was ready

for uni i rolled up to my first class of

architectural school

full of excitement and full of such

enthusiasm about an hour

into my class i then realized that the

only words that i had understood

up until that point were good morning

class

surprise surprise no red apples or green

ones

either the hard truth

had just hit and things were about to

get even more real

so i thought it was just a phase well

one that lasted two years

so after a lot of sad days and a lot of

disappointment

one afternoon while having lunch with my

local classmates

after sharing the difficulties that i

was having i asked if they could tutor

me because they were passing and i was

failing

they then burst into laughter we’re

failing too

i was shocked failing well you guys

understand mandarin fluently don’t you

they go yeah but we’re also learning

this stuff for the first time

all this architectural stuff is new to

us i smiled

because that was exactly what i needed

to hear in that moment

in my own positive interpretation i had

understood

that we all had our own challenges and

so

if passing was achievable for them it

was achievable

for me too i had to quit

all the odd jobs that i held at the time

because clearly

school had become too demanding

even though i still needed the money

unlike most of my schoolmates who were

on scholarship

so one hot one one summer holiday while

down in guangzhou with a friend

we stumbled upon this huge shopping

district

with numerous stores and while we’re sat

in one of the stores and i’m having a

suit made for an event

for now a business idea comes to mind

to buy suits and sell them back home

much like my mother’s second job

and i did and i became successful at it

so much so that i started to think of

other ways in which i could

enlarge my empire then i remembered

that how much women back home

loved wigs and weaves

and at the time china was exporting

nearly three billions worth

of hair products annually with africa as

its

largest no well not largest the second

largest

consumer at 34

i jumped onto that train and there we go

i knew that this was an opportunity for

me to take up and so

as i was cultivating these new skills

outside my comfort zone i learned to

grow

more a few years down the line i

graduated

from my bachelors with flying colors

i then applied for a master’s degree

and got accepted on scholarship as an

exceptional

student i then took on my three-year

degree

but then completed it within a year that

left me plenty of time to move to brazil

where my wife is from before graduating

in brazil i learned to make chocolates

and these amazing round delights

that are absolute heaven called

brigadeiro

after going back to china to work and

eventually graduate

i was so inspired to start

i was so inspired to start a small

chocolate shop

to share my experience with my local

shaman community

and i did we added our own little twist

to this though

we started to flavor the brigadeiro i

would explain what we were doing with

this flavoring to my family and friends

in brazil

but they would have nothing of it they

would they would go

jose village you need to stick to the

original flavors that’s what the people

love

well turns out that people actually

liked our flavored brigadeiro

we ran the shop for about a year before

my business partner and i

decided to move to shanghai but there we

found that real estate was more

expensive

so we had to shut down

but not before i used this opportunity

to teach

my family back in zambia how to make

chocolates

in hope that it would empower them in

the same way it had empowered

me i went on to organize a recurring

event called africa night that acted

that acted as a bridge between local

shamanites

and africans in the diaspora and on the

continent

as well as working with an established

rubber and plastic

molding company mnk international as

they set themselves up

in africa training local zambians how to

manufacture their own products

rather than rely on imports solely

i was drawn to shanghai because of the

vast opportunities

especially in sustainability focused

projects

something that i am passionate about and

had focused on in my master’s

there i got to work with amazing

designers who were both

mindful and detail-oriented in their

designs

i could feel that i was starting to

pivot a little in my career

as the architectural projects reduced in

number

and we get more and more interior design

projects something that i didn’t know

much about

so even though i was out of my comfort

zone and intimidated

i was still willing to learn because i

was curious

about this and that led me to getting

an opportunity to work on mid-range

projects

as an architect and interior designer

and see

the whole process through

shortly thereafter my chapter in

shanghai came to an end

and my wife and i moved here to

singapore a few years ago

where i work on local projects as well

as those in china

in a nutshell the strong women in my

life

have taught me to dream big and if you

are different

you will have to understand what it is

that makes you different

because this this is your advantage

you have to learn to you have to learn

to accept what your surrounding

offers as this allows you and give

identifies

this allows you to identify pockets of

opportunity

this of course comes with its own

self-doubt

and so you have to find something that

you love

lean into it or dive into it

like i said before as a trader selling

suits

wigs and weaves i managed to cultivate

various skills

outside my comfort zone and so as long

as you are young

try new things try as much as you can

like i have and continue to do implement

things in your own way

and remember whether things go well

or not whether you fail or succeed it’s

okay

because you owe it to yourself

empowerment comes in various forms

for my mother it was education

for me it’s my journey for you

it could be a new skill a job

failing or trying again

but for us all i think it’s this

collective experience that we’re going

through

at the moment coveted 19.

if i think about our our topic today

diversity in empowerment i think my

story

tells it all it’s a story about life

experiences

it’s a story about establishing a sense

of belonging

for everyone it’s about understanding

and nurturing the connection between us

through language

culture and ethnicity and so

this speech goes out to all those

pre-teens

all those teenagers right all those

youth out there

and of course for all of you who are sat

here today

the world is ready for you

all you have to do is take that first

step if a mummy’s boy like myself

can achieve it then the sky is the limit

for you i will leave you here today

with the words of madiba nelson

mandela it all seems

impossible until

it’s done natasha

and thank you all