S7E8 - Elizabeth Mhangami
This week’s guest is Elizabeth Mhangami, social entrepreneur.
Lizz grew up in Zimbabwe and moved to the US when she was 19. After working in various jobs including at the Chicago Athletic Foundation, she also earned her bachelor’s degree at Loyola University. She then started the job that would define her career so far, working with young people from underserved communities.
Prior to moving to the states the first time, Lizz was part of the Rotary international as a youth. Her later work with Rotaract started her thinking more about youth communities, especially at home. She founded Vanavevhu, a 5013c for kids in Zimbabwe, many who are heads of household. She ran the organization for 7 years and has handed over the day to day operations. Now, she is back in the US and heading up major gifts at the Mikva Challenge in Chicago.
We talk about her childhood through adulthood and the influences and experiences that led to to a path of working in and leading service organisations.
Topic we discuss:
Youth service organizations
Impact of having a mother who was engaged in service
Immigrating to the US
Poverty in America
Working with underserved communities
Being a founder and what that entails
Note from Rabiah (Host):
This conversation was a long time coming since Lizz and I became acquaintances, virtually, and would often joke around but then would also get into serious conversations. It was a pleasure to bring this experience to More Than Work to share with you! She is a wonderfully interesting and intelligent person who has dedicated her career to serving youth. I learned so much about her experiences moving to the US from Zimbabwe and you will too. I hope you enjoy this insightful and also joyful discussion. Maybe it’ll inspire you too.
Rabiah (London) and Elizabeth (Chicago) catch up and talk about Lizz, youth orgs, working in malls and more!
Find Elizabeth
Mentioned in the Episode
Transcript
Rabiah Coon: [00:00:35] This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self-worth is made up of more than your job title. Each week I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves. You'll hear about what they did, what they're doing, and who they are. I'm your host, Rabiah. I work in IT, perform standup comedy, write, volunteer, and of course, podcast.
Thank you for listening. Here we go.
All right. Welcome back to More Than Work everybody. I am really excited to have this guest on. We've been talking for a while actually on other calls, not, not More Than Work, but actually my other work calls I would say. And uh, I'm really glad to bring you Elizabeth Mhangami. She is a social entrepreneur. So thanks for being on the podcast, Lizz.
Elizabeth Mhangami: Thank you for having me, Rabiah. I'm glad we finally found a [00:01:35] time to do this that works for both of us.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah, totally, totally. So where am I talking to you from today?
Elizabeth Mhangami: I am currently in Hoffman Estates, which is a suburb sort of northwest of Chicago. So that's where I am.
Rabiah Coon: Nice. And the last time I talked to you, you were in Southern? Yeah. In Southern Africa. Yeah. In Zimbabwe. Yeah. And uh, just so people know why I was talking to you before, my boss, my former boss now, just my friend and coworker Jamila and you are really good friends. And we just ended up chatting on my work calls sometimes.
So
Elizabeth Mhangami: Yes, I would listen in to you and Jamila's calls and have an opinion about a workplace that I do not work at. And I also don't actually know what you all do, but I had a lot of opinions.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. And you'd share them with me and that's how we bonded. So now,
Elizabeth Mhangami: I suppose the experience of work is universal.
Rabiah Coon: Exactly. We're gonna find out, right? That's what we're gonna do right [00:02:35] now. So, yeah. So I guess first of all you're in Chicago now. You were in Zimbabwe, that's where you're actually from originally, right? Yeah. So just let me maybe just tell people about you, kind of, you know, going from Zimbabwe to the US back there now back, back here, and just whatever you wanna say about, about that part really.
Elizabeth Mhangami: Yeah, sure um, so I left Zimbabwe for the first time to come to the US when I was 19, and I spent about 10 years in the US. And during that time I was as an immigrant trying to figure out what opportunities existed for me in the US. So I started off working jobs as a nanny. And then I started going to school, trying to work and go to school at the same time.
And I managed to [00:03:35] get myself a lot of really interesting work experiences. So I worked as a nanny. At one point I was a telemarketer selling insurance. I wasn't very good at it. Then I worked in Victoria's Secret.
I worked at Smoothie King. I didn't last at Smoothie King.
Rabiah Coon: I worked at Dairy Queen, so I'm also a food court, I'm food court royalty also. Yes,
Elizabeth Mhangami: I love it. I've never heard of food court royalty, but I can't wait to start using it. Then I had a stint as the membership director for the Chicago Athletic Association. And then, and during that time I was. Attending community college, trying to get myself into a four year institution. And I eventually got myself into Loyola here in Chicago to do the last two years of a bachelor's degree.
And during that time I got a job working or running a youth employment [00:04:35] program in the north neighborhood in Chicago called Rogers Park. So I was responsible to get the youth job ready and then also find them work opportunities in the community as well as do a little bit of fundraising to keep the program supported outside of the state funds that existed.
And so I would say that that job in particular started shaping what has ended up being a career for me. And that's working with young people. So that job led me to my graduation and I went on to work for a nonprofit in Chicago called Women Employed. And I was in a position that allowed me to work with human service.
Agencies that were helping people who were living in public housing. And our focus, of course, was on women and trying to work on their asset building and [00:05:35] employability that while that was going, I had Quite a robust volunteer life I was affiliated, still am I suppose, with Rotary International at the time.
And for people who don't know about Rotary, it's a service organization that was started in Chicago actually, but I learned about it in Zimbabwe because they have high school clubs, this service learning clubs. And so I joined Interact in Zimbabwe in Lowai in the city that I grew up in. And I then, because it's a nat... International organization, it allows you to then meet other people who are affiliated with it in whatever city you are in the world.
So it's that you always have community. So I came to Chicago and joined the junior Rotarians called Rotoract. And through that I was engaged in a project to send medical supplies to Zimbabwe. And that really got me [00:06:35] going on thinking about sort of a more sustainable way to be involved with some of the challenges that Zimbabwe was experiencing as a result of political in international sort of machinations that were happening at the time.
And coupling that experience with working with youth in, in Chicago and also working with women in low income communities, I really started thinking about what was happening at home and thinking specifically about youth communities in Zimbabwe and what was happening with them. So I ended up creating a nonprofit whose mission was to do something similar to what I'd been doing in Rogers Park with the youth. So job readiness, entrepreneurship, targeted at young people who show an interest or an acumen for business, but don't have the social capital or the experience to to ha have that happen. Been in a way that we hear [00:07:35] about different entrepreneurs who have the wealth of network.
So I moved back to Zimbabwe in 2008, 2009, sorry. And at that time I set up a 501c3 in the U.S. So I had two entities; one that I fundraised through, and then the one in Zimbabwe working with the youth and did that for about eight years. Our youth that we worked with were child heads of household, so they'd lost their parents mainly to AIDS related complications and the oldest of the children often always a girl would take on the responsibility of work of, of taking care of the family economically, socially in as much as a kid at that age can do when they no longer have parents. And that really e evolved into a social enterprise where we were [00:08:35] trying to help these young people create a business or businesses, and also help the organization find financial independence from donor funding.
But we wanted to create a business that had social impacts in terms of providing services and products that the community needed, but also providing young people with a source of income and also giving them experience to, you know, learn a skill learn how to work, because many of the youth we were working with weren't entrepreneurial out of a desire.
It was out of necessity. So some of them, you know, really just wanted a job or some of them wanted to go back to school. There were different number of different interests, but then the organization itself also needed sustainability. So we were hoping that the social enterprise could also keep the organization buoyant so that we could continue to impact the lives of different young people.
As many [00:09:35] people who might be listening to the podcast will know fundraising, nonprofit, fundraising also in a country that had its unique challenges, it became a little harder to keep myself in a salary as well as keep the organization going. So I started within the seventh year working toward transitioning leadership of the organization to the community that we were working within, and some of the youth that had been involved with the organization from when I started it.
And I managed to do that at the end of 2018. And then I took on a, a job, a salary was important at that point, in Swaziland, or it's now called the Kingdom of Eswatini, which is in Southern Africa. So if people think of this map of South Africa, there's two countries within the borders of South Africa, and one of them is the Kingdom of Eswatini.
And I [00:10:35] joined an international school there called Waterford Kamhlaba. It's part of a network of 18 schools called the United World Colleges that focus on helping youth become change makers through a the IB curriculum in the last two years of high school. And I was there for four years as an advancement director, so I managed the school's fundraising for scholarships, alumni relations, marketing, and communications.
And that I did for, for four years until the end of last year, and I have just come back to Chicago in February to start a position with another youth organization here in Chicago called the Mikva Challenge. And we focus on civic education and youth voice. So we work with youth in community as well as teachers in schools.
And my role is director of major gifts. So I would say, I [00:11:35] guess all the experiences that I've had with fundraising has sort of brought me to this position. And I think that kind of gives a synopsis of I come to be here now.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. I like that you have your story down cause I know I've moved a few times and you kind of get the highlights going, right? Through each thing. But, so, no, that was good. And it just leaves me with a lot of questions now. Your path definitely clearly even from high school was, you know, you had service kind of as a part of it. What was it like for you, I guess growing up in Zimbabwe? I mean, did you come from a family that is service oriented or is this just something like, did you happen to just do it in high school cuz you had nothing else to do?
What, what, what drove that?
Elizabeth Mhangami: I think it's a combination of yes to the two questions that I heard out of that, do I come from a family that is service oriented? It's only until recently that I thought about it, but yeah, I do. My family is Catholic and I think social justice and service is a [00:12:35] huge part of Catholicism and the tenants of being a Catholic.
I don't describe myself as as Catholic. In fact, I don't ascribe to any organized religion anymore. But I watched my mother growing up being a part of different groups related to the church. So the Catholic Women's League, there's a sort of an order of, I don't know. Yeah. It's an order called St.
Anne's that she's a part of. And I saw her take up roles on the committee. And then in our community, my mom and her girlfriends would have these clubs. The official term is Village Savings Clubs. It's a model where women get together and we all put money in a pool.
If there's, you know, five of us, we each get a chance to get that money to use for some sort of investment, but we always have to bring back sort of the seed money. It's called a round, so as that the next person can pick up on the round. So I definitely grew up seeing that and Interact.
I, I love [00:13:35] to tell the story because I think it says a lot about me. I went to a school in Zimbabwe. That is a school that was started by Bavarian nuns.
Rabiah Coon: Okay.
Elizabeth Mhangami: About 120, maybe 130 years ago. So definitely as part of the colonizing mission of Africa, the school was established. And as a student there in the nineties, it was a Catholic school that was very interested in protecting our chastity. So we weren't allowed to engage or talk to boys in school uniform. And the only way that you could do that sanctioned was to join the Interact Club because the Interact Club always had a social. And so, you know, at 15, that was the first club I was joining because then you got to see boys and they're boys of a particular school that I was interested in that.[00:14:35]
Rabiah Coon: amazing.
Elizabeth Mhangami: So the year that I joined Interact, 1995, was 10 years before Rotary International would be celebrating its centennial. And so the, the, the international organization decided that they would spend that last decade leading up to a hundred years eradicating polio from the world. So as Interactors joining the club, one of the first service activities we did was to help the Rotary Club members administer polio vaccines in communities that were peri-urban.
So surrounding the city that I was growing up in, and I think for me at fifteen, because my, I mean, my family is big and we have varying degrees of socioeconomic status. So there are, some of my mom's siblings and herself we're [00:15:35] like highly educated through my grandparents' efforts. But then there are some members of the family who aren't.
So I wouldn't say that, you know, doing that polio vaccination thing was exposure to difference in, in, in, in, in economic status and what people have. But it, there was something about going a few minutes outside of my city, a few minutes outside of my high school and seeing people living in a way that one at that point could have described as abject poverty.
Yet I was going to the school and I, I must say that I was a, a bursary kid at the school. My mom was a widow. My dad died when, I'm the youngest of four kids, so my dad died when I was three. And so my mother ma was managing to educate my siblings and myself on her own. So I did have a bursary. So I wasn't one of the rich kids of what is a private school, but I certainly was aware [00:16:35] of the privilege that I did have in comparison to the families that we were meeting. And I was seeing a lot of young women who might have been my age or, or a few years older than me, maybe the ages of my sisters, who were carrying babies and were obviously in a stage of life that I, you know, the, the Falcon College Boy chaser was not in.
And that just, it had an impact on me, you know, in years, now that I talk about it, I don't talk about it the way I used to in my twenties when I would sort of say that it changed my life. And Rotary's motto is "service above self". Because I would, I used to say that service above self became what I am about, but I think I'm, I've, I've moved slightly on that. But it did really that, that experience impacted me. I did go on to chase boys and go to socials, but I was definitely quite aware [00:17:35] of the role that I had within this Interact Club as a young person to be able to do or make a difference or just be in, involved in community development in a way that I hadn't been exposed to.
So I would say that those are kind of what my influences are, but I, yeah, it's, it's, it's being raised and educated by Catholics and then having this orientation around service and community at such a young age and it having a lasting impression.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah, definitely. And what did you study when you were in school?
Elizabeth Mhangami: So at Loyola, I graduated with a degree in political science and women. It was called, Women's Studies. And I had courses in international relations as well. So there was a time where I really felt that my place for work would be the [00:18:35] UN or an international organization of some sort.
And I was very interested, especially having left Zimbabwe because of, you know, economic challenges and political challenges, I was very interested in affecting change politically, geopolitically in Zimbabwe because that kind of the history of Zimbabwe at that time and my being in the US as an immigrant, I found that that was something that I spoke about a lot in terms of explaining why I was in the US and also just trying to find purpose within a survivor's guilt that comes from leaving your home country because of political and economic challenges. Because you leave family and friends there and you are now in a different place. And so I felt a compulsion to [00:19:35] be representative of Zimbabwe somehow. So that's what I studied and I met jamila in graduate school where I started off as an International Studies master's student but then I ended up switching to, to Women's Studies and my focus then was around looking at ideas of citizenship and, and na and national identity for women in post-colonial Southern Africa. And I was looking at, because at the time Zimbabwe was had seen the rise of opposition politics and there was one party in particular that was giving the then ruling. Party a run for their money.
And the women within that party were emerging as strong leaders, but also ones that were severely targeted by the, by the state. And through that, that targeting questions around citizenship and national identity where women were concerned [00:20:35] were coming up. And as you know, a, a a, an academic aspiring academic at the time, I was very interested
in, in the sort of creation of nation state and the, and the role that women play.
Rabiah Coon: Hmm. Yeah. I mean that's, I was gonna make an assumption, but I'd rather just ask you, was, what was the biggest shock to you if there was one about coming to the US and just seeing things in the US and then in the parts of Chicago you were in versus in Zimbabwe where you grew up? Cause I think I, like, I live in England now, right? So, and I'm from the States, so I had ideas about things and of course culturally they're not, that, they're not as dissimilar as everyone pretends they are, you know? But for you, how is that, I guess, going from the country and, and what it was like, but still loving your country, clearly loving it. And then going into the us what, just, what was that experience like?
Elizabeth Mhangami: so I, it's, it's poverty. Let me, let me answer things [00:21:35] succinctly. Poverty. I was not expecting to see as much poverty, was I expecting to see it at the level that I did. Now, I will also caveat that by saying I think that as an immigrant, especially an immigrant who comes into this country with education and social capital.
So my experience, my, and, and, and that of my family is that we have arrived in the US and managed to participate in American society at a middle class level. So that also means that socially our family wasn't immediately exposed to the experience of being of lower income and being of color in the US and having those two things work against you [00:22:35] and because of the way society, I think it's, it's, it's, it's existent in any society, there is always that elevation of the good immigrant. And I think that we, in our initial years, we played at that level and often didn't see what was really The diversity of experience and also because even a person who is on state benefits is often in a better position materialistically to a person who is in that same level of being without in Zimbabwe. So we were also of the opinion that black and brown people in America, especially those born here were the luckiest black and brown people in the world because they [00:23:35] have all these things. But for me, then working within programs that were funded by the state trying to implement social changes through the varying programs, I sort of came to face-to-face with poverty in America and those people who are living in, in that bracket of, of vulnerability. It gave me a, just, that was a shock for me. It took me a while to understand. And it's actually a story Jamila likes to tell just in terms of --I don't know how familiar you are with Chicago, but Chicago has, you must have heard of Cabrini-Green.
It's been transformed now to be a mixed income neighborhood, but there were the towers and, and the row houses that people will remember. And I had a job working for a human services organization [00:24:35] there, and it was just eye-opening. I hadn't seen or experienced and didn't expect it in America because it's the land of milk and honey, so everybody is just got cash and everything they need.
Rabiah Coon: So then, yeah, in your view, changes of what the impoverished in America really are experiencing and I don't know if it's a fair like comparison to make, but it's not much different than I think kind of what's happened in general with people having a different perspective like white people having a different perspective on people of color, right? Because. I think, you know, in the last couple years with what happened with the death of George Floyd and then other things, I think that became a big thing where all of a sudden people are like, whoa, now I get it. Like, people who before said, oh, why, why are, you know, it's the same thing, men say, why do women complain?
Well,
Elizabeth Mhangami: Yeah, just work hard. Pull up, pull yourself by your bootstraps.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah and like, you know, you can't say anything anymore. Well, why [00:25:35] do you have to say sexually explicit things to me? I don't understand. You know? But then it goes to the more serious thing of like race in America where it's white versus whatever. And, and white people really, I mean, a lot of them not like the, you have the white people who say they don't see color, which is totally ridiculous, unless they mean they're color blind and then it's red and green. It has nothing to do with people. Or the white people who completely ignore the fact that there's an issue. And then, but then you get into like another subset of people who you learn about what other people are going through and go, oh, wow, that's going on there. But I don't know.
It's, it's a, it's a thing of, of perspective and gaining perspective and, and seeing, you know, what, it's, what's going on. One, one thing that struck me a lot was when you just talked about leaving your organization in Zimbabwe and leaving it to the people, really, the leadership and, and having the community then lead and that reminds me a lot of, you know, servant leadership, which I don't know if that's [00:26:35] something that you feel you practice, but also something I learned. I was in a program at Harvard, a Public Leadership Credential, and we learned about moral leadership. But that really, truly is what you were doing there by, by putting the people at the focus and then ultimately having them be empowered to kind of run the organization.
Or even what you talked about the women in Zimbabwe would do with the money and, and they would be empowered to make decisions. I mean, that just really strikes me as really forward thinking because a lot of people who are quote unquote leaders won't think in that way. They'll make themselves the most important.
And how did you come to that decision? Or what, did you learn something that made you go that way? Or is that instinct?
Elizabeth Mhangami: You know, it's something that I, I, I don't know. I have a lot of discomforts around certain things. And I think one of the things that I have really struggled with embracing and, and being able to articulate for myself is that I am a leader. I, I have a [00:27:35] lot of discomfort with that because I immediately go to thinking that people see ego in me saying and stating that.
So I, I think that I was always keenly aware of wanting to make sure that the organization is not about me or dependent on me. So there was always an intention, an intentionality around. My dream was that the first group of youth that I started working with, that one of them would replace me and, and continue the organization without me.
The one thing that I didn't anticipate was that when you are a founder of something almost, you birth something so it, it becomes your baby.
It's your thing. And you also have very clear [00:28:35] ideas about where this baby's going to end up in college, what career it's going to have. So I had a very clear idea about my organization becoming a youth led youth run social enterprise that had three businesses encompassed in it, a organic market garden, a beekeeping enterprise that produced beeswax candles and beeswax lip balms, and a soap. Cold press soap, that was also going to have inputs from our organic garden.
And then we were also going to have a business that was doing rooftop gardens for hotels and putting soaps in hotel rooms. And it would become the. Beautiful. I still see it. This beautiful ecosystem of product being made from the organization is called vu, which means children of the soil. And, and yeah, [00:29:35] and, and, and we were going to be this wonderful machine where the youth would find job opportunities within the social enterprise or they would start their own businesses related to that ecosystem selling us beehives, repairing our beehives, making bee suits. There was all the stuff that could happen, but it was a vision that was based in my subjectivity and not in the subjectivity of the youth. I came to a realization when we finally, and I, I, I was a bulldozer about a lot of things, but we finally got to a point where a hotel agreed to us putting a rooftop garden on their roof in Victoria Falls, which is the, you know, premium destination in Zimbabwe. So I was closer to our social enterprise, finding business within the tourism sector, and then I took a group of our youth to Victoria Falls. We sat in a hotel room and [00:30:35] one of them went into the bathroom of that hotel room and walked out, holding a piece of soap and said, so this is what you've been talking about. And in that moment it was, and you'd think as a social worker, I would've remembered this, but then I was like, oh my goodness, these kids have just been following me. Blind faith. Because they either believe in me or I am a source of income at the moment. So whatever this crazy lady is talking about, we are gonna do it with her.
But of course, they'd never seen a hotel. Or understood the con, cuz I kept, because they kept asking, why are we learning how to make soap? Because we are gonna make smaller soaps that will go into the hotels. And they'd be like, oh, okay.
Rabiah Coon: They're like, fine.
Elizabeth Mhangami: But in that moment is when I thought, okay, so is this my dream or is it their dream?
They have the skillset because they're the ones who put up the, we did um, raised [00:31:35] beds for this rooftop garden with drip irrigation. I mean, the skillset and the, the, the level of expertise that these youth developed, I will always be proud of that. But the concept was not theirs. And that's when, and that was, I think that was 2017 and that's when I really realized that it was, it was time for me to make a decision. And, a few years before that, I had been of the opinion, I don't know how I came to it. It's very specific that a nonprofit founder should not be the head of that organ, the operating head of that organization past seven years. I don't know where I came up with that. And I said that in a New York Times article in 20, 11, so I also had seven years was always playing on me and so I had essentially signed my resignation [00:32:35] date and, but in terms of the organization and the mission, that moment in that hotel room showed me that I had to allow this organization that I had created in partnership with a community of young people had to evolve in what it was going to be and not what I wanted it to be. So I started the process of letting go at that point.
Rabiah Coon: Wow. Yeah, I mean that's, that is eye-opening cuz to to just be like, their lived experience was so different by then from yours, even though you had in theory grown up in.
Elizabeth Mhangami: It's so funny that I didn't click in that moment because I. I was like, yeah, we're the same. We're the same. I just have had this experience, but I'm sharing this experience with them, you know? And I was thinking, my experience was that of having gone to the US but my experience was so different in terms of the school I went to, the neighborhood I lived in, the fact that I was from [00:33:35] a different ethnic group, from many of them.
The organization is named Vanavevhu which is Shona, the language that I, that's my mother tongue, although I grew up in Ndebele speaking Zimbabwe, so I speak in Ndebele and I could speak to many of the youth. They mostly spoke in Ndebele. So even the naming of the organization was deeply entrenched in my, in my identity and subjective lens.
Rabiah Coon: Wow. Wow. So one thing you mentioned too about the life experience. I mean, you were working with youth who maybe were head of household as a children and you mentioned also aids, which that's one thing in the US too. AIDS was never in the us what it was in African countries. It was different. There was a different discrimination over here. It was very much entrenched in, you know, more around sexuality and that kind of thing I'd say, more than [00:34:35] just general people, but then thinking you're talking about in the two thousands that where here in the US it's not even, I don't know.
I mean, I don't wanna speak for everyone and I'm not in the US now, but I mean, just thinking about prevention and people just, you know, you can live with HIV now and stuff, but in, in African countries that still wouldn't be necessarily true in the same way. Just availability of drugs and stuff. And so people losing their parents to AIDS when they're young is that still, has, has there been changes to that or is that still something like your organization's serving now or the, your former organization?
Elizabeth Mhangami: I think that No one in, in, in Southern Africa, at least there's very few people who weren't touched by the scourge of HIV/AIDS. There's just, everybody has some experience. I mean, within my family, their stories, I could tell. What has been at least comforting is that socially [00:35:35] the disease is not as stigmatized as it was when it first started appearing in the early nineties.
And I think that that has a lot to do with communities losing just huge sections. Like there was a time where you would read stories about Uganda, I know as a country that was written a lot about how there were just communities where there weren't any people between the ages of 18 and 40 anymore. And you know, these are the people that were parents to the youth that I was working in, working within Zimbabwe. And so I really was moved by a lot of statistics that I, again, it's all subjectivity statistics that were related to myself. And I know the year that I founded Vanavevhu in 2007, the statistic coming out of Zimbabwe was that life expectancy was [00:36:35] 34 and I was 27. And that again, was another thing of looking at myself and saying, okay, so this statistics, this statistics says that in in seven years at 34 I, in seven years I could be gone. So what do I do in seven years, maybe? Actually that's where seven comes from. From is this fatalistic connection to life expectancy in my home country.
But that's really, you know, something that I, I thought about. But there is definitely a lot of work that has been done and people are living with HIV, people are taking, have access now to the, the medication. And they're taking the medication and it's not so much the life sentence that it used to be because I really argue or would argue that many of the deaths that we saw in our part of the world were because a diagnosis meant death.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah,
Elizabeth Mhangami: Because there was no [00:37:35] medication. And we can, we can criticize are they called international NGOs who do public health work in, in Africa for a lot of things, but being able to bring communities and put in mechanisms from medical treatment being available to behavior modification interventions to changing social structure just so that people have access to meds has done a huge thing. And living in Swaziland, which was one of the countries, the tiny, a tiny country that was heavily affected by HIV and AIDS, being there in the last four years and, and being around people in the public health sector, there's been a lot of wins and it's, it's definitely something that we are grateful that we were able to get a hold of it get a handle on the impact that it was having.
Rabiah Coon: That's incredible. Yeah. Well, I, I think it is, it's great to [00:38:35] hear about the progress and just it's really inspiring just to hear about how you're, you have evolved into this, this service-oriented life and also just kind of the boundaries you've set to move on when you needed to. So, one thing I like to ask every guest is, do you have any advice or mantra that you'd like to share with the people listening?
Elizabeth Mhangami: Do you know, I thought about that and, and I, I, it, there's actually like a thank you for this conversation because I'm looking forward to watching listening again, because there's realization that has come up in this conversation that I don't think I had prior to us pressing record. So thank you for that and I think choose you.
Just choose yourself all the time. I'm 42 now, and so there comes, you know, sage and wisdom with that. But I really, and I'm trying not to live in regret because it's futile, but I'm really trying [00:39:35] now to be present and to choose me and be comfortable with selfish.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I love it. That's perfect. The conversation would be great for me too, so I'm, I'm really glad.
Rabiah Coon: So now I'm gonna do the Fun Five. It's the last five questions that I ask every guest. So what is the oldest T-shirt you have and still wear?
Elizabeth Mhangami: The oldest T-shirt I have and still wear is a T-shirt my brother gave to me in 1998. And it's a t-shirt that says Bungee Extreme. It was a T-shirt, I think he bought in the town of Victoria Falls, where in that time, bane Jumping was just coming on the scene and there was a, a tourism company there that was promoting bungee jumping and there were stories that you could bungee jump naked [00:40:35] for free. And so I wore this t-shirt in the hopes that I would do that one day.
And I still wear it because it was, they made good clothes back in the nineties.
Rabiah Coon: Nice. So if every day was Groundhog's Day like it seemed during the pandemic, especially like, you know, where the days were all the same, um, what song would you have played to wake you up every morning?
Elizabeth Mhangami: This question was so hard. I wonder if this will age well. . It would be, I'm sorry to not follow the rules, but it's gonna be two songs and it's going to be the Indigo Girls galileo and Closer to Fine.
Rabiah Coon: Oh, nice. Okay.
Elizabeth Mhangami: They would flow into eachother
Rabiah Coon: We'll pretend it's an A and a B side or something. All right, cool. And then coffee or tea or neither?
Elizabeth Mhangami: Tea.
Rabiah Coon: Tea. All right.
Elizabeth Mhangami: Vestiges of colonialism, baby.
Four o'clock.
Rabiah Coon: And I live in the co the colonialism country, believe me. So can you think of a [00:41:35] time when you like laughed so hard you cried, or just something that always cracks you up when you think of it?
Elizabeth Mhangami: Oh gosh, there's so many. I would say that the scene in The Big Lebowski where his landlord comes in, comes to him and says, dude, it's already the fifth. And he's like far out. And then the realization happens that his rent is due. Bar none, will always get me,
Rabiah Coon: Cause it's so great.
Elizabeth Mhangami: and I think he's mixing a white Russian. I'm gonna watch it
tonight too.
Rabiah Coon: I know. Now we both have something to do this evening. I really think I will. Oh my God. All right. That's awesome. All right. And then the last of the Fun Five, who inspires you right now?
Elizabeth Mhangami: I would say that at the moment it would be Bell Hooks because I'm reading all [00:42:35] About Love, which I was assigned to read in graduate school. So I read differently. And so I'm reading it now again and it It's just one of those things where I'm like, oh gosh, she was alive in my time and I just wish I had paid a lot of attention, but I just did say regret is wasted energy.
So I don't regret it, but I am sort of, I don't know, reading her and, and receiving and understanding her differently in this moment.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Huh. That's great. Well, Liz, this has been awesome. I wanna ask if you, if people wanna find you, wanna reach out to you or anything like that, where's, where are the best places for them to go?
Elizabeth Mhangami: Trying to wean myself off all the social media. So I think the best place and I think for this context, if anything I've said is useful to somebody is on LinkedIn. It's just Elizabeth Mhangami, but once they see the spelling on the podcast, they could just find me. I'm not, I'm not hard to find.
Rabiah Coon: Super. All right. Well, Liz, thanks so much [00:43:35] for taking the time to chat with me. I really appreciate. It was really great.
Elizabeth Mhangami: Thank you Avia. I'm glad we finally got to do this.
Rabiah Coon: Me too.
Thanks for listening. You can learn more about the guest and what was talked about in the show notes. Joe Maffia created the music you're listening to. You can find him on Spotify at Joe M A F F I A. Rob Metke does all the design for which I'm so grateful. You can find him online by searching Rob M E T K E.
Please leave a review if you like the show and get in touch if you have feedback or guest ideas. The pod is on all the social channels at at more than work pod (@morethanworkpod) or at Rabiah Comedy on TikTok. And the website is more than work pod dot com (morethanworkpod.com). While being kind to others, don't forget to be kind to yourself
