Leading up to this year’s forum, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum is collaborating with Changemaker to launch a podcast mini-series featuring some of the speakers. We’ll learn how they came up with their ideas for peace and what steps they took to make a change.
This episode features Yemi Melka. Though not a speaker at this year’s Forum, Yemi is a former Peace Scholar and an Augsburg Alum, and has since been heavily involved with peacemaking projects in her community and beyond. After Yemi graduated from Augsburg College with dual degrees in Chemistry and International Relations, she didn’t know where life would lead her. But she knew that somehow she wanted to use her voice for others. During a gap year after graduation, Yemi became passionate about energy poverty. Millions of people around the world don’t have access to energy, which means they live without light or heat. She wanted to use her skills and education to help. Yemi became a grad student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs where she led a project called SolEnergy. She and a team of students went to her home country of Ethiopia to talk with rural farmers, demonstrate solar irrigation pumps, and better understand problems so they can offer effective solutions.
The Ideas to Action Podcast is available on iTunes and SoundCloud. Listen to the third episode:
Music in this podcast is by:
Lee Rosevere – CC BY-NC 4.0 and CC BY 4.0
Ingenuity
Sad Marimba Planet
Southside
Josh Woodward – CC BY 4.0
Bloom (Instrumental Version)