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Eddie Ndopu: "People with disabilities need to be in leadership"
Eddie Ndopu: "People with disabilities need to be in leadership" | Global Stage | GZERO Media

Eddie Ndopu: "People with disabilities need to be in leadership"

As many as 98% of disabled children in the developing world “never see the inside of a classroom” or go to school at all, says Eddie Ndopu. He could have been one of that vast majority. Born in Namibia, he was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and expected to live for only five years. Now 33, Ndopu is a leading advocate for human rights and accessibility for all.

GZERO’s Tony Maciulis caught up with Ndopu at the UN General Assembly this week. The two discussed his role as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Advocates, a prominent position he shares alongside leaders including Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados, and Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President Brad Smith. He hopes to bring a “fresh” perspective to the discussion of global development and help leaders understand the needs of the most vulnerable people, including those with disabilities.

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A view shows graves of killed Ukrainian defenders, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a cemetery in Kharkiv, Ukraine January 31, 2023.

REUTERS/Vitalii Hnidyi

Hard Numbers … after a year of war in Ukraine

300,000: Human losses on both sides of the conflict are mounting (and disputed), but there have been a whopping 300,000 military and civilian deaths on both sides, according to high-end estimates.

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Marina Kudriavtseva teaches her pupils in the dark in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Marina Kudriavtseva

Marina and the children

Today, as we mark one full year of war in Ukraine, we step beyond our coverage of presidents, soldiers, diplomats, and weapons to speak with a person working inside the conflict to build a better future in the most direct way possible.

Marina Kudriavtseva is a teacher of small children. She lives and works in Kyiv. (Her responses have been translated from Ukrainian.)

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Concerns as Malaysia schools set to reopen

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Eleven-year-old Hakim has not gone to school since it was closed in October last year after a third wave of Covid-19 hit Malaysia.

Dutch adoption scandal triggers a search for roots in Indonesia

December 14, 2020 5:00 AM

Until a few months ago, Ms Widya Astuti Boerma knew her biological mother only from glimpses of memory.

Mother in North Sumatra kills her 3 young children

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Initial investigation suggests the mother killed her children due to economic pressures.

A Dutch adoption scandal triggers a search for roots in Indonesia

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JAKARTA - Until a few months ago, Ms Widya Astuti Boerma only knew her biological mother from glimpses of memory.

Edtech firms cash in on coding craze among Indian kids

November 26, 2020 5:00 AM

Arham Talsania was not yet three years of age when he could tell one computer operating system from another. Soon enough, he was playing logic-based games on the computer and other gadgets that his father Om Talsania, a software engineer, would have lying around in the house in Ahmedabad.

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