{"id":8027,"date":"2019-02-22T20:32:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T20:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2019\/02\/28\/tedxfurmanu-speakers-explore-chronic-illness-female-empowerment\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:19:18","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:19:18","slug":"tedxfurmanu-speakers-explore-chronic-illness-female-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/tedxfurmanu-speakers-explore-chronic-illness-female-empowerment\/","title":{"rendered":"TEDxFurmanU speakers explore chronic illness, female empowerment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nomonde Gila <\/span>\u201919 spoke to educate others \u2014 but being part of TEDxFurmanU<\/a> 2019 was an education for her, too.<\/p>\n

Gila, who is South African, sought to inform Americans about the millions of young African women without access to education. But she also hoped to inspire others to engage with and empower the young women in their own lives.<\/p>\n

Two days before the conference, she sent her talk to her father.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018start again,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

He told her to strip away the excess material and be more personal, to tell the story from her own perspective as an African woman, not just a Furman student. Gila cried, then started writing. When she finally placed the second version by the first, she knew her father had been right. He\u2019d asked to her to not just identify the problem but to also \u201cbring light\u201d to the solutions.<\/p>\n

She followed his advice to unleash her own voice as she advocated for educating and empowering young African women. The best feedback she got from the event: \u201cI had no idea!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Olivia

Olivia Larner \u201920, addressed chronic illness in her TEDxFurmanU 2019 talk.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI taught them something,\u201d Gila said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because this is the reality, that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t change it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Gila was one of two Furman students to speak at the seventh annual TEDxFurmanU<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think Ted is a little unique because it\u2019s all about sharing big ideas that may not be your version of the truth,\u201d said Jacob Lollis \u201920, a politics and international affairs major and organizer of this year\u2019s conference. <\/span>\u201cIt challenges us to think outside the normal box that we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olivia Larner <\/span>\u201920 introduced the \u201cspoon theory\u201d \u2014 that everything a person does in a day requires a spoon, or one unit of energy. People who are healthy have dozens of spoons at their disposal. People living with chronic illness might have six or seven at most.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hardest part about it is having to make decisions about what you\u2019re going to do in a day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Even when they understand, though, people don\u2019t always know what to do with that information. It\u2019s simple: Wash dishes, empty the trash, walk to get coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the little things like that that help me save those spoons,\u201d Larner said.<\/p>\n

She recalled one of the first times she explained it that way to a friend. When Larner had to cancel lunch plans the next day, her friend mentioned spoons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started crying,\u201d Larner said. \u201cI was just so happy that she understood.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nomonde Gila \u201919 spoke to educate others \u2014 but being part of TEDxFurmanU 2019 was an education for her, too. Gila, who is South African, sought to inform Americans about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,70,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-politics-and-international-affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}