Interviews

Dr. Anthony Silard Author, Professor of Leadership the Director of the Center for Sustainable Leadership at Luiss Business School in Rome, Non-Profit Founder, RPCV Kenya | Double Double Ep. 28

"When you're feeling frustrated in another culture, don't go talk to people from your own culture"

Helped Tony with his Leadership Conference in DC, 2022

Dr. Anthony Silard is an Author, Professor of Leadership the Director of the Center for Sustainable Leadership at Luiss Business School in Rome, Non-Profit Founder, RPCV Kenya

Running away from home and an abusive stepfather, early on Tony slept on park benches, had a D Average in school, and found refuge with Wallace Terry (the first African American Journalist in Time Magazine) and his family.

Wallace Terry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Terry

This exposed him to a new world, and new cultures, which planted a seed in him for to explore and seek to try and find an answer.

We break down the word "passion" which is derived from the Latin word Patire "to suffer."

And different cultural aspects of suffering. Like Christianity had the Crucifixion, African cultures have Phoenix rising from the ashes. The idea of something beautiful emerging from suffering.

By Bertuch-fabelwesen.JPG: Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch (1747–1822)derivative work: Tsaag Valren (talk) - Bertuch-fabelwesen.JPG, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7038417

Because of these challenging experiences growing up, Tony's work today is mainly aimed at helping others awaken their fuel and passion that they can contribute to the world.

It was his high school years, he found out his talent for math and baseball. Which gave him some sort of confidence during his challenging home life. The high batting average and high math scores gave some purpose and meaning to him, where he felt like he was somebody.

He then went off to Cal Berkley originally to study Applied mathematics.
During his time, spent one semester to study abroad in the UK, and noticed all of his friends at the university were on welfare, which prompted him to think differently. To switch his thinking away from trying to find an answer for everything. Thus adding a double major in economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Once his studies were complete he joined Peace Corps Kenya as a Teacher and felt bad and wanted to quit soon after because of a somewhat neocolonialistic occurrence. Where one of the teachers was fired and also kicked out of their home, to make room for Tony and his role as a teacher there.

He felt terrible because of this and wanted to return to the US... until one of his teacher friends showed him the teaching conditions at one of the primary schools. This was one of the catalysts for him to stay and continue his work in Peace Corps and continue in international development (many years after his time in the Peace Corps).

"When you're feeling frustrated in another culture, don't go talk to people from your own culture"

Tony also wanted to challenge the traditional international development narrative where wealthy individuals to donate a ton of money, build their projects and leave.
Tony wanted to reduce the reliance on external aid and worked with the school administration, on a "matching funds" model where locals would raise funds themselves and these would be matched from a donor countries like Japan, US, or Australia.

His experience in the Peace Corps lead him to start his non-profits and grassroots educational development.

We also touch about the importance of truly understanding the community, their wants and needs. As well as considering the cultural aspect of the people and country.

And finally we touch on his recent work in Kenya where he hosted a conference for schools and Single mothers. Also where he did a survey on loneliness with them, and the causes of their loneliness. Mainly due to their unequal participation in relationships.