Welcome everybody Welcome Clementine. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. How's everyone doing?

Last night we danced who was here last night past 10 We danced so please stay and dance tonight it was so much fun, so I'm doing great That's great to hear because I didn't dance

Well Clementine here, she is a graduate from Yale in 2014 She is a member of the board of directors women for women international. She is a Social entrepreneur and activist a human rights activist

Clementine you left Rwanda at a young age and you went to the United States Can you please briefly tell us about your journey from Rwanda to the United States for those of us who don't know you very well? hmm

Just right there on the spot So I was born in Rwanda and in my home At least I feel like I my mother in a way she prepared us to be lost In world where the world was very unkind but to be

attracted to people who share and and so our journey after The conflict in Rwanda in 1994. I was with my older sister and she is one of the most Incredible human you could possibly find on this earth

we Walked like millions of other Rwandans who fled We ended up in a refugee camp In Burundi and from Burundi we went to another refugee camp I went to my sister got married went to another country from that country a year later a Congo a year later

War started we packed up a little we had and we went to a refugee camp in Tanzania in Tanzania It was not a life that anyone should ever live Claire said let's get up and go we left that refugee camp

We went to Malawi in Malawi another refugee camp with five different nation in one place Of Africa could go to names, but my sister said here again for three months No one's supposed to live like this So we left we went to Mozambique and then Mozambique, South Africa

and then it went away back up and then came to United States went to United States as With the refugee agency And been living in the United States for the past 16 years now Wow, that is a very long journey So, how did it change you going from having so little to to having your basic needs?

Met in the United States having shelter having food having security having opportunity. How did that change you? maybe I should go back with Let me go back a little bit

By saying in my home in Rwanda Everyone Was welcome and and this is how we were all welcome. I brought some chocolate to share with you I wish I could have for everybody. I have a box here if you would like some later as well

It's You know, my mom taught me this that It's really good. Hmm. No, let me try it now. All right, don't you don't you're yeah, okay Yeah, it's really delicious. Very creamy

Um Now I want to eat Very buttery. Mmm a little bit bitter a little bit salty, too

So it is really good Just really delicious so can I eat mine Do you want it? Yes. Okay. Well, then you could have it so you're sharing with me Yes, I'm sharing it with you. If it was an orange, I'll probably cut it and give you a piece

but my mom taught me that life it's It's a life when it's shared Because there are all these different levels of being able to experience life. Mm-hmm and

Living in refugee camps and not having food being on a street not having a home Being in a country where you now wanted It tastes so bitter It truly tastes so bitter and it hurts. It's not as a sweet as this chocolate

But there are a few people you meet who? Give you this sweetness. Mm-hmm, and and if you call it love then I will call it love then now as we're sitting here, but

So Again Having my home and having be a place where I learn how to share with others and then having for six years in eight different countries being a person who's now wanted a person who's now valued a person who's invisible and finally getting to United States and

then Feeling also that I can be visible I could be invisible if I allow myself to be and at the same time I could be unwanted and I could accept that story. Mm-hmm, and so

being in the United States having the resources that I've had either with the education or water food Shelter I Take a step back. I'm like this tastes good like taking a shower this morning I took shower for 15 minutes and it was so good and I'm like, why would I not want anyone to have that?

Right, just like a nice shower. So is to say like my journey Our journey at least my sister and I it was a journey to learn about how it feels To lose it all to have it all and then the choices you make after you've had it

That's very powerful So that is your definition of love not having it and then you having it and it tastes is great Yes, and it changes you exactly and and I think that We are all feelings. We are nothing but feelings and

our sensory experience with it through taste or sound and through Through touch that's when we're able to connect as humans Right beyond our skin color beyond the categories that we're in and and so if I would say love

loving myself is in itself is Destructive Well, I mean this disruption to an ideology of how I'm supposed to be loving myself It and maybe let me take a little bit of step in my country Rwanda

we believed in the story of To see who to intua right these people in these people in these people and we believe there's so much and the story of course was like glossed over and punched and

Made really nicely in terms of these people have these resources these people don't have resources And then therefore that's the story they're living and one group of people decide to kill the other group of people but in on contacts that our bodies our way of being was a part of like either you hate yourself or you really love yourself and

That isn't that is political and that's not political and for my mother To be able to teach us how to love ourselves by sharing There was nothing that we could not overcome

and Now as an adult Looking back the life that I've lived and the people that loved me. I Could walk and sit in this chair and be in such a deep gratitude And so again when we if you want to talk about love and sharing it's both

Loving yourself loving the body that you're in as a human Loving whatever you have But it's not only yours to keep or to front but is to share So for me being able to stand up confident with confidence around other Rwandans

I'm like, look, I'm really confident in my own body I'm not scared because of that story of how I'm not supposed to be comfortable in my body Or be comfortable in my skin color. So love and acceptance go together You have to accept yourself and you have to be able to belong to feel like you belong in order for you to be

able to love Is there a connection there? There is a connection and and I hope I'm making sense Even though we were refugees for 12 years Wandering from one country to another and then in the United States for six years

There was no story in our head that we did not belong like Because we believe we belong in this earth Like we're not from Mars like we were birth like all of us in this room. And so Claire my sister anytime we walked into situation such as

Our third refugee camp in Tanzania, it was actually a prison and they just rounded up as many people as they can and Put us all over and we did not have water. We did not have food

There was no bathroom and they were expecting for us to live like that And my sister was like hell no Like why is everyone okay with this situation? Like this is not loving at all

This is not sharing at all. I know there's a bathrooms out there. There's a food out there. There's water there No, we're out of here. Right and my sister sold everything. She has she sold jewelry She sold clothes. She was like, let's get the heck out of here and it was just such a

Like because of her saying I belong And when I see others not belonging or being treated as if they do don't belong and they accept not belonging I am going to challenge them by being out of here

Right, and so like we left everything and got out of the camp And so when you say acceptance like when you accept yourself It's you accepting Beyond the story and the categories that we're supposed to be in as a human right like

We are human we're all birthed and There are all these ideology that we are so different from each other because of our gender because of our race because our nationality because of all these different things we believe and we sit in it and

we make money off of it and we go in prison for it and so acceptance of Yourself as a human. It's most revolutionary But I believe through acceptance one has to truly See themselves love themselves and as well share which whatever is it that they have?

Yeah Now in the now, where are you with your concept of love? Because I know that you're doing a lot of work with other Refugees you're extending your love. So can you tell us a little bit about about that?

I'll give you a great example So in the past week I was in Italy I was in four different city speaking and and I was so lucky with with the organization that I was working with Sent to me in the middle of nowhere

Where young people are now going to get as much Attention or someone to tell them how life it is and majority of people are people who have you know who have who are seeking refuge in Italy from Mali from Senegal from

Syria from Afghanistan from Burma and and there was this moment where I spoke to a bunch of fourth graders and These fourth graders we we sat and I told them this fairy tale and they're all like that's not real and I was like

It is real. It's real. It's like and then one of them got up and said you speaking like a three-year-old I'm like, yes I'm a three-year-old and I'm like you should try to be a three-year-old and imagine just Imagine me if I smile beads will appear everywhere. Do you see them? And he was like, no

I'm like if you look harder you see them and For me love At least my love for humans and love for myself is being able to transport myself beyond Constructed human ideas

You know being able to get these kids whose parents been traumatized by war and take him to a place where? When they walk they can lift an ocean with their hands Very powerful, right? It's it's being able to go in there and said I Understand where your parents are coming from have been traumatized by other humans, but for your mind

We are going to smile jewels You're gonna fall from the sky and you're gonna go to this ocean and you're gonna pick it up It's gonna be the carpet and you're gonna go dance with mermaids There

like for me love is it can be formed anything that is kinder and gentle and soft To the mind that has been so traumatized Wow, it's a very very powerful We are almost we have to allow the audience to interact with us. Yes, but I just had one more question

How long did it take you to go from? To go into that place to reach that place of love within you and be able to extend it Well, it's just like a gradual thing that well, maybe I might turn the question to you because

Yesterday you shared something that was so powerful about you know Your ancestors and those who came before you and I feel like we share that and so if you would mind sharing that with us to

I think if I can recall correctly that yesterday I said that some of the choices that I make I Have I always think back to what would my ancestors think about me? Because that to me is very powerful because I am not here on my own I came from somewhere So I always think that and when I do that is what keeps me in line. Will they be proud of me?

Am I leaving something behind? So this is what I? Yeah, and and within that it was so shared is something so beautiful that made me realize when I was walking around I took at the train and just walked around and

Listened and observed and I realized how many other And the distinct how many other? Germans parents women and men who have created this space for us for the two of us to sit on this stage and There and then going back that we are all of

ancestors our parents is wildest dream right sitting together here as a human in in curiosity in any conversation and in peace So now I have to cut you because we want to take a few questions from the audience

Anybody that has any questions for Clementine, please For us questions You can come to him or we will just continue talking No questions, I think everybody is it's it's just listening and taking in what we're talking about

Am I correct or are you guys bored? Yeah, okay Well, I think we have a question so my name is Bilal and I Hear you about Helping create alternate realities for youth and young people to be able to dream and to have some beauty in their lives and

and I've I work with some of these types of youth and At times a lot of the organization seemed to be very interested in supporting their intellectual and their physical health and well-being but they don't really consider their emotional landscape so much and

I feel Torn between thinking that these programs that we can do to work on these imaginative aspects So so I had a friend come And we did this mural project and my kids they got a chance to dream for a little bit and they expressed themselves Onto this wall in a public space and it was it's part of this project called the fearless collective

I encourage you to look them up They're really cool And then when when they left when she went back to India and I was left alone with these kids Some of them came up to me later and even though in the moment It was such a beautiful experience and I could see the bonding happening when they left. They were like First of all Dana, what did we get out of this? I just felt like I don't know man. I don't know

And so how do you feel about that when when you think about like the beauty that you can bring into a life? That is temporary and then the long-term consequences of the physical and financial and just you know The other aspects of well-being Yes, thank you so much for asking that question and I do both at the

Imagining what else and also just like reality like you gotta have bills to pay and you have you know Things to do but I believe that with your imagination Truly your imagination intact and your feelings

absolutely Clear there's nothing that can scare you in terms of finding your job and I'll give you an example. I Never worked in a tech company. I didn't know anything about technology and I heard that Google was hiring and

Like you don't understand I'm also like dyslexic off the wall and so I I Saw it and I like always marketing and and sales and I'm like, okay, I want to go to Google Right, and then I just started dreaming on how I'm going to walk around that campus I went on a video and watch a bunch of videos and my imagination just took me took me took me

I was right on the campus right, but the time we got to the interview the last interview was like if you were a Vegetable what vegetable you be my imagination when I'm like, of course, I'll be a tomato a Tomato is a vegetable and a free could put it wherever you want. That's the person that I am

immediately my imagination had Was able to allow me to access three different places one to imagine myself in that location at Google in Mountain View in California

To it was able to give me to think beyond What how I'm supposed to be there and So then I became a tomato I could be a tomato. I could be a fruit or vegetable and then third The confidence that imagination gives you it's absolutely endless

And so yes the reality in terms of like paying rent doing all these things It's real it's absolutely real but if we imagine What else can be how we can be

The imagination is the door to it's the gate is the gate just flying it open, you know Yeah, it's a story story. We tell ourselves Not stories that are others tell of how we supposed to be if it's not positive And I think that's very very powerful because if we imagine Then our reality can be different

This is the door that we want to tap in if you want to be anything you first imagine I want to fly I want to do this. I want to reach this height It first starts with your brain exactly with where you can go in there And then from there you set that goal and that is what you reach exactly

I mean, we are all storytellers in our own given rights and Through storytelling either if you're telling a story through beat through you telling a story to colors telling stories to taste Whichever way you tell story to be among humans if you truly love

yourself and love that story like Yeah, like it's not even it's it's not even one plus one equals two. It's just like it's infinity Absolutely infinity. We are infinity Humans we are infinity beings and through our

Imagination and I would and I know we're running out of time. So I believe with the two With the two Influences that I've had recently one is well three actually one is Audre Lorde Audre Lorde

And I was going to project us so you could have it but she was phenomenal She surpasses our time when I read her I feel like I'm leaving a thousand from now where our race as a human is just So easy she makes it so easy by pointing out things that are so hard to be human And then second person is Octavia Butler. It's if you are all about science fiction. She is

like She she is living in a time of AI Walking around sitting right next to us having a conversation with them sharing tea, you know She is she's she's taken us over there and he probably don't know them because they were

African-american black women and no one wanted to publish their Ideas and wanted to publish their story and then the third person is Hank Thomas Willis who is Hank Willis Thomas who is taking oh and then here it is And I'm gonna go really quickly so you could see it but this is my story at very fast

And Is able to walk on us into a place of They're able to welcome us into a place of so Audre Lorde this is my Audrey Lorde

Hang Thomas Willis, I did not put Octavia Butler, but it also to see him strive. I see you are who are like real people And I'll say this as a

conclusion and and please know that this is coming from a place of love and Kindness I Believe that the West the Middle East the South whatever It's so crucial to learn from

the Africans and To learn from Our imagination and our way of creating and it's such in a beautiful invitation because There's so much wealth of what world can be because of so much suffering throughout

Centuries and centuries of suffering what has come out of suffering. It's so Crucial to our humanity moving forward Well, thank you very much Clementine for everything and thank you for allowing us to listen

I was supposed to interview you but you just graced us with everything you said So I'm glad you made our you made my job easier So thank you very much and thank you for teaching us how to love out loud and reminding us of the importance of love I think we have come to the end of our session. Yes. So thank you very much