Discussions about travel and our world.
KEY ISSUES… How often do you think about clean water or climate change? Could you live on $1 a day? According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. There are 27 million people enslaved around the world due to human trafficking. Approximately, 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to…
PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS: My family has a history with China. In the late 1980’s, my mom – Janie Sykes-Kennedy – was invited by the U.S. Housing & Urban Development and the Department of Commerce as one of 14 delegates to go to the People’s Republic of China on the first trade mission of American women. After that trip, she secured a contract from the China Building Technology Center and started a new company, China Today, Inc., which for five years, distributed a journal called Building in China.
PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS: In the 1990s, I spent time in Johannesburg and Cape Town with my mom. I was participating in the Harvard Business School International Alumni Conference and then we spent additional time exploring. A couple of good friends showed us around Jo’burg – giving us the “insider’s tour” – one taking us into the townships and the other to key business sites and wonderful restaurants.
PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS: I made my first trip to Jordan in May 2009 for the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and the Young Global Leader Summit. Despite the suicide bomb attacks in 2005 (for which Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility), Jordan is one of the most peaceful countries in the region.
PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS: My first trip to Brazil was with my mom and sister in the 1990s. We decided to take a girls vacation and spent most of the time on the beach in Rio de Janiero. In 2000, right after I left MTV Networks, I went back with a former boyfriend. He also had worked in the music industry and we were scouting Brazilan talent. We had local contacts shows us around.
GLOBAL VIEW: Although I am American, I was blessed to have an international upbringing. My parents were pioneers in cross-cultural communications and Learning through the Arts. I was born in Accra, Ghana; started school in Adelaide, Australia; and as a Stetcher Scholar, studied and lived in Rome, Italy. I have traveled to over 30 countries around the world and have been on all continents except for Antarctica. I am joyful when I board trains and planes (not necessarily automobiles).
