Lou Radja: Everyone deserves the opportunity to dance

“Jam­bo!”

Lou Rad­ja announces the Swahili greet­ing wher­ev­er he goes in his deep boom­ing voice and broad smile. It’s almost impos­si­ble not to smile back.

Rad­ja, 39, grew up in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, Africa, and, like his par­ents, attend­ed col­lege in the Unit­ed States. The gift of edu­ca­tion changed his fam­i­ly tree, and his life’s pur­pose is to return the favor.

“It’s essen­tial for our own sur­vival to take care of one anoth­er. There’s noth­ing spe­cial about it,” he said, “except human beings giv­ing every­one an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dance.”

One of his favorite say­ings from his vast col­lec­tion, is “when you take the ele­va­tor to the top; always send it back down for some­one else.”

Near­ly 50 years ago, mis­sion­ar­ies gave his father a chance to go to col­lege, not because he was smarter than every­one else, Rad­ja said, but because he was lucky.

“That’s when you real­ize that every­one has this organ­ic bril­liance but not every­one has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case it,” he said. “That moti­vates me even more to give oth­ers the same oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

“I already know they are bril­liant,” he said, “all they need is a dance floor.”

Rad­ja found­ed EduCon­go, a U.S. based non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that helps more than 2,000 under­priv­i­leged chil­dren in the Con­go get a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion. It’s his way of send­ing the ele­va­tor back down for some­one else.

Rad­ja is also a moti­va­tion­al speak­er who draws on his expe­ri­ence grow­ing up in Con­go and his edu­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States to inspire peo­ple to be more and give more. Rad­ja will share his talk “Africa, my roots. Amer­i­ca, my wings” at TEDxSalem Sat­ur­day, Oct. 3, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

To hear Radja’s talk and lis­ten to oth­er TEDxSalem speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.

A few of Radja’s favorite quotes:

“Life isn’t about wait­ing for the storm to pass…It’s about learn­ing to dance in the rain.”
‑Vivian Greene

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with oth­ers.”
‑African proverb

“Twen­ty Years From Now You Will Be More Dis­ap­point­ed By The Things You Didn’t Do Than By The Ones You Did Do…Explore. Dream. Dis­cov­er.”
‑Attrib­uted to Mark Twain