Meet Victor Ladele, Head of Exploration for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at the Pacific Office Accelerator Lab in Fiji.
Based in Suva, Fiji, Victor is a father, tech wizard and a deep thinker who is originally from Nigeria. In Fiji, he works to inject more innovation into how UNDP does business. As part of one of the first cohorts of the UNDP’s accelerator lab, he’s responsible for about a dozen Pacific Island countries. Victor applies his medical background working as a doctor in development and humanitarian contexts to the search for emerging, under-the-radar solutions to issues such as climate change, urbanization, mass unemployment, and disease control in the Pacific region. Although Victor has years of experience solving problems with communities on the ground, translating his work to a digital audience is a whole new experience.
Elyse:
Welcome to episode 3 of Humans of UNDP: a podcast where we to get to know fellow colleagues and where we explore how we connect and communicate in the digital age.
Today co-producer, Oscar Durand, and I are calling Victor Ladele, who is in Fiji.
Oscar:
Hello
Victor:
Hi
Oscar:
Hello, Victor. How are you?
Victor:
Yeah, fine thanks. Can you hear me?
Oscar:
Yes, I hear you.
Victor:
Awesome.
Oscar:
What time is it there?
Victor:
It's nine o'clock on Thursday morning.
Oscar:
Wow, so you are in the future?
Victor:
I am in the future so if you need lottery numbers just let me know.
Elyse:
Currently Victor serves as Head of Exploration, for the UNDP Pacific Office Accelerator Lab. He leads the search for emerging, under-the-radar solutions to development issues such as climate change, urbanization, mass unemployment and disease control.
Victor:
The accelerator labs, I don't know if you know about it, are one of UNDP's recent initiatives to inject more innovation into the way UNDP does business. I am part of the first cohorts of the accelerator lab and I'm deployed in Fiji. So I'm not just responsible for Fiji, the accelerator lab here is responsible for 10 or 14 of the Pacific countries, depends on who you're asking.
In case you’re wondering, no Victor, is not speaking to us from a hammock on the beach. He’s actually at his office, in Suva, the capital of Fiji.
Victor:
Yeah, Fiji is a volcanic island so there's a view of both the mountains and the ocean. When I wake up... I like to work out in the morning and when I come out of my house that's the sight I see, my favorite time of the day.
Suva is a small capital. There's one main road that passes through the city. You see lots of like hybrid cars, lots of Toyota Priuses.
You hear bula a lot, that's the greeting. Bula means hello, it means goodbye, it means welcome, it means almost everything.
The hustle and bustle of most of our major cities is not really here, things are on what they call Fiji time. It's like a laid back, island vibe, which I like.
Elyse:
We spoke with Victor when he was on a field mission surveying farmers in Viti Levu, one of largest of Fiji’s 300 islands.
Victor:
So yesterday when in the field, even though I couldn't speak a word of Hindi, but when we meet, the first thing everybody says is bula. Bula it forms a common basis. Say, Okay. Yes. We bond over bula and then we sit on those that are trying to communicate either sign language or pidgin English or pidgin Fijian or something. And then you eventually, you know, we get through a communication equilibrium.
Elyse:
This is Victor’s first year in Fiji working with UNDP. He’s originally from Nigeria. Before moving here, he worked all throughout Africa. He’s moved around so much that
Victor:
Look at any time right now, at any time, anywhere you find me. I'm usually able to pack my whole life into two boxes.
Elyse:
He’s used to traveling, but living somewhere as remote as Fiji is challenging. His parents and siblings live in Nigeria and his wife and young sons live in the United States.
Victor:
I consider myself a family man. I love to view my family. I love my kids. I'm always conflicted at why I'm not such a presence in their life. That's one of the things that gives me pain at times.
Elyse:
He is 16 time zones ahead of his family. He calls his wife when he walks to work in the morning and he calls his kids to read them bedtime stories just after he finishes lunch.
Victor:
My wife works in the children's hospital in Oklahoma City. I think she's my best friend. Where we're close, even though we not live together for the most part. I've been working in Africa in different development and humanitarian contexts. She's been in the US. She did a residency fellowship. She's working there now. So we keep in touch mostly, unfortunately, by phone, by Facetime, by digital means.
Elyse:
When we asked Victor about what a typical day in the life for him there sounds like, he surprised us with a detailed excel spreadsheet and recordings of his hour by hour activities.
Victor:
I wake up, grab my phone, quickly check WhatsApp, check emails, drop phone, change to workout gear, run outside. I work with a trainer on three days in the week.
Do H-I-I-T for an hour, go back home, bathe, change. Most days I walk to the office, it's not that far. Usually I spend the first one hour just organizing my workflow, then there are lots of meetings because we're still a new animal in the office so many agencies, many teams in the office, many project teams want to talk with us and see how we can help them.
Elyse:
Victor may be in Fiji, but the laidback island lifestyle hasn’t rubbed off on him too much. Given Victor’s background, I shouldn’t be surprised. Even as a kid, growing up in Nigeria, he was disciplined and methodical about how he spent his days.
Victor
One significant thing of my very early years was religion. My parents were very religious and they were one of the strict branches of Christianity. So for the first 10 years growing up, we didn't have a television in the house. Not because we couldn't afford it, but because it was deemed to be like a negative influence. But the flip side of that is that made me like...my mom was a lecturer in library science and all that. So we had like we had books, shelves of books in the house. I just read a lot. Encyclopedia Britannica...I probably read it cover to cover, all these volumes several times. I just developed the habit of reading at that time.
Elyse:
He left his home when he was only nine years old to go to high school and then at 16, went to college to become a doctor.
Victor:
High school was a military school, it was a boys only school, it was a boarding school. I mean, it was an elite school then and it was very hard to get into. But life was really tough. One, I was underexposed. I was very young. It was a really tough environment. Out of seven days in the week, we had academic training four days a week, and military training one day a week. And that was like full military training. we would go to the field, learn how to read maps, learn how to survive in the forest, and in different environments. So, you know, the next six years from that time were my transition from childhood, I think to adulthood.
Elyse:
It’s hard to imagine an ordinary kid navigating all this. But Victor had an extraordinary childhood. From an early age he learned to push himself to think deeply and to develop his passion for learning into making an actual impact.
Victor:
We grew up in neighborhoods where, like, everyone was in the same place. The parents were friendly. Kids were all friendly. We used to roam around. Climb trees, you know swim in creeks, play soccer in the streets. And it was really cool. It was nice growing up. I was the first born for five years I was the only child. So I enjoyed some of the privileges of that. I have very fond memories of that period. My family was close. We used to travel together. I think who I am today and some of the roots of my choice of career was from there because the other side of them being in that Christian sect is that there was an emphasis on reaching out to the underprivileged. At least once a month we used to go to rural areas and my parents to teach the children and teach the parents or just to try and improve their standard of living in other ways, like a routine in the house.
Elyse:
Victor continued working in development and humanitarian work as a doctor across the public and private sectors. He has served as a Blue Helmet with multiple UN Peacekeeping Missions and worked with the World Health Organization in various contexts, including responding to Ebola, HIV, and Tuberculosis emergencies.
Victor:
And I moved on to making impact against systematic problems, which is my role now with UNDP. So early in my career I developed a fondness for intervening at the community level, very early, just right after medical school.
Elyse:
Victor brings his passion for working in the field and with the community into his work today.
Victor:
I see myself honestly as like I'm very happy to be the role of a bridge or a translator, a translator in many different worlds because of my unique journey, which has been painful at times. I can relate to those on both ends of the spectrum.
Elyse:
Yet when it comes to expressing himself digitally, it’s a whole new experience.
We will hear more from Victor later this season about how he approaches his biggest challenge... writing for social media.
Oscar:
When you communicate your work, yourself, without relying on the communication department, when you market your work. What are the challenges that you have?
Victor:
Honestly, this feels like therapy because something that's you're asking the question. I've never asked myself that question. The first answer that came to my mind was self-consciousness. I think on Twitter, I sometimes hesitate to put out content because I'm like, how will it be received? And I'm pretty sure or other people face that as well.
Elyse:
Stay tuned for the next episode of Humans of UNDP, where we will go back to visit Aitor Rubio in Denmark.
Elyse:
This episode of Humans of UNDP is produced by Oscar Durand and myself. Our theme music is by Lemon Guo, additional music by Chris Zabriskie. Sound design by myself. Special thanks to Victor Ladele for sharing his time, story, and sounds with us. To listen and subscribe, go to wherever you find your podcasts or DigitalNow DOT UNDP DOT org.
I’m Elyse Blennerhassett. Stay with us.