Suffering the loss of her father and grandmother, and dealing with the ending of a relationship left the author tired, bereft, disappointed, emotionally drained, and feeling like God had forgotten her. She wondered what she could do to heal from this holy triumvirate of personal pain. She decided that spirituality would be the context from which she would make her journey back to herself. If she felt like God had forgotten her, then she would look for him everywhere and in the eyes of everyone she met. She made a commitment to visit a different place of worship every week for a year, whether that place of worship reflected her religious tradition or not. In total, she visited sixty-one churches, temples, mosques, synagogues, and gathering places in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Nigeria and South Africa. My 52 Weeks of Worship is the story of one woman's courageous journey. Read and see-will her journey lead her to deep, dark places in her soul or help her find peace and acceptance?
Ekpedeme M. Bassey, known to most by the nickname "Pamay," is an entrepreneur, world traveler, educator, writer, comedian, and philosopher. She was born in New York City to Nigerian-born parents, raised in Atlanta, and currently lives in Chicago. She has lived in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and those experiences have shaped who she is. She has friends and family all over the world and has an innate love for learning about different people, different viewpoints, and different cultures.
She is the Chief Experience Officer of "My 52 Weeks of Worship Project" which started when she made a commitment to visit a different place of worship each week in 2010 - whether that place of worship reflected her personal religious tradition or not. As a result, in one year she visited 61 churches, temples, mosques, shuls, synagogues, covens, living rooms, and other places of worship in the USA, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Nigeria and South Africa. .
She has written a book about her experiences called: My 52 Weeks of Worship: Lessons from a Global, Spiritual, Interfaith Journey(Balboa Press, 2012). She also maintains a blog about her on-going experiences (http://www.my52wow.com. She delivers keynote speeches and facilitates a series of workshops, presentations, and learning experiences based on her personal and professional experiences, and on the lessons she learned from her global, spiritual, interfaith journey.
Pamay is the president of The Pamay Group, an e-learning design and strategy company, and has over 18 years of experience in designing and developing learning experiences for K-12, community organizations, corporate and virtual university audiences -- including e-learning, classroom-based training, blended learning solutions, and day-in-the-life simulations. She has worked for and consulted for such companies as Coca Cola USA, McDonald's, Mabam! Entertainment, Sanofi, Accenture, Resources Global, Manpower, Kraft, The Boys and Girls Club, Siemens, HSBC, Pratt and Whitney, and GE Capital. Pamay has managed and designed learning applications that received both the Cindy Award and an Honorable Mention from the Computerworld Smithsonian Program, and holds a patent for a "Goal based system utilizing a table based architecture," which is a system that utilizes a rule based expert training system to provide a cognitive educational experience. In the past, she served as an educational researcher/consultant for projects at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. She has also served as a faculty member for several online universities, including Cardean University, American Intercontinental University Online, and the Art Institute Online, where she has taught User Experience, Computer Applications, and Information Technology courses.
Pamay holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, a course of study that draws from computer science, philosophy, psychology, and linguistics, which she received at the age of 20. Her concentration of study there was Artificial Intelligence. She also holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she studied at The Institute of Learning Sciences under the visionary Roger Schank. She earned a Project Management Certification from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and a Master Online Teacher Certification from the University of Illinois, Springfield.
Pamay is also a graduate of the acclaimed Second City Conservatory program in Chicago, Illinois, which is an advanced study of improvisational comedy and theatre. She has performed as an improviser, comedian, actress and public speaker all over the United States and in West Africa.
Pamay was chosen as Today's Chicago Woman's "Woman to Watch" in 2001, selected as one of the "Top 40 Nigerians under 40 in the USA" in 2005, serves on the Chicago Board of the African Women's Development Fund, and is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.
