TAN – The Afro News

African Cultural Winter Celebration, hosted by REACH Multicultural Family Center (MFC)

By Jenny Francis The Afro News Burnaby

An important community event took place at Eastburn Community Centre in Burnaby on 12 December 2009. The 3rd annual African Cultural Winter Celebration, hosted by REACH Multicultural Family Center (MFC) brought together approximately two hundred people from all over the world. Following prayers in Arabic and English, guests enjoyed a delicious halal meal prepared by Iraqi and African women, musical entertainment by the Togolese Ensemble and Zion’s Children of God (from Congo), and inspired storytelling by Jean-Pierre Makosso. Welcoming speeches were offered by guests of honour including NDP MP Peter Julian; Burnaby City Counsellors Sav Dhaliwal and Paul McDonell; Ros Salvador, a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre; and Lina Fabiano, interim Executive Director of REACH Community Health Centre. After the performances, a crowd of adults and children hit the dance floor, shaking it to the sound of DJ beats. At the end of the night, laundry baskets filled with donated gifts were distributed to sixty-five families and individuals. Guests and organisers expressed their appreciation for the generosity of the donors (local businesses and individuals) who contributed items to the baskets.

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Reforming Leadership Across Africa

Reforming Leadership Across Africa ,Author: J. William Addai

Publisher: Publishers Graphics Indiana, USA, 2009 Price: US$24.99 plus shipping

Reviewer: Kofi Akosah-Sarpong The Afro News International

Increasingly, leadership has emerged as a key factor in Africa’s progress. Bewildered leadership schemes have seen a good part of post-independent Africa sinking, some leading to horrible civil wars and state paralysis. Africa’s leadership jam reveals that African elites have not understood their environment in relation to Africa’s progress, especially how to draw leadership materials from within their raw cultural values. Nigerians, Kenyans, Guineans and Central Africans will tell you they have everything but leadership. This acknowledgement was revived when I read Reforming Leadership in Africa, a contribution to the on-going discussions continent-wide for the need to appropriate Africa’s cultural values and institutions into Africa’s progress, as a matter of psychology, confidence, dignity and logic. Such appropriation will help the continent’s progress by fostering the required self-assurance considered necessary for progress. The schism in Africa’s leadership organization has come about because the ex-colonial structures have not been harmonized skillfully enough with Africa’s indigenous ones, especially in the on-going decentralization exercises and the talk of developing new leaders for tomorrow’s Africa.

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