Event Kicks Off Africa Week

Harvard’s Youth Alliance for Leadership and Development in Africa (YALDA) sponsored “Uniting the African Diaspora: Building the Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network” yesterday to begin Africa Week, a program sponsored by Harvard African Students Association (HASA).

“Everyone in the African Diaspora needs to know that this goal of Pan-Africanism is happening right now,” said Ras N. Blake, director of the African Union Sixth Region 2006 Education Campaign, who spoke at the event.

“[W]e’re building this network of all the different groups in the Diaspora so they can be part of the representation.”

Harvard is the third stop on Blake’s campaign, which began at Howard University and will include 100 locations in total.

“Most people in the African Diaspora are unaware of what the African Union is,” said YALDA member Martha A. Tesfalul ’09. “We want to popularize that and get information to people so that civil society in the African Diaspora can make its contribution.”

Blake showed a documentary chronicling the transition of the Organization of African Unity, founded in 1963, into the African Union in 2002, and spoke of reconnecting Africans who had been brought to the west because of the trans-Atlantic slave trade with the Africans currently in the continent.

“There is no country in Africa that needs to be free. What we need to do now is consolidate our freedom,” Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe said in the documentary. “We must go a much further distance in uniting ourselves economically.”

Blake drew parallels between the founders of the AU and the Continental Congress of the United States, as well as student advocates of the past, saying that it was ultimately up to students to spread the word.

“We’re making history right now,” Blake said.

Although there were only a few students in attendance, those who were there said they were seriously considering the goals of African unity.

“I’m interested in working in Ghana probably, which is where my family is from originally,” said Kafui E. Gbewonyo ’07, who is a member of both YALDA and HASA. Gbewonyo expressed interest in working with environmental, public health, and cultural issues.

Laura M. F. Pickard ’06, who organized the event, says she became interested in YALDA because she was interested in development issues in Africa.

The goal of YALDA is to unite students with a common interest in Africa, increase contacts among youth and African leaders internationally, and promote cooperation on development issues.

-Staff writer Joyce Y. Zhang can be reached at jyzhang@fas.harvard.edu