Listen to the lastest program on KALW in San Francisco on Africans in the
Ms. Christine Chacha (affectionately called Mama Chacha) is one of the honorees of the Second Annual Ubuntu Awards Dinner !
She was recently announced as the recepient of the Jefferson Awards !
December 21, 2011, El Sobrante California
This week’s Jefferson Award winner is an East Bay teacher who immigrated to the United States 20 years ago. But she has never forgotten the experience of being new to a country and culture, and she never forgot the homeland she left behind. So she’s using her experience to change lives both in the Bay Area and in the African village that was once her home.
You’ll find the village of Shirati, Tanzania near the banks of Lake Victoria. You’ll also find a lot of work going on: a new school – a new rainwater collection system, and improvements to the hospital. It’s all thanks in large part to the efforts of a woman who lives 10,000 miles away. Read more............
Priority Africa Network (PAN) works with diverse immigrant community groups in the Bay Area to provide information
resources, networkign opportunities to foster collaboration and basic capacity building. For the past few years, PAN has conducted ongoing community forums that bring together various leaders from immigrant communities in Africa, to forge collaboration and mutual support on the critical issues that effect our lives.
The Bay Area has one of the highest concentration of populations from different African countries, one research shows at least 2% of the Bay Area population are immigrants from Africa. Distinct in their cultural and inguistic origins, many are organized in clusters of ethnic or national identity and remain excluded from major institutions that provide social and support services. Increasing visibility of the community groups and actively working for involvement and civic engagement is one of the programs we work on.
In 2011 PAN was actively mobilizing among the neo-diasporan African community to facilitae information and training.
Nationally, PAN works to address the need for African immigrant inclusion at the national level by providing new analyis and perspectives on race and immigration as relate to the immigrant communities.
Internationally, PAN has joined various global forums that look at policies affecting African immigrants' plight internally and to Europe and the United States. In June, PAN was represented in the formation of a new Pan African Network in Defence of Migrants' Rights held in Bamako Mali.
Can you guess how many individuals from Africa and the diaspora have been
recipients of the highly coveted Nobel Prize ? Read more here....
*****************Brief history of African migration to the U.S
Global migration has doubled over the past 25 years. The UN estimates there are over 200 million people living outside their countries of birth. According to the
African Union, nearly 1/3 of these are Africans. Africans make up the highestnumber of displaced persons in the world.
What does this mean for Africans in the US ? According to the last US Census of 2000, there are approximately 1.7 million people in the US who claim Africa their region of birth. The number of African immigrants in the US has increased several fold over the past decade and a half. Consider this: in the two decade between 1960 and 1980, the number of Africans in the US was estimated at 110,000. Over the next twenty years of 1980 to 2000 however, the number increased to over 530,000.
Bringing it closer to the Bay Area – the numbers for California are the following: Total CA population is 35 million, approximately 9.6 million are foreign born, of which approx. 185,000 are Africa born. For updated US Census figures on the Africa-born in the U.S. see Migration Policy Institute's newly released report
The Bay Area has a high percentage of African immigrants. In San Francisco and especially Oakland, there are restaurants, hair salons, arts and crafts shops visible all over the cities. African professionals work in various city, university/college and corporate offices, and families living and attending schools in the inner cities and suburbs of the Greater Bay Area. Alameda County has the highest number of African immigrant residents in California following Los Angeles County.
For more detailed facts and figures of recent African migration to the U.S. visit the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, “In Motion”
The need to organize and build connected communities
There are as many African immigrant groups as there are countries and ethnic identities. Some are formally organized with California tax exemption status and offices, others less so, but organized just the same and meeting regularly.
The communities provide essential services to members, many of which remain unknown and un-acknowledged by Bay Area social services, elected officials and the public at large. Immigrant community associations provide information on housing, employment, health, education, transport and social/cultural rituals that immigrants depend on. They also facilitate as interpreters of language and conduits of cultural understanding without which many new immigrants would be highly disadvantaged.
Priority Africa Network mobilizes leadership of such communities to focus on the need of building the capacity, increase visibility and engagement in civic activities. We do so by providing information to community groups on activities and opportunities in the Bay Area they may benefit from:
1. hold capacity building forums where African immigrant community groups may access information on organization building, accessing funding, leadership training and networking.
2. conducting African Diaspora Dialogues to build cultural alliances and solidarity between African immigrants and African Americans
3. Opportunities for civic engagement and voter registration where African immigrants can be seen and heard on issues of immigration reform, living wages, housing, school board, etc.
PAN shares an office and works in collaboration with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).
Read ongoing blog on new migrations within and out of Africa - click here
