Eyes on Africa

In the West, Africa tends to be talked about as a homogenous unit. In addition, Western media is hyper-focused on negative stories about African nations and peoples. As a Western person, my lack of knowledge about African countries and positive stories, projects and ideas generated by Africans really bothered me. So I started researching to learn more. This blog collects what I've found, including articles, blogs, facts, photographs and commentaries.

[dynamicafrica]

This year, there are two African individuals on the CNN Heroes 2013 list - anti-female genital cutting and anti-child marriage human rights activist and teacher KenyanKakenya Ntaiya who started the first all-girls school in her village of Enoosaen, and Cameroonian physician Dr. Georges Bwelle who is on a mission to provide much-needed medical care through his travelling clinic initiative in a country where there is only 1 doctor for every 5,000 people.

[dynamicafrica]

"I will not accept an inferior position in the art world. Nor have my art called African because I have not correctly and properly given expression to my reality.

I have consistently fought against that kind of philosophy because it is bogus. European artists like Picasso, Braque and Vlaminck were influenced by African art. Everybody sees that and is not opposed to it. But when they see African artists who are influenced by their European training and technique, they expect that African to stick to their traditional forms even if he bends down to copying them.

I do not copy traditional art. I like what I see in the works of people like Giacometti but I do not copy them. I knew Giacometti personally in England, you know. I knew he was influenced by African sculptures. But I would not be influenced by Giacometti, because he was influenced by my ancestors.”

- Ben Enwonwu

October: Highlighting African Art & African Artists

[eyesonafrica]

Innovation in Africa - women entrepreneurs and innovators

Mary Olushoga, founder of the AWP Network, writes about innovation in Africa from the viewpoint of young female entrepreneurs.

Research from the African Development Bank shows a rise of 10 to 30 percent in women-led enterprises in the last decade. Olushoga asserts that the voices of African women entrepreneurs and innovators cannot be ignored and that African women and girls have an important role in Africa's economic and innovative transformation. In the article, the author talks with a number of women entrepreneurs leading successful companies about this topic.

[eyesonafrica]

[eyesonafrica]

Two African students, Moctar Debélé from Burkina Faso and Gérard Niyondiko from Burundi, won a $25,000 Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) award for their invention of an anti-malarial soap. They are the first non-American born/citizen to win the competition.

[eyesonafrica]

Introduction aka First Post!

Hello,

Welcome to my tumblr page!

This blog is meant to be a place for me to collect different kinds of information about African countries and people, like articles, tumblr posts, highlighted authors, social activist projects, positive news items, etc...

As the title header explains, I wanted to tackle my appalling lack of knowledge about African countries and peoples as well as positive stories, projects and ideas generated by Africans.

Full disclosure, I am not a PoC. I am not an expert by any means so my intention here is NOT to teach anyone (besides myself!) or worse, to "whitesplain." But if anyone finds my tumblr page at all useful or informative, then that makes me very happy.

As a further note, if you see anything you feel is inaccurate, please let me know!

I am also happy to receive advice or suggestions of things I should look at or learn about. I will be forever grateful!

Humbly yours,

Komorebi