[yaleafrica]

AFRICA SALON | CONCERT

Featuring four contemporary African acts:

Just A Band Jean Grae Kae Sun FELA aKUsTIc

Saturday, March 28th 7pm Free Battell Chapel 400 College Street New Haven, CT

RSVP here

[yaleafrica]

ANNOUNCING: Africa Salon, Yale University’s first-ever contemporary African arts & culture festival. Explore & register at africasalon.org

[yaleafrica]

Coming soon...

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Remember that time we hosted the Yale premiere of Finding Fela and Broadway musical star Sahr Ngaujah was there? We just shared the video of Sahr introducing the film! Watch at the link above. #throwbackthursday #yourewelcome

[yaleafrica]

Grammy Award winner Angelique Kidjo's December concert at Yale was nonstop fun. The Beninese singer and her band, alongside Shades, the Yale Percussion Group, Yale Concert Band, and Yale Symphony Orchestra (YSO), introduced audience members from Yale and New Haven to Kidjo's hits and songs reimagined with accompaniment from the Yale ensembles. Highlights included: an impromptu dance party during Kidjo's cover of Miriam Makeba's "Pata Pata"; an onstage jam session with Kidjo, band, and audience members; and not one, but two encores, including crowd favorite "Agolo." Kidjo will be back in New Haven in June 2015 for the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. We cannot wait!

For more on the concert, click here.

Photo credit to Judy Sirota Rosenthal

[yaleafrica]

ANNOUNCING: Angélique Kidjo, international afropop superstar, is coming to Yale! 

Saturday, December 6th Woolsey Hall (500 College Street, New Haven, CT) 3pm

Alongside Kidjo will be Shades, the only a cappella group at Yale dedicated to the music of the African diaspora, the Yale Percussion Group, Yale Concert Band, and Yale Symphony Orchestra. You don't want to miss this. Get more info and tickets here!

[yaleafrica]

For us, every week is Africa Week. But last week was officially Africa Week 2014, an annual series of show-stopping Africa events presented by the Yale African Students Association (YASA). This year featured talks by the youngest parliamentarian on the continent, South Africa's Lindiwe Mazibuko; Forbes-recognized entrepreneur and 2014 TED Global Fellow, Sangu Delle of Ghana; and Nigerian female entrepreneur and House of Tara founder, Tara Fela-Durotoye. YASA members presented a slew of heavy-hitting events as well, including a contemporary African dance master class led by Nodumo Ncomanzi '16 and a cultural show featuring African fashion, spoken word, and a Sauti Sol cover by our favorite African a cappella group, Asempa!, that got a shout-out from the award-winning Kenyan band themselves! Our students make us entirely too proud.

Check out full coverage of Africa Week here and view photos here.

Photo credit to Houriiyah Tegally '16

[yaleafrica]

In November 2014, the Yale Global Health Leadership Initiative (GHLI) hosted the "Strategic Thinking in Foreign Affairs Symposium." Sixteen delegates from the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs explored grand strategy, issues in governance, the future of China-Africa relations, business development, and more with Yale faculty, including GHLI Faculty Director Dr. Elizabeth Bradley (pictured right). Leading practitioners also led interactive lectures and provided practical support. At the end of the Symposium, delegates presented original strategies to be implemented upon their return to Ethiopia. We loved getting to know them, including State Minister Yinager Dessie (pictured left).

See more of the symposium here.

Photo credit to Harry Bishop

[yaleafrica]

Members of the Yale School of Management's Black Business Alliance organized the first-ever Africa Business Practicum, a one-day workshop tackling real challenges faced by businesses in or seeking to enter Africa. Participants from Yale, the Wharton School, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and other top business schools collaborated on potential solutions and received feedback from practitioners like the Yale World Fellows. Students from Lagos Business School and the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business participated via videoconference. Bravo to the student organizers for creating such a dynamic event!

See more of the practicum here.

[yaleafrica]

Nigeria came to Yale this October! Seventeen Nigerian professionals traveled to campus for the 2014 Nigeria Leadership Initiative Fellows Seminar, a leadership development conference for exceptional members of the NLI. Participants included Hadiza Bala Usman (pictured in yellow scarf), founder of #BringBackOurGirls, and Audu Maikori (pictured center), founder and CEO of Chocolate City, Africa's biggest entertainment company. The group spent a week discussing Nigeria's economic future, emotionally intelligent leadership, entrepreneurship, city building, and more with Yale professors, U.S. ambassadors, and representatives from the City of New Haven. At the end of the program, the NLI awarded participants Fellow status within the organization. Now they're off to do more great work in Nigeria and around the world!

See more of the Fellows Seminar here.

[yaleafrica]

We had a great time at the 45th Anniversary of the Afro-American Cultural Center this weekend. The Anniversary featured lots of great African content, from a performance by Yale's "afropella" (African a cappella) group Asempa(!) to the "Africa Now" panel, where our very own Rachel Nyaradzo Adams spoke on key ways Yale should engage with the continent. Here she is alongside (pictured left to right) Jeannine Scott '85, President of the U.S.-Angola Chamber of Commerce, Ruth Botsio '09, lawyer and former Yale African Students Association (YASA) President, and panel moderator Ivuoma Onyeador '11, Social Psychology PhD candidate and Vice President of the Yale Black Alumni Association. Current YASA President Esther Soma '16 and History and African-American Studies PhD candidate Wendell Adjetey also sat on the panel. It was so good to have Africa in the House!

See more of the event here.

[yaleafrica]

The former Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, came to campus last week to deliver the 2014 Coca-Cola World Fund at Yale Lecture, sponsored by the MacMillan Center, the Yale Law School, and the Yale School of Management. His Excellency spoke to a full house on "Afro-Optimism: Has the Pendulum Swung Too Far?" Besides his lecture, HE Odinga found the time to give multiple interviews, sign a wall of famous Yale speakers at the Yale Broadcast Studio, have lunch with Kenyan students, and even hang out with the former President of Mexico. Not a bad first visit at all. We can't wait to have him back on campus.

See more of the event here.

[yaleafrica]

#TBT to the Yale premiere of Finding Fela with the talented and dynamic Sahr Ngaujah (pictured above). We absolutely loved hearing what Sahr had to say about playing the legendary Nigerian musician and activist Fela Kuti. Missed the film screening (and the reception beforehand)? Click here for info on future Yale Africa events. 

See more of the event here.