Afro-Bloggers Convention (ABC)

The Afro-Bloggers convention was held online via Zoom, on 19 and 20^th June 2020 for the second time, with the theme of this year being ‘Our Image, Our Story, Our Voice’.

The convention was initiated by Afrobizgermany, a platform that promotes the good image of the black community. The convention aims at motivating people of African descent to tell their stories with their own voices.

The scope of the conference covered a wide range of topics. It covers education, media, the Effect of covid-19 on businesses and community, Wealth building, empowerment, Youth Leadership, and culture.  

The aim of this project is to bring Africans around the world together, to discuss solutions to challenges in our various communities, and promote investment by collaborating with business investors within and outside our communities.   

Dr. Umar Johnson on Education

Dr. Umar Johnson spoke extensively on the need for the re-education of people. He explained institutional racism taking place around the world, the institutions in this context are the schools, hospitals, banks, prisons, police, supermarkets, the criminal justice system, etc. These institutions work together to form a system that is intertwined.   He highlighted the 3 main goals of education as shown below:

The 3 main Goals of Education

1. To train children how to work together: Socialization is the number one goal of education.
2. Train our children in selfless sacrificial leadership/ motivate them
3. To teach children how to take over and take back control of all things necessary to become the world’s superpower as it was before economic domination.

Mr. Eric Kabera on Media

Mr. Eric Kabera emphasized the importance to own our narratives, it requires political mind-shift, personal mind-shift, and economic investment.

“The civilization in the African continent is older than any other civilization in the world, we don’t have to shout it, we just have to show it” – Eric kabera

The continent of Africa is being exploited by other people except by its own people.

Our Image is our future, it is our identity, it is what people see. We have to be in control of our narratives, it starts with small steps.

Ms. Philly Makora on Lessons learnt from Covid-19

Ms. Philly Makora gave various examples of the impact of covid-19 pandemic, as it affected trade between countries. Small businesses are mostly affected and these businesses support our communities and families in our various African countries.

Mr. NJ Ayuk on Wealth building

Mr. NJ Ayuk pointed out the obvious facts that although we have top-notch of all the resources in the world, we still lag behind in development.

He stated that:

• The African continent is the only continent today with lots of opportunities
• The biggest issue facing the African continent now is ‘Energy Poverty’

Ms. Mema Ngunga on Afro-Empowerment

The confidence of the young African needs to be boosted and they can be empowered when they see people like themselves as positive role models.

Mr. Gabriel Eze on Leadership

The largest concentration of young people on earth is in the African continent and leadership across the continent is questionable.

A leader can cause people or a society to either move forward or backward. Leadership is a chain: there are leadership positions on different levels of the society, for example, family, community, street, state/region etc.

There exists today, a lack or inadequacy of leadership education. We must note that

• Nobody is born a Leader
• Leadership must be seen as a body of knowledge that must be passed from one generation to another
• A good leader acknowledges and respects other good leaders.

Mrs. Faith Mkwesha on Culture

Culture is a part of who we are as people. When culture is removed from any individual, they will struggle with an identity crisis. A typical example is the looting of Artifacts from various parts of the African continent. These are not just artworks; they hold cultural value and should be returned to where they belong.

Mr. Kumbirai Chipadza on Impact of Africans in the Diaspora

Identity of the younger generation is affected especially kids growing up in a different school culture for example in Germany. Job wise, the question is, do you have an equal opportunity as someone who is from that country?

Being in the diaspora creates synergies and networks because no imaginary borders exist, unlike on the continent of Africa.

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