African Community Meets Business, Education and Politic at One Year Jubiläum of African Consultative Forum (ACF) and Afrika Tag 2013 Hamburg
The one-year anniversary of the African Consultative Forum (ACF) and the Africa Day 2013 celebration in Hamburg has come and gone. The memories lingers. The weather reminded all of us that we are still in Germany, blessing the whole day with a down pour and the Classic champion’s league Final fever could be felt with the average turn out. In spite of that we managed to bring in the sun shine and positive African Energy to the event.
ACF, an advisory forum for the African community in Hamburg, was launched to articulate the needs of the African community in Hamburg and to formulate, promote self-help project and initiatives, as well as act as the multicultural platform for peaceful coexistence among all migrant groups to act in the Hanseatic city. According to Hon. Kenneth Gbandi in his speech, he stressed in this speech that for years the state of Hamburg have been speaking about the African community but not speaking with the community. For Years governments have invested heavily on some government appointed associations and immigrants NGOs who claim to be speaking on behalf of Africans communities without commensurate results. ACF hopes to bridges these gaps. While there are many competent NGOs and Association with the exclusion of African Christian council with membership of over 25 African churches, all are either ethnic oriented or services the immigrant group in general. African community has peculiar problems and this cannot be articulated by ethic oriented NGOs or immigrant oriented NGOs. The problem of the community must be articulated by competent individuals with proven track records and luckily some of them could be found in ACF.
The opening ceremony of one year jubilee commenced with Jumaat Service at the Nasrul Faida Moschee, Hamburg followed by an Interdenominational services ( Interreligiöser Gottesdienst) at African Center Hamburg (Erlöserkirche Borgfelde). Guest at the ( Interreligiöser Gottesdienst) includes the host Pastors; Pastor Prince Ossai Okeke, chairman (African Christian Council Hamburg e.V), Apostle Boateng Bona Siriboe (African Christian Council Hamburg e.V. and Pastor Peter Sorie Mansaray (Interkulturelles Leben Hamburg). Others are Herr Staatsrat Pörksen und Petra Lotzkat, Amtsleiterin (Behörde für Arbeit, Soziales, Familie und Integration Amt für Arbeit und Integration), Regina Hartung (Beratungsstelle interkulturelle Erziehung, dem Landessinstitut für Lehrerbildung und Schulentwicklung), Pastor Darlingthon Jacobs (Chapel of Believers Int. Min), Pastor Kakambowa, Dr. Frank Codjoe (co-odinating Secretary ACF) , Pastor Felix and representatives of various associations. The Interreligiöser Gottesdienst offers prayers for the African community, the African Continent and the Government of Hamburg and Germany. The services also offer Hon. Kenneth Gbandi, Sprecher AFC Hamburg und Vertreter der Afrika-Region im Integrationsbeirat, Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg to give insight into the work of the Beirat and the activities of ACF since its foundation.
This was followed by seminars and workshops on education with ReBBZ Hamburg-Harburg (formely known as Rebus Hamburg) and Jugendamt Hamburg-Mitte, presented by Frau Dey( ReBBZ Wilhelmsburg) and Frau Nti (Allgemeiner Sozialer Dienst, Jugendamt HH-Mitte (Wilhemlsburg)/ Elbinsel) and Irene Appiah, Behörde für Schule und Berufsbildung Hamburg/ACF-Fachsprecherin für Bildung.
Clement Klutse ( MBA) Business consultant by Arbeitsgemeinschaft selbstständiger Migranten e.V. (ASM) and his colleague Ms. Meyrem Celikkol (ASM) presented infomation on Funding & Professionalization of NGOs and Existenzgründung.
Tab A Tab presented her African collection and Young CRhyme and Herren Simple added colour to the event. Jen Martens anchorned the event.
The African Imbiss at the end of the event gave guest opportunity for interaction and exchange of views on politics and the state of the community.
African Heritage Community desk
