The Lion Continent’s Finest Roar Into Zhongguancun for Africa Dialogues, Oct 13

In the past year, a number of Beijing’s African expats working in the arts, as entrepreneurs, and in a variety of other fields have coordinated a large number events that seem unprecedented in the capital. But Gaelle Ayamou, a founding member and head spokesperson of the university student lead startup and social enterprise Duapa Africa, says all this is no reason for them to rest on laurels. Africa Dialogues, slated for Oct 13 in the west end Beijing neighborhood of Zhongguancun will keep the up the momentum, featuring a number of African expats who will share candid details trials, triumphs and more via a panel discussion, speeches, performances and more. 

Be it BLK GEN’s slam poetry nights, the multidisciplinary Africa Week or the Africa 2.0 Dialogue, last year’s slew of events have seen the profile of Africa themed happenings in the capital go from next to nil to a quite regular. However Ayamou, who is from Cameroon, says “We need many more events and platforms that bring the dialogue down to people to people exchanges, and that will help to bridge more gaps and correct more stereotypes... because most of the dialogue is still done at the political level and the business level... So there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.”

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In order to maintain the gains that she and her fellow African expats have made this past year, Ayamou and her Duapa cohorts have planned a unique event for this weekend, one of the main highlights including “talks during which Africans actually get to share their personal and authentic experiences growing up and living in Africa, which will allow the audience to see Africa the way they do.” 

She hopes that the event will bring “the discourse down to the people-to-people level to better engage the audience,” while also working to broaden that audience beyond African and Chinese to make a more inclusive and diverse mix. 

Among those set to take the stage will be H.E. Tania Romualdo (Ambassador of the Embassy of Cabo Verde in People's Republic of China), Mariatu Kargbo (a performer, model and TV celebrity from Sierra Leone who has won awards like Miss Sierra Leone in 2009 and the CCTV Chinese Opera Award for Foreigner Performance 2016), Zahra Baitie (pictured in the lead image above; founder of Kente and Silk, a social enterprise focused on changing the status quo Sino-Africa relations), Badr Benjelloun (owner of Moroccan bar and restaurant Caravan), Hannah Wanjie Ryder (CEO of Kenyan wholly foreign-owned Development Reimagined, an international consultancy enterprise), and Nyina-mugasha (a Ugandan writer, illustrator and fashion guru).

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African Dialogues will be held Oct 13. For more information click here or see the poster below.

Photos: Courtesy of the organizers