AFRICA WORKS IN 2011 – Milestones and appreciation

From a very humble beginning, born out of a common idea of two people from different continents and with the support of others who shared our vision, Africa Works project has had its full year of existence. The nobel ideas of  its founders to throw light on the good news of Africa and encourage Africans to believe in themselves has attracted the support of several individuals and organizations in Africa and elsewhere. Africa Works has over the last year promoted, encouraged and supported several African  social, economic, cultural and technological initiatives in 2011.

As the year draws to a close, we would like to reflect on our promise of making a difference together, acknowledge the contributions of individual and organizations for helping us keep our promise.

KEY MILESTONES

Despite the limitation of time and resources, we were able to add over 20 new videoscasts in 2011 to our video portal. Each video depicts a different side of Africa. The videocasts were mostly African events in and out of Africa and interviews with individuals.

Project Collaborations

We were surprised when we started this project to see how many initiatives exist to tell the African story. We have followed quite a number of projects and had the precilidge to discuss much deeper collaborations with a few. It is indeed only when individuals and groups come together that Africa will have a much stronger voice. We would particularly like to thank Discovering Africa, African Perspectives for fruitful discussions and look forward to the emerging partnerships in 2012. Marlon, Johanna, Roxanne, Thank you for sharing the dream.

Sponsorship

In 2011 Africa Works co-sponsored activities in and about Africa. In October, Africa Works was a co-sponsor and active participant in the Africa Fair in Helsinki Finland. The fair, the first of its kind in Finland attracted a fair number of exhibitors and public.

In November 2011, we worked with the Central University College chapter of the Ghana Pharmaceutical Students Association to organize their annual event dubbed Pharmaball under the theme ” Health Promotion, Our Ultimate Concern. The event was co-sponsored by our affiliate organization Event Management Africa.

Private Sector Capacity-Building

Convinced that most of the challenges in Africa can only be solved by private sector activities, Africa Works held discussions with private sector agents and public sector organizations whose functions impact on private sector activities. The discussions focused on innovation and entrepreneurship, education and training, and internationalization of African firms and products. Based on feedback from private, public and academic organisations Africa Works, with our partners, would launch a number of private sector support services in Ghana in 2012.

Supporting Entrepreneurship

In 2011 Africa Works encouraged individuals from across Africa conceptualise their ideas into feasible ventures and will continue to work with them in 2012 to implement them. Two start-ups we supported are already running – Event Managemnt Africa and Resource Finance and Investment Ltd. and Event Management Africa was an idea of two female entrepreneurs in Ghana to help individuals conceptualise, plan, implement and evaluate a series of events in Ghana.  Individual Support.

Supporting Education

Working with our partner WWEDU Worldwide Education, Africa-Works is activiely involved in discussions, development and delivery of distance education in Africa. We believe that the integration of appropriate existing and evolving developments in ICT would hold a key to providing affordable and location-independent access to skill-based education in Africa.

APPRECIATION

Most of our encouragement and motivation came from individuals who shared our vision and contributed to our social network efforts by contributing blog posts, retweeting and mentioning us on twitter or simply following us on twitter, Facebook and linked in. We are particularly grateful to Joseph Quaye Amoo and Ike Bukor of Ghana and Keghah Roger of Cameroon and Andy Kusi-Appiah of Canada for their insightful postings and to @barcsmpghana for their frequent mentions.  From of a modest number of just over 200 fans on Facebook at the start of the year, Africa Works now has over 3000 fans. The number of followers on tweeter has also increased by over 20 at the start of the year to close to 300.

We would also like to give a special appreciation to Lauri Stevens of Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland  and Gershon Agudey for their work in Ghana in telling interesting stories about the country through videos.

Organizational Support

We have been encouraged by WWEDU World Wide Education  to use public awareness through electronic media. WWEDU is a distance learning academic institution, technology developer and integrator that believes in the role of education as an engine for socio-economic growth. Thank you to the WWEDU team particularly Bernhard, Bettina and Andi for all the support.

We are also encouraged by the MKFC team in Sweden particularly Emma and Kalle Hedlund and Helena Kronqvist for actively promoting us on social media.

To all those individuals and organisations that continue to support, motivate and encourage us we thank you so much and wish you all the best in 2012.

Foster Ofosu and Felix Mayehorfer

Co-founders