LEFT FORUM: TWO EXCITING PANELS FOCUSED ON AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA PRESENTED BY AFROBEATRADIO AND WBAI 99.5 FM PACIFICA

TWO EXCITING PANELS FOCUSED ON AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA PRESENTED BY AFROBEATRADIO AND WBAI 99.5 FM PACIFICA

FROM JUNE 7TH TO 9TH, 2013 AT THE LEFT FORUM, PACE UNIVERSITY, CUNY, NYC.

Our Panel opens up on forth coming discussions and events on Africa this year and into 2014 culminating in a conference on Africa.

With a starting inquiry about what pan-Africanism for the 21st century could mean. The answer started out simply enough, that Pan-Africanism ought to be based on a proactive premise of Life, Liberty and flowering of the self, of all peoples of African descent and the world. Freedom from poverty and basic wants; security of life and limb. Food on the table for every child, woman and man.  Shirt on the back and roof over the head. The rights to full citizenship, participation, community, justice and peace. Natural Rights to education and the enjoyment good health. Rights to a healthy environment and a protected and flourishing Mother Earth. Protection from displacement and the right of every person to reach their fullest potential. In short, pan-Aficanism must as a global platform to build solidarity that will lead to a complete transformation in the economic, social and political lives of Africans and world citizens globally.

From this ‘basic premise’, we begin our inquiries and challenge the issues that ail our world. Our Panels at the 2013 Left Forum are open and inclusive. We have brought together some of the most exciting minds alive today, working hard to trouble shoot the world’s problems, and seeking solutions capable of  mobilizing us to take our rightful places as citizens of the world, and transform it into a more just and equitably society. Join us and be a part of “our conscious party.”

PANELS
Panel 1: Africa and 21st Century Governance and Security Challenges; Prospects for Ecological and Economic Transformation in the African Continent.

Panelists Include:

Wuyi Jacobs (Panel Chair) – Host & Executive Producer AfrobeatRadio on WBAI 99.5 FM, heard every Saturday at 4:00 PM EST. Founder and Publisher of AfrobeatJournal.Org & AfrobeatRadio.Net

Basir Mchawi (Panelist) – Educator and activist and communicator. Professor of English at CUNY ‘s Queens College and at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Chair of the International African Arts Festival, Brooklyn NYC and producer and host of Education at the Crossroads heard on WBAI 99.5 FM.

Sophie Shwoerer (Panelist) – Human Rights Activist, Advocate for Women’s Rights, and Vice Chair Person of MEDHIN, Ethiopian Democratic Party.

Alnoor Ladhar (Panelist) – Activist and Social Entrepreneur, co-founder of The Rules.Org, a global citizen movement to address the root causes of inequality. He is also a Board member for Greenpeace USA, and partner at Purpose, an incubator for new types of social movements.

Opal Tometi (Panelist) – National Organizer for Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) as an educator and advocate for immigrant rights and racial justice with African-Americans, Afro-Latinos, African and Caribbean immigrant communities. She is also the coordinator for Black Immigration Network (BIN).  Opal is an advocate to end violence against women.

***

Panel 2 titled “Engaging the African Youth and Young Professionals in Africa’s Sustainable Development in the 21st Century” explores …
(This Panel may be expanded to include others)
Current Panelists Include:

Milton Allimadi (Panel Chair) – Founding Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of The Black Star News and www.blackstarnews.com, an Investigative weekly newspaper and website with predominantly African American, African, Caribbean and other Diaspora Africa readership. Allimadi is also founder of Guerrilla Journalism, a free weekly journalism workshop focusing on community-based reporting and writing.

Zeinab Eyega (Panelist) –  Executive Director and Founder of Sauti Yetu, an advocacy organization and family center working to empower women to exercise, advocate and protect their rights. Eyega also works on women’s protection and rights in conflict, post conflict regions of Africa.

Tyrene Wright, PhD (Panelist) Human rights activist, poet and Booker T. Washington scholar. Founder of African Women for Africa with the mission provide free health literacy programs to African women. Wright’s work focuses on the advancement of African women. She is the author of the forthcoming “Booker T. Washington and Africa.”
PANEL ABSTRACTS
Panel 1
Title: Africa and 21st Century Governance and Security Challenges; Prospects for Ecological and Economic Transformation in the African Continent
Abstract:

As the AU/OAU celebrates its first 50 years of existence, it is of paramount importance to look into the economic and ecological challenges facing the continent, the implications of these challenges for years to come. Central to the Panel’s discussion is the role of Women, Youth, African intellectuals and Africans in the Diaspora as effective agents for transformation. Women and the Youth in particular, face ongoing marginalization through religion, tradition, ageism, gender discrimination, and by authoritarian regimes and Africa’s economic and ecological interests for personal enrichment and power. A crisis of governance and security has enveloped most African countries including States across the Sahelian region of West Africa with major implications for Mali, Nigeria, Algeria, Mauritania, Libya, Niger, Sudan and Chad. Somalia, Ethiopia. Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, etc, remain mired in serious political upheavals or war. Many more countries such as Rwanda, Uganda are facing authoritarian and despotic regimes. Our panel will discuss means of creating an enabling environment, ideas or framework for collective response and an agenda for solidarity and transformational action.

Panel 2:
Title: Engaging the African Youth and Young Professionals in Africa’s Sustainable Development in the 21st Century

Panel Abstract:
African political leadership is at a crossroads. As Africa grows economically, Africans across the continent and in the Diaspora seek new ways to engage with each other. This panel explores the role of African youth in Africa and in the Diaspora as agents of political and economic transformation of continental and Diaspora Africans.

The panel seeks to challenge purveyors of global inequality and the assigned role of Africa as “Final Frontier.” The age of technological and social innovations make the interaction of African Youth in Africa and in the Diaspora much easier and more possible and should be explored or exploited much more than is currently the case across geography, gender, language and cultures, to address global economic, labor and trade inequalities while participating in helping to fashion grassroots, bottom up solutions globally.

AfrobeatRadio.Net and its sister publication AfrobeatJournal.org are multi-media platform that uses new media to highlight issues of interest to the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora. Through our radio programs, Internet platforms, discussion forums, and community programming, we create interactive spaces for dialogue and debate. We promote creativity, critical inquiry, information sharing and civic consciousness in the interest of peace, freedom, justice, and equality. AfrobeatRadio on WBAI, an Africa focused current affairs program and music show airs every Saturday from 4:00 to 5:00 PM EST. on WBAI 99.5 FM Pacifica Radio in New York City.
If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with the producers, please email Wuyi Jacobs @[email protected].
June 7 – 9, 2013. Time to be announced

Location: Pace University, 1 Pace Plaza, New York, NY 10038, NYC. Rooms to be announced

www.leftforum.org

 

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