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Cord Weekly
Benefit show a success
Alison Schofield Feb 11, 2009
Future of Africa volunteers raised money for their ten-week trip to Uganda and Rwanda this summer. The team will be working with Ugandan locals
Foyo Juma was among the many performers on Friday.
On Friday night Laurier students came together to witness the Performance for Change, a fundraising event hosted by the campus club Future of Africa. It was an evening that host Reyn O’Born described as full of energy and hope, displaying Laurier’s artistic talent and the club’s commitment to global citizenship.
The event brought together an eclectic mix of spoken-word poetry, a skit from the Otesha Group that showcased ways to make a positive change in a person’s daily life and acoustic and a capella musical performances, including one such act featuring a student from Kenya who sang songs in English and Swahili. The evening also boasted a silent auction with paintings, scarves and one “sexy coffee table,” as well as door prizes and a 50/50 draw.
The performance was held at Wilf’s to raise money for the club’s upcoming 10-week “Journey for Change” to Uganda and Rwanda where a group of eight Laurier students will be working closely with the non-governmental organization (NGO), Peace For All International, which was founded by former Laurier student Ayiko Solomon.
Solomon was one of the biggest inspirations to Future of Africa founder Tk Mawuli Azaglo, who also counts Stephen Lewis and Romeo Dallaire as his humanitarian role models. Azaglo had the opportunity to hear both Lewis and Dallaire speak at the Global Citizenship Conferences hosted at Laurier over the past few years. Being from the west African country of Ghana, Azaglo always felt that
there were many negative connotations about Africa when he talked to
Canadians. This misconception has formed the basis for the club’s
upcoming trip, as participants hope to learn from African culture and
raise awareness about what Africa is really like.
The concept of
the organization first began when Azaglo struck up a conversation about
developing countries with a classmate, John Tsirimbis, during one of
his global studies classes. With the help of what Azaglo calls “an
amazing team” of volunteers, Future of Africa was founded on the
principles of passion, vision and ambition and has established the
slogan, “We are the future of Africa and we stand for change.”
“We
have the vision to make a change,” explained Azaglo. “Martin Luther
King Jr. and Nelson Mandela have done it, why can’t we do it, too? We
see that change is possible so we’re going to do something about it.”
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Cord Weekly
Looking forward to Africa's future
Heather MacDonald Jun 25, 2008
Tk Azaglo, a Ghanaian International student, shares his experiences and the passion he feels for humanity since moving to Canada
* Image By: Sydney Helland
Anyone who attended Senator Lieutenant-General (retired) Roméo Dallaire’s visit to Laurier last March likely remembers the Q&A period at the end of his presentation. The last student to ask a question was Tk Mawuli Azaglo. Upon opportunity, Tk asked Dallaire what he thought the future of Africa was.
After some discussion, Dallaire essentially decided that Africans had to be the future and change for Africa. It was then that Tk, an international student from Ghana replied, “Senator Dallaire, I am the future of Africa.”
This inspirational statement has likely stayed with many people since that night and it doesn’t end there. Tk Azaglo’s passion for changing the lives of Africans goes beyond one statement; it pours out of him with every word he speaks.
As a second year student in Global Studies and Political Science, Tk didn’t know much about his own country until he left Ghana in August 2005 to attend school in Canada. It wasn’t until he heard a Canadian speaker talk about AIDS in Africa, at the Global Citizenship Conference, that he found his deep love for Africa.
“Ever since I discovered my passion, everywhere I go, people I talk to,
I see something in them. They fire you; they motivate you to go forward
and it’s nice.”
But Tk didn’t always feel so encouraged by the
people around him when he came to Laurier. Dealing with culture shock
and the feeling that everyone was staring was a difficulty Tk had to
face. As he became more comfortable speaking in class, it became easier.
Because
tuition for international students is significantly higher than for
local students, Tk is working at a food company for the summer. But,
his dreams span much higher than that.
Tk left Ghana in search
of a better education than he saw back home and chose Canada because of
its high level of education and reputation for peacefulness.
“When
you go to lectures to discuss, they teach you how to think, but it’s
not like that back home. They just spoon feed you [information] but
here you can apply things on your own and it can still be correct.”
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