African students in China fight stereotypes

African students in China eager to change negative views on their countries on Saturday spoke glowingly about their history and culture at a speech and music contest in Beijing.

The event called Africa Speech Night and Music Contest was organised by Appreciate Africa Network, a non-governmental organisation seeking to promote Africa and its culture.

The students were given a five-minute opportunity each to speak about their countries, focusing mainly on history, culture and development.

The students were from Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Rwanda, Egypt, Zambia, Botswana, Algeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Cape Verde, Nigeria, Mauritius and South Africa.

High profile guests at the function included Zimbabwe’s ambassador to China Paul Chikawa, officials from other African embassies in China and business people from different countries.

Addressing the guests, Appreciate Africa Network founder Samantha Sibanda said the contest was meant to present the true story of Africa and its culture in China.

She said many people from other continents, including the Chinese, were not privy to the true status of Africa because they relied mainly on the media to shape their opinion.

“We want to tell you the other side of Africa which you have never seen on television,” said Samantha. “Many people think Africa is about poverty, diseases and hunger and this is reflected even in schools.

“Employers even here in China are shunning Africans because of these stereotypes. I have so many African brothers and sisters who have to lie that they are American or British to get a job.”

Samantha said the desire to tell the true African story occurred to her through a sad story when a lecture in a class she was the only African misrepresented African people.

“One of the reasons I started Appreciate Africa Network was because of what one of my professors said during my Masters of Business Administration course,” she said.

“She showed us some Masai people from Kenya and she said, ‘Imagine if you were to put this man in a car. He is likely to die of heart attack than if you put him in a den of lions’.

"I remember that day I was shivering with anger and I was the only African and black person in my group. I gave her a piece of my opinion and walked out of the lecture."

“I spend a week without going to the classes and when I returned we were asked to write what we know about continents. We were 20 in that class and 19 of the students wrote that Africa had poverty, diseases, hunger and war.”

Samantha said she then made up her mind to start the Appreciate Africa Network in an effort to project the positive side of the continent which many foreigners were not aware of.

The students at the speech and music contest presented their countries passionately and expertly, receiving rousing applauses from the audience, which included people from different nationalities.

Judges adjudicated that Sierra Leonean representative Godfrey Lloyd Randall was the overall winner after he spoke about his country comprehensively.

Randall aroused emotions in the crowd when he touched on the emotive issue of how Sierra Leone was used as a port to transport African slaves to work in plantations in the Americas.

He also spoke of how Africans launched sustained resistance against slave trade and European colonisation, including launching a sustained war in Sierra Leone.

Randal then presented the modern Sierra Leone, how it has since recovered from that “dark” era to make progress in its endavours to develop into a modern country.

The first runner-up went to Wakonyu Mukoma from Kenya, who, dressed in a Masai tribal outfit, talked about her country’s changing landscape both politically and economically.

She also showcased why outsiders should visit Kenya to explore its vast wildlife and other tourist attractions.

The second runner-up, Mwiza Vwalika from Zambia, made a broad presentation of his country which helped debunk a number of stereotypes.

Sherif Salman from Egypt was judged the most promising male after he gave a good account of his country, starting with its historical attractions like the pyramids.

For the females, the most promising speech award went to Christelle Mukazera from Rwanda, who showed how her country has recovered from the genocide which claimed nearly one million lives within four months in 1994.

It was one of the most touching speeches and in awarding her the prize, the judges noted that her presentation was touching and an eye opener.

The best dressed male was Glen Dhliwayo from Zimbabwe, while the best dressed female was Hadjar Bessaih from Algeria.

Randall, Ambassador Chikawa and Samantha

Some Chinese nationals took turns to sing songs by African legendary musicians, with Uyi Lee performing Miriam Makeba of South Africa’s Pata Pata, while Lixia sang Neria by Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi.

Also on offer at the event was an African cuisine which included the staple “thick porridge” made out of maize meal that is eaten mostly in eastern and southern Africa.

In several countries in east African, that food is known as ugali in Swahili, while in Zimbabwe it is called sadza or isithwala, pap in South Africa, phaletshe in Botswana and nsima in Zambia and Malawi.

Samantha formed Appreciate Africa Network in 2013 to “create awareness about Africa, African people and their culture” not only in China, but in the whole of Asia.

The organisation does not only strive to deal with the above mentioned stereotypes, it also brings to the fore contributions that Africans are making to the development of China.

It hosts many other activities that offer Africans an opportunity to participate and market their countries in China, the whole of Asia and the world.

Lovemore Chikova is the News Editor for The Herald newspaper in Zimbabwe and a fellow at the China-Africa Press Centre. He can be contacted on [email protected]