Away from Africa

Via Amanda Tento, founder of my wonderful online networking group, the 337 group , I met Yeve Sibanda. Yeve is a Zimbabwean native who now calls the United States home. She is a wife, mother, attorney, public speaker, and author, and she founded Philisa Creatives, a media company, that celebrates and amplifies African heritage. Philisa means “to bring to life” in Ndebele; its mission is to create innovative products to enhance multicultural learning. Her debut book is " My First Book of Shona and Ndebele Words ." Just a week before, I had been discussing the need to promote African languages with Elle Charisse , creator of the Speaking Tongues podcast. On a popular language-learning app, until very recently, the only African language being taught was Swahili. I just read that Zulu and Xhosa, spoken in South Africa, will soon be taught, too.  There are some apps and websites, such as Mandla (for English speakers) and ParleAfrique for French speakers. However, they often have...

ESSACA  Since Cameroon’s independence in 1960, the country’s architects have all been educated abroad: many in France, as the country was a French Protectorate after World War I, but also in Germany, Greece, the United States and in neighboring Nigeria. Jean-Jacques Kotto, a Cameroonian architect, former President of the ONAC (Ordre National des Architectes du Cameroun, the Cameroon architects’ association, which manages architectural registration) and current President of the Union of African Architects, decided to take the leap and created ESSACA in 2009. ESSACA stands for Ecole Supérieure Spéciale d’Architecture du Cameroun – translated literally, “Superior Special School of Architecture of Cameroon” which, in French, does not sound incongruous! In practice, it is a private architecture school, offering B.Arch, M.Arch and doctoral degrees. The school started out with all of seven students. Five years later, in 2015, there are 45 students, and the school is celebra...