Latest news with #AfricaCentre
Ottawa Citizen
20-05-2025
- Business
- Ottawa Citizen
Why the city plans to sell Wellington Park land cheap to support Edmonton's Africa Centre
Edmonton's executive committee last week endorsed a project by the African Multicultural Community Centre (AMCC). Members voted 5‑0 to recommend negotiating a $1 land sale for a 1.2‑hectare portion of Wellington Park, with a five‑year buy‑back clause. Article content Article content The five in favour at the Wednesday meeting were Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, Coun. Karen Principe, Coun. Aaron Paquette, Coun. Keren Tang and Coun. Tim Cartmell. Article content Article content In December 2024, council directed administration to report on the possibility of selling city land for the project. Article content Article content For the past two decades, the City of Edmonton has collaborated with the Africa Centre to support programming for African and Caribbean communities. Article content The centre delivers a range of programs from cultural preservation and youth development to social supports and economic integration, reaching more than 20,000 people each year. The relationship between the city and Africa Centre formally began in 2007 when the centre entered into a lease agreement for the former Wellington Junior High School at 13160 127 St. The school was condemned in 2017 and city staff assisted with the relocation of Africa Centre to St. Francis Centre where, up until the fall of 2022, the group operated some programs and centralized its administrative staff and functions. In 2022, the centralized administrative office for Africa Centre moved to the Circle Square Professional Building at 11808 St. Albert Tr. Article content Article content Samuel Juru, executive director of the Africa Centre, said support from the city has allowed the group to 'provide services and programs for the community.' Article content Article content Edna Wakene, board chair of the Africa Centre, said more than 60 representatives from African and Caribbean community associations attended a town hall meeting in 2024 and shared in the call for a cultural centre. Article content 'The refresh of the centre's engagement strategy and business case has been an extensive and collaborative undertaking spanning over two years,' she told city council on Wednesday. 'We held six town halls to accommodate different demographics, including language, age and geographical locations. There was clear community consensus for the AMCC to be a centre for implementing a range of programs and services.'
Calgary Herald
20-05-2025
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Why the city plans to sell Wellington Park land cheap to support Edmonton's Africa Centre
Edmonton's executive committee last week endorsed a project by the African Multicultural Community Centre (AMCC). Members voted 5‑0 to recommend negotiating a $1 land sale for a 1.2‑hectare portion of Wellington Park, with a five‑year buy‑back clause. Article content Article content The five in favour at the Wednesday meeting were Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, Coun. Karen Principe, Coun. Aaron Paquette, Coun. Keren Tang and Coun. Tim Cartmell. Article content Article content In December 2024, council directed administration to report on the possibility of selling city land for the project. Article content Article content The centre delivers a range of programs from cultural preservation and youth development to social supports and economic integration, reaching more than 20,000 people each year. The relationship between the city and Africa Centre formally began in 2007 when the centre entered into a lease agreement for the former Wellington Junior High School at 13160 127 St. The school was condemned in 2017 and city staff assisted with the relocation of Africa Centre to St. Francis Centre where, up until the fall of 2022, the group operated some programs and centralized its administrative staff and functions. In 2022, the centralized administrative office for Africa Centre moved to the Circle Square Professional Building at 11808 St. Albert Tr. Article content Article content Samuel Juru, executive director of the Africa Centre, said support from the city has allowed the group to 'provide services and programs for the community.' Article content Article content Edna Wakene, board chair of the Africa Centre, said more than 60 representatives from African and Caribbean community associations attended a town hall meeting in 2024 and shared in the call for a cultural centre. Article content 'The refresh of the centre's engagement strategy and business case has been an extensive and collaborative undertaking spanning over two years,' she told city council on Wednesday. 'We held six town halls to accommodate different demographics, including language, age and geographical locations. There was clear community consensus for the AMCC to be a centre for implementing a range of programs and services.'
CBC
15-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Future of Africa Centre's multicultural hub debated at Edmonton executive committee
The long-delayed multicultural community centre by Edmonton's Africa Centre is now one step closer to fruition, after council's executive committee met Wednesday. The meeting saw dozens of members of Black communities in Edmonton come to city hall to make their voice heard on the direction of the project, as the centre presented its revamped business case to committee. The African Multicultural Community Centre is being envisioned as a cultural hub to serve people of African and Caribbean descent, fostering unity, celebrating diversity and providing community services. This would include an ambitious plan to potentially include amenities like a common space for events, gymnasium, library, commercial space for businesses, kitchen, daycare and low-income housing — all coming in with a price tage of more than $54 million, as outlined by the centre. Board members of the centre are seeking land for the centre on a surplus school site in the Athlone neighbourhood that previously hosted programming at the former Wellington Junior High School. In 2007, the city facilitated a lease agreement with the Edmonton Public School Board, enabling Africa Centre to operate from the school. Administration acquired the Wellington School and land in 2012 with the intention of helping pave the way for a new facility for the centre. Because of a variety of financial roadblocks, development on the centre has been sluggish. "Edmonton is now home to the fastest growing Black community in Canada, with projections that we would make up about 10 per cent of Edmonton's population in coming years," Samuel Juru, executive director of the centre, told committee members on Wednesday. "Through this time of growth, the Africa Centre has also grown exponentially to meet the growing needs of our community." The centre is currently one of four organizations across Canada which is funded by the federal program Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative. Juru said the organization has grown to become the largest pan-African non-profit organization in western Canada. A path forward The project has brought to the forefront the complex and nuanced concerns of different members of Edmonton's Black communities. A majority of the speakers spoke in favour of the project. "We find ourselves at a renewed crossroads," said architect Samuel Oboh, who was on the team tasked with crafting the design of the facility in 2017. "What began as a dream has evolved into an intergenerational mission, carried forward by elders, embraced by advocates and now actively championed by youth in the in one of Edmonton's fastest growing communities." Ranti George, a social worker and director of the Afro-Caribbean Indigenous Food Bank, told committee the facility would have importance for newcomers and refugees needing a one-stop shop to access key services. "We are investing in cross-culture collaboration with all other communities in Edmonton as our Indigenous partners, most importantly, a more equitable and inclusive city, which aligns with Edmonton anti-racism strategy." A handful of speakers expressed concerns over a lack of meaningful engagement or having their community needs not being on par with other communities. "Africa is not a monolithic entity. It is a continent of more than fifty countries, each with its own rich heritage, language and tradition," said Mohamed Ahmed with Somali Community Edmonton, noting a lack of engagement with Somali, Sudanese and Eritrean communities based on conversations had with others. "We are here, not to oppose progress, but we are here to ensure that the progress is inclusive of all voices." Community advocate Odion Welch, who was one of the four founding members of Africa Centre counselling clinic, said there needs to be more data provided to show whether engagement had been done to understand the wide ranging concerns by specific communities. "Yes, it will be a significant step in showcasing Edmonton as a multicultural city as numbers rise. However, it will also support the erasure of supports for Caribbean Canadians, Black Canadians and mixed Canadians," Welch said. Juru responded to noting ongoing consultation and future consultation would take place with a variety of communities. Committee ultimately passed a unanimous motion to recommend city council have administration negotiate a $1 deal with the Africa Centre for the land with the option to buy back should construction not begin within 5 years. The motion came with multiple stipulations including: An updated operating model that includes contingencies for vacancy of commercial and housing units. Letters of support from Black-led organizations that reflect the wide diversity of the African, Black and Caribbean community. Evidence of a plan to implement a governance structure for the African Multicultural Community Centre. A capital funding strategy with letters of intent from potential funders.
CTV News
15-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
‘A place of belonging': Africa Centre closer to cultural hub dream after $1 land purchase from City of Edmonton
The Africa Centre has the land it needs to build a new community hub. CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson has more on the next steps for the non-profit.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What should Europe do as Russia gains influence in Africa's Sahel?
'Vladimir Putin came to fight in Africa in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s,' Cameroonian influencer Franklin Nyamsi tells his hundreds of thousands of followers in a video shared across multiple platforms. 'He participated in the fight against Western imperialism. I hope you know that.' There is no evidence that the Russian president visited Africa in that period, let alone fought colonial powers. Born in 1950, Putin was also a child for most of that time. Yet these facts have not stopped disinformation from spreading like wildfire, especially in former French colonies around the Sahel, where the Kremlin has been using increasingly insidious methods to play on anti-colonial sentiments in order to pursue its interests. The director of Research at the US Defence Department's Africa Centre, Dr Joseph Siegle, argues Moscow's approach is multi-pronged, and media play an essential part. Speaking to Euronews from Washington, Siegle explained that 'in environments where there isn't an established set of trusted media outlets you get an explosion of unregulated, unfiltered social media,' which he says is especially prevalent in the Sahel. According to the UN, the region of the Sahel comprises 10 central and west African nations, with 400 million people who call it home. Of these 10, eight were colonised by France, and almost all only gained independence in the 1960s. French is widely spoken across all of them, meaning francophone commentators and influencers' reach and messaging often easily crosses the borders between the region's countries that France imposed in previous centuries. However, colonialism is no longer a hot topic, and Siegle contends that colonial legacies have largely faded from political life. 'I'd like to remind people that colonialism ended 60 years ago … It wasn't part of recent election discourse,' he said. If anything, for many of the countries' regimes, Europe remained the preferred partner as they progressed on their sovereign paths, according to Seigle. "When you had democratically leaning governments, albeit weak governments … there were good relations with Europe," he explained. These relations were strong, especially with France itself, which maintained deep political and disproportionate trade ties with its former colonies in Africa, under a somewhat hazy policy known as 'Françafrique'. It also stationed thousands of troops across multiple bases in the Sahel. This number multiplied in 2013 when France and other European countries sent reinforcements to combat a series of extremist insurgencies in the region. Seigle holds that it was a largely positive relationship, which was only recently upended by a series of coups that installed pro-Moscow juntas across the region. However, it isn't that simple in the eyes of prominent Chadian human rights lawyer and activist Delphine Djiraibe, who believes the rise of Russia is inherently linked to deep-rooted anger felt towards France in the region and Paris' historical support for governments she believes were anything but democratic. Over a patchy phone call with Euronews from the capital N'Djamena — where Djiraibe said power and mobile network cuts were increasingly common — the advocate explained that 'colonisation may have changed form, but we have remained under the yoke of France until practically today.' 'We've felt it in a very bitter way.' Djiraibe pointed out that Chad maintains a French legal code, as do most of the other francophone countries in the region —at least in some form — but these codes aren't respected within the region or by Paris. 'France is always presented as the country of human rights,' she lamented, 'but when extrajudicial executions are commonplace, when populations are subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment … France does not stand up." "Not only does it not stand up, but it supports the dictatorial powers that suppress the populations.' As an example, she cites French President Emmanuel Macron's speech at the funeral of former Chadian President Idris Déby in 2021, in which he referred to the late authoritarian leader as a 'brave friend' before praising Déby's son and political heir, Mahamat, for bringing 'stability'. Yet, within a year, relations with Chad and across the region frosted over. France withdrew its 1,000-strong force from Mali in August 2022, and by the end of 2023 both Burkina Faso and Niger also forced out the French military presence. Related Macron calls West African leaders 'ungrateful' for not recognising fight against Islamist terrorists Chad ends defence pact with France nixing its military presence Then, in a dramatic diplomatic spat that broke out in late 2024, Macron claimed that the region had never 'thanked' France for deploying troops there. The younger Déby demanded that France withdraw from Chad as well — and Françafrique had the rug wholly pulled underneath it. At the same time, the Kremlin quickly emerged from the shadows of social media campaigns and was ushered through the gates of various presidential palaces as the new global power best friend in town. In a video published last month, Swiss-Cameroonian internet personality Nathalie Yamb shared a clip of former French Ambassador to Mali Nicolas Normand claiming the region 'absolutely needs partnerships,' while warning that 'Russia isn't providing it with any help, except military aid to ... form a praetorian guard for the juntas.' As he says this, a man appears in the bottom right corner of Yamb's video, making a Pinocchio nose action. Yamb then comes on screen to criticise the comments and to say she would 'bury the urban myth' about Russia. However, Siegle says this is precisely what Moscow does, having literally filled out the presidential guard corps of multiple Sahelian de facto leaders with its own muscle. Until recently, these military deployments were largely made up of Kremlin-backed private military companies (PMCs), under the umbrella of the notorious Wagner Group of mercenaries led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Former Georgian Ambassador to the EU Natalie Sabanadze told Euronews that this gave Russia 'plausible deniability,' which was important when Moscow was still trying to court international diplomatic favour. However, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, much of this pretence dissipated. Then, when Prigozhin led Wagner mercenaries in revolt a year later in Ukraine — and was subsequently killed in a plane crash, which many international observers blame on the Kremlin — Sabanadze says Russia removed what little arms-length autonomy PMCs had in the Sahel. Although there was a public outpouring of grief in some Sahelian societies over Prigozhin's death, this never translated into a broader questioning of relations with Moscow. Yamb has been largely discredited as a Kremlin stooge who acted as an "independent observer" for Russia during sham elections in occupied parts of Ukraine in 2022. Yet she and others, like Franklin Nyamsi — along with those backing them in the Kremlin — have effectively harnessed anti-European sentiments to push Moscow's agenda, which includes controlling lucrative natural resources in various mines worth billions. Also, Seigle explains it fits into a wider narrative of 'Russia having many partners and allies and Europe and the West losing influence,' both of these factors have only been exacerbated by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent fallout. Sabanadze told Euronews that, coming from a former USSR satellite state, 'One of my main jobs was to somehow convince Europeans that we knew how to deal with Russia.' Yet Sabanadze, who is now a senior fellow at Chatham House, a think tank focusing on Russia's global influence, recalls comments she received from some in Brussels, which she sees as emblematic of Europe's hubris regarding Russian threats. 'They'd say, 'You guys are paranoid. You have your historical baggage. You just can't get over it.'' 'Russia's anti-colonialist narrative towards the Global South in general, including Africa, has been pretty much unchallenged,' Sabanadze explained, allowing Moscow to not only oust French and EU forces there but actually entrench itself too. 'Russians are genuinely popular in many of these places. They're not seen as horrible mercenaries that come to exploit the resources, kill people and who have been engaged in horrible massacres,' Sabanadze said. Related In Africa, Russia seeks to retain its superpower credentials France's military forced out of Sahel region as it closes base in Chad Siegle and Djiraibe both doubt Moscow's loyalty in return. 'I think it's more transactional,' Seigle said. 'The Russian forces are not there to fight the jihadists, they're protecting the regime and various mining sites.' Sabanadze agreed. 'They like their operations there to be cheap and to be particularly beneficial to them,' she added. Yet, signs of discontent with the Russians are already on the horizon. In early April, anti-Russian protests broke out across the neighbouring Central African Republic, which Siegle labelled 'the poster child' of Moscow's influence in Africa due to the thousands of Russian Wagner troops there. While Russian losses in its ongoing war in Ukraine and the downfall of its ally Bashar Al-Assad in Syria have paradoxically pushed Moscow to try and extend its global reach, they also provided vulnerabilities which could allow Europe to re-enter the fray. However, both Siegle and Djiraibe warned against a short-term approach that would lead to simply courting the very regimes that turned to the Kremlin for help. 'Certainly, that has certain short-term appeal,' Siegle admits. "It's better to have the juntas than to have jihadists in power, but it doesn't address any of the underlying sources of instability in these countries.' Namely, a lack of financial stability and support for civil society groups. 'We never address the root problem,' Djiraibe concurs, calling for less intervention on all sides. 'There's no need to come and dominate. If we were left to manage itself, we would be capable of electing leaders and sanctioning them when necessary. The mechanism is there.' As the interview drew to a close and the connection again faltered, Djiraibe reflected on her decades-long career and how her country and those around it had changed, or not. 'For more than 50 years, weapons have spoken for us under the logic that 'if we have the weapons, we subdue the populations, we burst into the villages, we kill''. Despite this, she remained hopeful. 'We're not going to continue to use the language of weapons indefinitely,' she exclaimed. 'We must take courage. We'll continue to fight, to support our populations and reach higher, because we cannot replace one coloniser with another.'
