In June, 2018, I was extremely grateful to join a group of African youth from the Kingdom of Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Afroeuropeans from the United Kingdom and Germany on an exchange program in Germany. Through the programme ‘Change Through Exchange: Training Young Change Makers Through European-African exchange’ Farafina Institute sought to support the participating youths to identify common challenges of inequalities facing them in their respective societies, learn from each other and share ideas on ways to confront such challenges. There were a couple of activities lined up for us to enable us achieve the goal of the programme, our theme being derived from Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduction of inequalities. These activities, exciting as they were, included workshops, a one week internship at a company involved in activities whose goal borders on the reduction of inequalities, staying with an Afroeuropean host family to interact with them and get to know more of how they manage as Africans in Germany as well as visits to historical sites and other extracurricular activities. As a Master student studying communication, with an interest in intercultural communication, this was a welcome opportunity to understand more on how cultural interaction affect capacities and transformation of people. Through interactions via the activities that had been lined up for the programme, there was so much for one to learn in understanding how different societies, particularly Africans could get involved through intercultural learning and sharing with their own societies in contributing to achieving the SDG 10.
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| The Ghanaian team at the Berlin wall historical site. Front from left: Akonobea and Joyce. Back from left: William, Omusula and Denis. (File: Participate photo pool 2018) |
There is a willingness by the African youth to make the world a better place. To promote this, and Africa not being just a homogenous people, it is important to learn about various different countries and cultures to understand, appreciate, and learn something from the uniqueness of the surroundings, culturally, socially, politically, and naturally, within which we are brought up or have spent our lives. There were some similarities but also clear and major differences in how the youths from the various countries approached topical issues on the reduction of inequalities or even activities like the kind of food they preferred or even how they interacted amongst themselves. Thus, the exchange program brought to light these cultural uniqueness as it was evident through our interactions that for instance the youth from the Kingdom of Eswatini could not understand the mannerisms of those from Ghana, Zimbabwe, United Kingdom or even Germany, and vice-versa, yet we were all African if you like. This underscores the importance of the exchange program as an avenue for the youth to learn from each other and through appreciating the cultural, social, political, and natural differences, come up with ways of addressing inequalities in their societies.
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| Part of the team arrives in Munich, Germany for one week internship and stay with host families. From left: Moses (Zimbabwe), Tina (Liberia, Germany), Mazwi (Kingdom of Eswatini), Joyce (Ghana), Akonobea (Ghana) and Omusula (Kenya, Ghana). (File: Participate photo pool 2018) |
In many instances, Africans have been assumed to be the same wherever irrespective of where they are. While there has been an appreciation of the similarities in the struggles that Africans face, especially in the political history of most African nations, there are major cultural differences between these nations. Before taking the trip to Germany, I was on the preliminary stage of my research of the Kenyan society in Germany and had hoped to gather as much information as I could for this work. However, this was not to be as my research focus changed to a study of the cultural interactions of Kenyans in Ghana. My interactions with fellow Africans in the programme informed my decision to change my research focus to really understand how culturally unique African communities were and how this diversity could be harnessed into developing African societies politically, socially and culturally to the extent of achieving the sustainable development goals.
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A display of foods during a workshop session at
EOTO (EachOneTeachOne) depicting some of the
cultural diversity we experienced in terms of
food. (File: Participate photo pool 2018)
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Through discussions in the exchange program it was quite clear that there are major differences in the struggles of the youth in reducing inequalities in their communities and not even in the country as a whole. For example, in one workshop where participants were to talk about inequalities in their societies that were gender related, it was a heated debate on how culture shapes the ways gender issues are discussed as every team had something different on how issues in relation to gender could be approached. This particular incident clearly indicated the uniqueness of cultural approach to gender related inequalities. In yet another incident, participants had to write down their experiences throughout the programme and issues raised had to do with discomfort in food, inability to relate with other participants due to cultural differences, difficulty adapting to the environment due to differences in the way of life, amongst other reasons. Politically and culturally, in some countries institutions do not allow for the youth to be actively involved in the development of the countries. For instance, in some countries, cultural and political differences based on tribe divide people and post constraints for young people to effectively contribute to the positive transformation of their societies. It is thus important that the youth identify these hurdles and struggles and find ways to confront them and still get involved in achieving the sustainable development goals.
Beyond the diversity of Africa and uniqueness in the struggles we all face in our various societies, the very aspect of communality and brotherhood stands out as a unifying factor wherever we are in the world. There is a tendency to put aside differences and to harness all this diversity in culture and go for the ultimate goal which is the African Union. In fact, this is the goal of the African Union, as stated in the AU Agenda 2063 document: Diversity [of Africa] (ethnic, religious, economic, cultural, etc.) would be a source of wealth and accelerated economic growth rather than a source of conflict. (AU Agenda 2063; 17). The importance of exchange programmes like this present one cannot be overemphasised. They set the pace for the realisation of the importance of the African unity and harnessing youth capacities and innovations in rethinking and effecting the reduction of inequalities in our societies through cultural appreciation.
