As an African person myself, I am all too familiar with that feeling when the sun goes down and the day closes in, that back home all too often this time of the day meant that you were either standing around a braai as it roasted the meat away, or your stomach was growling incessantly at you as you smelt the smoke from a braai at another venue. I am also painfully aware that for us back home, more often than not our social structure was built around this feeling of warmth and acceptance in each other’s homes.
For any full blooded African person living abroad, I know that you miss home for this very reason, and I have often sat and thought about putting together a group that would actively bring us all together to try and capture part of that life style we all miss so much. Well here it is at last, using the power of the web to bring us all closer together and assist in rebuilding that social structure that we desperately yearn for, and physically need to survive being away from home.
Recently I have met up with a number of Zimbabwean’s and a few South African’s, and have discovered that there are small pockets of us that try to keep our tradition of a weekend braai or a poikie now and then alive. Sadza and stew is almost like discovering gold when you find it in the UK, and biltong is a rare treat. Yes there are African suppliers throughout the UK, and we seek to work with suppliers that provide consistent and fair prices to our members.
But aside from the supply chain, I look at other ethnic communities in the UK, and I begin to understand why some are more successful than others at repatriation to a whole new country. The Nigerian’s have the right idea. They have established a network of support that groups anyone of Nigerian origin to a support line of Nigerians within their area. They frequently meet, engage and socialise together, dialogue and have thus developed a support chain throughout the UK. The same can be said for the Indian community. If however you look at the South African’s and the Zimbabwean’s just to name two, it is a whole different story.
So this is the goal. Living in Diaspora does not mean we need to live a world apart. The National Statistics Bureau in the UK tells me that there is in excess of 2 million Southern African residents throughout the UK. Let me ask you, how many do you know? Right so here is how African Connexions works.
If you’re from any ethnic background, you are welcome to join. We are not prejudiced in our approach to unite people and build a stronger social structure. However, we expect our members to understand that every ethnic and tribal function may not necessarily cater to everybody’s taste and therefore we expect maturity and acceptance of each other’s differences. Primarily African Connexions aims to provide meeting points for African folk. Be it a particular pub, a weekly braai at a sports club or garage facility owned by or managed by an African contact. It may be a sporting event or just a good old kick about. These are places where we hope to open the doors to Africans from similar areas, with similar values to meet, build on friendships and communities and recapture some of that social acceptance and welcome that we really miss.
So where ever you are, if your African, own a pub, club, have an open space we can use, please contact us. If your just part of the African community seeking inclusion to African Connexion send us an email and register your interest, you’ll get regular updates and information from us. If you already host an event and want to spread the word or if you’ve got a great idea and need some help to get it going then give us a shout. We can’t make this work without you, so get on board, give us a hand and lets build an African Community Abroad that we can be proud of.
