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Monthly Archives: December 2023

Ghana. ‘Dipo’ Puberty Rites: Transitioning into Womanhood.

The Dipo rite is an integral part of the Krobo culture. Over the years it has been used to inculcate useful values into adolescent girls as they prepare to assume their marital responsibilities. The Krobos are part of the Ga-Dangbe ethno linguistic group and they are the largest group of the seven Dangbe ethnic groups…

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Electronic Africa Continues to Evolve.

The way electronic music entered the African scene in the 1990s, how it was developed, and how it is becoming increasingly relevant. From kuduro in Angola to gqom in South Africa. Two factors occurred in the 1990s that created the space for the entry of electronic sounds into the African musical panorama. Since the 1980s,…

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Slovakia. The simplicity of an encounter.

The Little Sisters of Jesus live their contemplative and active lives in fraternity. They work among those marginalized: immigrants, precarious workers and township dwellers. They try to find beauty and greatness where only degradation and misery are imagined. Sr Anna offers her witness as a worker in a laundry in Slovakia. I have been working…

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Tanzania. Maasai Colours.

Red and black are two of the fundamental colours in the Maasai culture and symbolize God’s two main traits. Red depicts anger and benevolence, and black (or dark blue) the sanctity of a person or object. Above all, they invoke God himself as Papa Jai Orok (the Black father) and they ask him to cover…

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African Music. Creativity and the Internet.

Afrobeats, bongo, amapiano, rumba, and gengetone are genres that are now heard everywhere. Thanks to social media and the growing investments of the recording industry. The world has never heard so much African music as today. Over the last decade, African music has risen to the forefront of the international scene. Out of all of…

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India. Child Brides. A School for a Fresh Start.

According to a recent UNICEF report, there are 640 million, 200 million in India alone, child brides. In Polur – in Andhra Pradesh – a congregation of nuns runs the ‘Sree Jeevan Jyothi Vocational Junior College’, a nursing school that welcomes young women who are victims of early marriage Kavitha and Navyashree, are two Indian…

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Europeans, Israel and Palestine.

European countries have a history of differing views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Recent disagreements among EU leaders highlight the complexity of the issue, but a political solution necessitates the involvement of various stakeholders. The recent ‘cacophony’ of EU voices – as some defined it – over the Israel-Gaza conflict should not come as a surprise.…

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Mali. The Mieruba label. ‘Music, our raw material’.

A collective runs a cultural centre and a record company in Ségou, an unstable area of Mali. To keep the art scene alive and because ‘music and the desire to live cannot be stopped’. Now with eight titles, available digitally, The Lost Maestros is a series from the Malian label Mieruba intended to enhance the…

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The Hamas attack on Israel: the positions of the Indo-Pacific actors.

Following the attack launched on Saturday 7 October by Hamas militiamen against Israel, diplomats from all over the world have expressed the positions of their respective states on the incident and, more generally, on the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the Asia-Pacific region, one of the first actors to intervene in support of Israel was Narendra…

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The meaning of the sacrifice in the African culture.

Every religion has some form of sacrifice. In fact, sacrifice is the most universal of all rituals. Most rituals imply an offering and quite often a blood sacrifice. A blood sacrifice is a displacement of mystical forces made possible by God himself, thanks to the intercession of a spirit, divinity or ancestor and the mediation…

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The Declaration of Human Rights is for all.

December 10, 2023, marks the 75th anniversary of the universal promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly through resolution 217A during its third session in Paris on December 10, 1948. It was a torn and destroyed world after WWII that was reeling after the destruction,…

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Burkina Faso, Mali e Niger: the New Military Alliance in the Sahel.

The military juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have signed the Liptako-Gourma Charter, establishing the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). The objective is to establish an architecture of collective defence and mutual assistance against common challenges. The unknowns. On 16 September Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger signed an agreement by signing the Liptako-Gourma Charter…

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Advocacy

Angie Torres. A refugee among refugees.

Forced to flee Colombia, she has managed to rebuild her life in Ecuador. Now she defends the human rights of migrants and in particular of…

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Baobab

Brazil. The violin's sound.

There was a man who had an only son. When the man died, the son was left all alone in the world. There were not many…

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Youth & Mission

What do Africa's youth have to say about the future…

The latest African Youth Survey from the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, a leading African foundation promoting active citizenship across the continent, provides a comprehensive look at the…

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