Casa África celebrates the 25th of May, for yet another year, with a full programme of activities that extend throughout the month of May, culminating in a gastronomic day.
This Sunday, as every year, Africa Day is commemorated around the world. It is an event, 25 May, that celebrates a long history against colonialism and injustice, with its roots in 1958 and in Accra, Ghana, where activists and political leaders created the first conference of independent African states. This first major pan-African gathering on the continent resulted in African Freedom Day, a symbol of the break with foreign domination and exploitation. In 1963, 62 years ago now, another meeting, this time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, served to found the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the forerunner of today's African Union. An organisation that represents the voices of the continent and aims to put an end to colonialism, still in force at the time in much of the African continent, which plundered and bled this territory, literally and figuratively, since the 19th century. The African Union is a continental body made up of the 55 member states of the African continent. The OAU disappeared in 1999, but in 2002 another successor organisation, the African Union (AU), emerged, inspired by the vision of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful continent, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force on the world stage. On 25 May the AU was founded and 25 May became Africa Day.
My weekly article on such an important date aims to remind you that, at Casa África, we celebrate the 25th of May every day, but that we also organise a special programme every May, aimed at making people talk more and better about the continent. We started with a reading club of the work of the Cameroonian Hemley Boum on the 13th and a session of the Kabila game, devised by a Spanish aid worker after a stay in Kenya, as well as the opening of our latest exhibition, "A silent fire", which took place last Friday, the 16th. During this week, we have offered a conference on the current situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, given by the ambassador of the European Union in that country, Nicolás Berlanga, and other experts; we have screened the animated short film and feature film that won the last Goya awards and that talk about migration and climate change, "Cafuné" and "Mariposas negras"; we hosted a beautiful storytelling session, "Ancestros", with Bonaí Capote and María Buenadicha, and finally, we opened the courtyard to a meeting of music, dance and traditions with Khaware. This Friday we inaugurate the school exhibition "Teaching Africa", in a year in which we are breaking records with 69 schools enrolled in this programme, now in its twelfth year, throughout the archipelago. This Saturday we have our traditional Gastronomic Corner, with cooks from the Federation of African Associations in the Canary Islands (FAAC) and on 30 May, Canary Islands Day, we will be with the Contramapas initiative in El Hierro.
As I said at the beginning of this article, for us, every day is Africa Day and we strive to make its infinite riches known and to help bring this vision of the African Union, which we take on as our own, closer to becoming a reality. We are joined in this work by all kinds of partners, both in Spain and in Africa and elsewhere, from the members of our book club and each and every one of the people who attend our activities to governments, organisations such as the African Union and multilateral agencies such as those of the United Nations.
The page usually devoted by various media to my weekly articles will have fewer words and more images this weekend, as what interests me is to convey the richness, variety and vigour of the cultural and all kinds of events that we are hosting at Casa África as a result of the celebration of the 25th of May. I could not conclude this article without thanking partners such as the Federation, the Association of African Women in the Canary Islands (AMAC), the Elder Museum of Science and Technology and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) for their collaboration, as well as the support of Binter. I hope you enjoy the experiences of knowledge and coexistence that we are preparing together for you and that, like us, you feel the desire to celebrate, in your own way, every day, the 25th of May.