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Ballet dance gives South African boy a chance to fly.

Posted on December 17th, 2010

Canadian family opens their home to help Siphesihle November achieve his dream to be a ballet dancer.

By Awakhiwe Dlodlo

Siphesihle November

“Before I knew I would ever come to Canada, I always wanted to go somewhere and dance,” said Siphesihle (Siphe) November.  “I thought about just getting out of Zolani.”

At the age of 12, Siphe looks two years younger, with a small frame, but his conversations are focused and well conceived.

It has been six months since he arrived in Toronto after his life had been turned upside down.

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Siphe’s life was changed by a Canadian couple, Scott Mathison, a veterinarian, and his wife, Kelly Dobbin.

While on vacation in South Africa in 2009, they rented a home in a garden town of Montagu, about two hours from Cape Town. They found a ballet school where they could enrol their daughter, Ella, to practice.

“We didn’t want to tour but we wanted to live within a community because we had a four month vacation,” said Mathison.

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Clean drinking water for Ugandans nets Canadian volunteer nomination for top award.

Posted on December 10th, 2010

Dr. Christopher Opio  builds wells in his native Northern Uganda.

By Awakhiwe Dlodlo 

Dr. Opio (left) with Tony Donovan, co-founders of Northern Uganda Development Foundation.

“When I was growing up, we suffered a lot, walking long distances to find water and it was dirty water,” said Opio. “We got so sick from diarrhoea, E. coli, bilharzias.”

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After losing a younger brother to water borne disease, Dr. Christopher Opio transformed his pain to a passion.  A passion that’s led to the installation of more than 29 wells in his homeland.

 Now, Opio’s volunteer work in Northern Uganda is being recognized by the Canadian public.

Opio is on the short list of ten volunteers chosen from among 1,300 in Canada’s Champions of Change contest..  The program is designed to recognize the extraordinary contributions of volunteers working around the world. 

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Kenyan priest looks back at his missionary experience in Canada.

Posted on December 3rd, 2010

As his term draws to an end, Fr Patrick Musumba reflects on his initiation assignment.
 
By Awakhiwe Dlodlo

Father Patrick Musumba.

After he completed high school, Musumba was told by a friend that a local seminary was taking boys who wanted to be priests. He went to talk to the director and  was accepted into the program.

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“I had three years of study in philosophy as a way to prepare for studies that would follow,” said Musumba.

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Nigerian author reflects on winning the penguin prize for African writing.

Posted on November 29th, 2010

You’re Not a Country, Africa is a book that searches for the definition of Africa.
 
By Awakhiwe Dlodlo

Pius Adesanmi (centre) receiving his award in South Africa.

Pius Adesanmi’s inspiration to write a collection of creative non-fiction essays came from a realisation that Africans only define themselves as such after they have left their homeland.

“It’s when we come to the west that we become Africans, we start to see things in a transcontinental perspective because we feel the need to reduce categories,” said Adesanmi.

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Zambian journalist finds a new calling in Canada.

Posted on November 23rd, 2010

Music helps an aspiring journalist overcome personal crisis.

By Awakhiwe Dlodlo

Muliyunda (front) performs for her music video shoot.

 Songs:
To listen to “Celebrate Mama Africa”  click here:

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 To listen to “I’ll pour my heart to you”click here:

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 When Readith Mwila Muliyunda discovered she could sing, her life had become so hard that she was getting ready to die. Muliyunda, 32, was a well-known journalist when she left her native Zambia to study at McGill University in Montreal on the prestigious Sauve scholarship.

“When I came to Canada, I had dreams and I had expectations about this place and then when I got here, life became hard for me,” said Muliyunda. “After school, I couldn’t get a job and I didn’t know what to do since life seemed to stop working for me and everything you can ever think of went wrong.”

 Muliyunda said it was at this point that she began to experience strange dreams. A voice in her dreams told her to sing. 

“I said, I’m a journalist and I don’t sing,” Muliyunda said. “But I also said give me a voice and I will sing.”

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Canadian woman is fighting to get anti-malaria mosquito repellent to her native Burundi.

Posted on November 12th, 2010

A research by a Canadian University is inspiring a project that could protect Burundians from deadly malaria infections.

By Awakhiwe Dlodlo

Ginette Karirekinyana

When Ginette Karirekinyana found out that Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique has discovered a natural way to make anti-mosquito repellent, she knew she had found a solution for her native Burundi.

“In Burundi, malaria kills pregnant women and children more than HIV/Aids,” said Karirekinyana, who teaches business ethics at the University of Laval in Quebec city.

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Malaria infections rising in Burundi.

World Health Organization (WHO) statistics show that between 2000 and 2008 the number of malaria cases in Burundi jumped from 308,095 to 876,741 cases.

Karirekinyana said the epidemic is due to poverty. Many people live close to dense forests and open bodies of water infested by malaria carrying mosquitoes. Even though WHO has implemented anti-malaria strategies such as providing bed nets for villagers, people still continue to die.
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A Canadian student discovers a hidden part of Nelson Mandela’s persona.

Posted on November 11th, 2010

A summer internship at Nelson Mandela Foundation leads to acknowledgement in Mandela’s recently published memoir.
By Awakhiwe Dlodlo  

Wendy Smith in Johannesburg, South Africa.

When Wendy Smith left Canada for South Africa for a three-month internship, she wouldn’t have dreamed that her name would end up in Nelson Mandela’s memoir.

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“Everyone from my program has to do a summer internship at an archive anywhere in the world,” said Smith. “But when I applied, I wasn’t even sure if I would be accepted.”

Smith ended up working on Nelson Mandela’s personal correspondence and diaries, both key components of his latest memoir, Conversations with Myself.

In Conversations with Myself, Mandela shares his thoughts and feelings concerning his family, his travels, as well as life in politics and in prison.
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Ghanaian village honours Canadian drummer.

Posted on October 29th, 2010

Curtis Andrews with friends in Ghana.

When Curtis Andrews went to a small village in Ghana to learn music and drumming, he didn’t know that he would end up building a school and leaving behind a part of himself forever.

Andrews, 33, is a musician who has always had an appetite for world music and cultures. 

“As a drummer I always wanted to visit Africa to learn drumming but it’s a huge place, so I wasn’t sure where exactly to go,” said Andrews.

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His dream was brought closer to realisation after he attended a music festival in his native Newfoundland where he met a Canadian-Ghanaian artist, Frederick Kwasi Dunyo.  Andrews told Dunyo about his wish to go to Africa. So, in 2002, on one of his visits to Ghana, Dunyo invited Andrews to come along.
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Sudanese doctors treat sick despite limited resources.

Posted on October 25th, 2010

Dr. Daniel Madit Duop (in the middle) with maternityward nurses at Malakal Teaching Hospital, Upper Nile State, South Sudan.

Daniel Madit Duop watched his mother go through agonising labour pains for two days before she and her unborn baby died. When young Duop arrived at the refugee camp in Ethiopia without his mother, he made himself a promise.

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“I vowed to myself that I would dedicate my life to helping women give birth safely,” Dr. Duop said speaking on a crackling phone line in Malakal, Southern Sudan. More than twenty years later, the Sudanese native is finally making good on his promise.

Dr. Duop, 40, is a survivor of the civil war between North and South Sudan that began in 1983. About two million civilians were killed and more than four million forced to flee their homes. Dr. Duop’s mother died while trying to reach a refugee camp in Ethiopia. Dr. Duop was 13 years old.

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Endangered Kenyan rhinos get a reprieve thanks to money raised in Canada.

Posted on October 15th, 2010

Canadian-born conservationist reaches out to nature loving Canadians to secure the black rhino.

Dr. Jonathan Moss (bottom right) with other security and wildlife management team members.

Dr Jonathan Moss has been visiting Canada once a year in the past few years to ask for Canadians’ help in saving the black rhino, one of Kenya’s endangered species.

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Moss, is the Chief Executive Officer of Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. Located three hours’ drive north of Nairobi, Lewa is a privately run wildlife refuge for some of Kenya’s most iconic and endangered species.

The list of its animal kingdom royalty includes the Big Five: the rhino, the lion, the elephant, the leopard and the buffalo. Spread over 62,000 acres of savannah, Lewa has more than 70 mammal species, including hyena, cheetah, giraffe, Colobus monkey and so on. There are more than 350 species of birds.

At 43, Moss feels more at home on a safari than in the concrete jungle of his native Toronto, which he left when he was only three.

“Canadians are very kind people but I always feel like I need to get to know Canada better,” Moss said. “It’s so far from home though, it’s nothing like Kenya for me.”
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