To work in the community sector, one must be extremely passionate about what they do, since this is an occupation that requires long hours and little pay. It’s a line of work to which the organisers of the Africa Centre and AkiDwA have committed themselves for the past 10 years. “If you work in the community sector, your heart must really be in the community because you will not receive financial satisfaction,” says Eric Yao, co-ordinator of the Africa Centre. “The satisfaction we gain is in knowing that we helped one, two or three people.”
Both organisations are celebrating their 10th anniversary in serving the African immigrant community in Ireland. But instead of relaxing and taking in accolades, both Yao and AkiDwA founder/CEO Salome Mbugua are too busy planning their agendas for the next 10 years in the midst of centennial events such as lecture series and conferences.
Metro Éireann sat down with both Yao and Mbugua – considered local heroes to many – to find out how their organisations got started, what they’ve accomplished so far, and what they still have left to do.
‘I believe that we can
have a better world’
Salome Mbugua, founder and CEO of AkiDwA – an organisation that supports all migrant women, but focuses mainly on the needs of African women – jokingly describes herself as a woman with a “big butt and a big heart”. However, her big heart is anything but a joke.
Mbugua started her career as a social worker in Nairobi, and when she made the permanent move to Ireland some 13 years ago, she used her skills initially to help homeless boys with behavioural problems.
She had been to Ireland previously in 1994, to take courses at a college, and had an active social life. But when she returned in 1998 – to live with her husband whom she met at college – it felt like foreign and unwelcoming territory. Friends who had been close just four years prior no longer answered her phone calls, and she felt isolated and alone.
“During the time of the economic boom, lots of migrants came in and many Irish people felt they came to take what was theirs,” she says. “The attitudes of people in Ireland had so much hardened, and that’s around the time racial attacks were occurring.”
But Mbugua soon realised she was not alone: she found six other African women who shared similar experiences of isolation and exclusion. They would get together and host informal meetings at each other’s houses. These meetings led to the more formal organisation that is AkiDwA.
Since the group formed 10 years ago, it has fought to end the practice of female genital mutilation, or FGM. AkiDwA is hopeful that the Criminal Justice (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill 2011 will be passed by the Dáil and give explicit legal protection against FGM in Ireland while also making it a criminal offence to send a child back to their family’s native country for the procedure, widely considered barbaric.
“If this became law, it would be our greatest achievement thus far,” says Mbugua. “We have created a platform for African women to speak out. We created an open dialogue about sensitive issues, including sexuality, and brought up the private act of FGM, which most Irish people don’t understand.”
Much work had been done to get the bill so far along. Mbugua says she and her staff members realised they could not make a significant change without mobilising others, so they brought FGM to the attention of NGOs and members of the Dáil.
The organisation’s next mission is to stop sexual violence in Africa, specifically in the DR Congo and Kenya. “We need to protect our own mother countries,” she says.
Mbugua and her staff have also helped qualified women receive training within their areas of interest. Women receive internship-style placements for around three months through AkiDwA’s employment initiative programme, Door to Work. The programme provides women with more experience within the Irish system that will hopefully lead to permanent positions.
“It is very difficult to make any systematic changes especially when economy is doing so poorly trying, ” says Mbugua. “We are trying so hard, but we are only able to do so much.”
And that’s what frustrates people the most. The staff of AkiDwA cannot fix everyone’s problems; they are only able to help.
“Decisions like asylum are decided by the Government, which is frustrating for many of the women,” she says. “But what can we really do? We aren’t able to change systems that are bureaucratic and political.
“It is very difficult in an environment where systems are not really clear or outlined or don’t have proper immigration policies developed, yet. So, that has been frustrating. It has been a struggle, but on the other hand, we have been listened to and taken into consideration.”
Through all the obstacles, it has been Mbugua’s hope for the future migrants of Ireland, to lead an easier life.
“I haven’t stopped because I believe that we can have a better world,” she says. “I have called for change to have a better society where everyone is respected and valued for who they are. I have done so without fear and with courage. And I wouldn’t regret a day of it.”
‘We don’t know all the answers but we will make the effort’
Eric Yao, co-ordinator of the Africa Centre, has spent many years fighting against negative portrayals of his motherland and his people.
According to Yao, many people perceive ethnic organisations to be unstructured, untrustworthy with money, not accountable and corrupt. To combat this image, the Africa Centre has made its spending public.
The centre also wants to spread a more balanced image of Africa through various campaigns. Its current campaign, Africa Also Smiles, shows that “there is more going on in Africa than famine, poverty and war,” says Yao.
The previous campaign, Africa Tell It Like It Is, intended to let people know just how much the western world depends on Africa in everyday life. For instance, it explained that in 2010 Europe consumed 40 percent of the world cocoa, while the Ivory Coast produced 44 per cent of the world cocoa in the same year.
“The Africa Tell It Like It Is campaign was aimed at letting the world know that the information about Africa and image of the continent is skewed,” says Yao. “We want people [in the media] to bring the information as it is.”
Aside from campaigns, the Africa Centre is the only ethnic-led organisation involved in development education, and has helped make the annual Africa Day celebration a huge success during the past couple of years.
Although the wider Irish community is important to the centre, focusing on the needs of African migrants is its top priority. The Africa Centre educates others about health inequalities that exist in Ireland among African immigrants and discusses problems that are not being addressed by the wider community, says Yao. Typical topics discussed include mental health, general health and well-being, malaria, sickle cell anaemia, glaucoma, high blood pressure, diabetes and exercise.
One of the main focuses of the organisation is community empowerment, which involves an entrepreneurship programme. It’s an important move, since many Africans report facing discrimination when looking for employment.
Yao can relate to the struggles people bring to the centre, saying there have been many instances where he did not receive a response regarding positions he was qualified for. However, he refused to allow this to keep him from being successful.
“I’m a firm believer in not just sitting there and crying foul,” he says. “What somebody else does you can’t control, but you can control what you do, and that’s where the strength in numbers comes in.
“Those suffering discrimination come to us. We don’t know all the answers but we will make the effort. If somebody is getting discriminated against based on employment, then [we suggest]: why don’t you try setting up your own business?”
Yao hopes that people continue to come to the Africa Centre to learn how to establish their own businesses as well as receive support from the community. The centre, he says, is available to create a unified force among Ireland’s African people, as well as create more communication and understanding between Irish people and Africans.
“At the Africa Centre, we practice ‘ubuntu’, a word that means ‘without you I’m nothing, and without me you’re nothing, we need each other,’” says Yao. “The centre has done some good work, but there is still much out there to be done, and we need more Africans to put their heads together so that they can help us reach out and assist others.”
