With know-how ever advancing within the fields of transportation and communication, the world is smaller than it has ever been earlier than. A handful of artists and entrepreneurs are seizing this chance to rebuild a connection between the African Diaspora and continental Africa.
One such entrepreneur is the founding father of the PR firm Ford Communications, Lakisha Ford. Born to Jamaican dad and mom in the US of America, Ford first touched down on the continent “many moons in the past.” When she was learning in China to study Mandarin and Chinese language historical past, Ford seen the big inflow of Chinese language exercise on the African continent. Her curiosity was piqued. She leaped on the alternative to increase her examine overseas program in Ghana.
Impressed by Africa
“I believe I used to be like 19 years previous and I believed, this isn’t what they present us in regards to the African continent,” she defined in an interview on Face2Face Africa. “What I noticed was completely reverse, and I used to be impressed to open folks’s minds to the reality and the truth of what the African continent is.”
In keeping with Ford, her migration to Africa was a “cumulative” course of. The seed was planted inside her as a scholar. 5 years later she was awarded a fellowship which introduced her again to Ghana after her diploma. She began wanting on the affect of Chinese language commerce – specializing in the telecommunications and mining sectors – on the nation. Her analysis was sluggish and tedious, however it left her with the time and freedom to look at her environment.
Ford adheres to sure ideas on the subject of beginning a enterprise. “You might want to do your analysis,” she defined within the interview. “Take a look at what the market wants. A number of time we predict as entrepreneurs, or as individuals who wish to do enterprise, that we should bully our approach, our options, right into a market. [Instead] know what drawback you’re fixing and ensure it’s an issue to the folks inside this area, inside Ghana.”
Ever observant she realized sure deficiencies with the market. “I all the time had it behind my thoughts that I wished to make use of some type of medium to attach the diaspora and Ghana.”
Rising Her Enterprise
She began writing. Writing for everybody. She wrote for eating places, for artists, carried out customer support coaching, and did free PR. Admittedly, it solely clicked that this may very well be a profession when prospects would name her once more for extra assignments, cementing in her thoughts that there was one thing right here. When she completed her analysis she determined to settle in Ghana and begin Ford Communications, her approach of connecting the diaspora to the continent and vice versa.
As we speak Ford and her workforce work as that ever-important bridge between Ghana and the world exterior the continent. “This was one thing I wished to see extra of, getting the world extra focused on what’s taking place on the African idea — culturally and business-wise,” she defined.
WoodxWata: Bringing the Diaspora to Africa
One of many methods Ford created this bridge was by utilizing her personal compound id as a template. The Jamaican-American spearheaded a Caribbean-African occasion that will change into WoodxWata. “It was born out of elevating the idea of bringing the diaspora to Ghana, and what we are able to do round enterprise, funding and popular culture,” she defined. “What’s the way forward for Africa and the Caribbean?” WoodxWatta is now endorsed by Ghana’s authorities initiative ‘Past the Return’ and the Jamaican Consulate and Workplace of Diaspora Affairs.
Whereas Ford Communications has existed for lower than a decade, its affect has touched not simply small native companies and upstart initiatives, however the firm has labored with among the largest establishments on this planet. Each the United Nations and World Remit will be counted as shoppers who’ve tapped into Ford’s appreciable abilities and contacts to ascertain a foothold inside Ghana and by extension the continent.
Regardless of reaching a lot, Ford is much from happy. “We wish to see the way forward for Africa. We wish to see what it appears like,” she declared. She’s pursuing traders who consider in the way forward for each Africa and the Caribbean. She requires Black rising nations to work together extra, commerce extra, and study extra from one another. “It’s not about wanting on the West to see what is feasible. It’s about our time to create our personal options.”