Let’s start our education conversation with a quote from our founders of Organization of Africa Unity ( OAU) former leaders secretarial final note from the May 22-25, 1963 education and culture page. It reads here “ considering that the educational and cultural co-operation among African States will break down linguistic barriers and promote understanding among the people of the continent, and believing that once this co-operation in educational and cultural fields among African states has been organized, co-ordinate d and harmonized and fully implemented, it will Pave the way to the final goal, namely African Unity.” One of the sweet and bitter pills that Africans have to deal with is the birth of many languages ( English, French, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese) on our continent. It is sweet because it allows us to look at our problems in many different angles and if applied with greater transparency, will make the continent more powerful then other continent with only one or two languages. The bitter side is that the many different languages make us very vulnerable to exploitation by greedy powers who are working continuously to put one country against another, exploiting our low educated populations by providing resources for coups and counter coups to put in puppet leaders to allow them to take our resources for free. Many times, African weaknesses have been exposed bringing more disgrace to our population. The last was with the vaccines sharing request by many African leaders. Africans have been asking for a seat on the security council and financial regulating body for decades. These requests have been water-down by world power because AFRICA HAS NOTHING TO OFFER! If African leaders are thinking building capacity with the young generation they have and bringing best education and research institutions on the continent, one who comes to make business with us will think twice. Look not too far but China initiatives is the answer! Africans have been sleeping on the same mat with Chinese but look where they are today.
SAMDA is her to re-start this 1963 conversation among Africans and to encourage more positive direction in the positive utilization of our diversity and languages. We can all agree that the only way people will take Africans serious is when all the countries in Africa are working in united front. We all can also see that the world expects more from Africans especially when we are all following education processes just like other continents. When we talk about young population, we are the first next to India. If African leaders and organizations executives can focus more on this population education path, and allow free movement of these kids to gain exposure in their own Continent and other far away world, the possibility of Africans standing on line to beg for crumbs including vaccines will be over with. SAMDA will do the following:
1. Encourage more science education via scholarships and putting science textbooks on tables in schools. SAMDA began this process last year with the help of Books For Africa in Liberia.
2. Encourage French and English as second languages in countries where these languages are not official languages.
3. Offer scholarships funds to schools student leaders from their annual African most pressing issues debate contest.
4. Offer scholarship to voted African teachers of the year in their respective country, region, county in Science, medicine, Agriculture and Medical Institution
5. Offer scholarship to deserving students in science, medicine, leaderships and moving talented sports youth directly from high schools to Physician Assistant, Nursing, and Environmental programs to Liberian Medical Arts programs. The responsibility of our Educational program will be spear-headed by veteran professor of
Mathematics, Mr. Oliver Nchang of the University of Bamenda, in Cameroon. Mr. Nchang also
heads our office in Cameroon.