The Beautiful Game

One of the biggest, most accurate videos of Soccer and its global impact ever made
Hats off to nike

Write The Future from Nalden on Vimeo.

Bad Water = Death

Bad water kill more children than wars. This is a fact that UNICEF wants to bring to the attention of the mainstream with thoughtful print adds and memorable commercials

Solidarités International: Water talks from La Boite Concept on Vimeo.

Beauty of the Omo

On the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, the lower Omo Valley is a lost world. Far from any city and with a cruel climate, this land remains one of the wildest in Africa. This magnificently produced, two-volume publication is a superb chronicle of the Omo Valley's fast-vanishing and excruciatingly hard way of life, focusing on the fifteen or so ethnic groups who have lived there since time immemorial. Hans Silvester's photographs, as beautiful as they are fascinating, are accompanied by a text that documents the culture and daily life of the Omo tribes. 2 volumes presented in a slipcase: Volume I Customs and Ceremonies; Volume II Face and Body Decoration. 304pp, UK. THAMES & HUDSON. click here for more
Click here for Hans Silver  Facebook page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3jAmaImbBI

Mandela on Leadership

By RICHARD STENGEL. TIME .Thu Jul 10, 5:30 PM ET

Even at 90, the world has never needed Mandela's gifts - as a tactician, as an activist and, yes, as a politician - more, as he showed again in London on June 25, when he rose to condemn the savagery of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. As we enter the main stretch of a historic presidential campaign in America, there is much that he can teach the two candidates. I've always thought of what you are about to read as Madiba's Rules (Madiba, his clan name, is what everyone close to him calls him), and they are cobbled together from our conversations old and new and from observing him up close and from afar. They are mostly practical. Many of them stem directly from his personal experience. All of them are calibrated to cause the best kind of trouble: the trouble that forces us to ask how we can make the world a better place.

No. 1
Courage is not the absence of fear - it's inspiring others to move beyond it
In 1994, during the presidential-election campaign, Mandela got on a tiny propeller plane to fly down to the killing fields of Natal and give a speech to his Zulu supporters. I agreed to meet him at the airport, where we would continue our work after his speech. When the plane was 20 minutes from landing, one of its engines failed. Some on the plane began to panic. The only thing that calmed them was looking at Mandela, who quietly read his newspaper as if he were a commuter on his morning train to the office. The airport prepared for an emergency landing, and the pilot managed to land the plane safely. When Mandela and I got in the backseat of his bulletproof BMW that would take us to the rally, he turned to me and said, "Man, I was terrified up there!"

Mandela was often afraid during his time underground, during the Rivonia trial that led to his imprisonment, during his time on Robben Island. "Of course I was afraid!" he would tell me later. It would have been irrational, he suggested, not to be. "I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world." But as a leader, you cannot let people know. "You must put up a front."

And that's precisely what he learned to do: pretend and, through the act of appearing fearless, inspire others. It was a pantomime Mandela perfected on Robben Island, where there was much to fear. Prisoners who were with him said watching Mandela walk across the courtyard, upright and proud, was enough to keep them going for days. He knew that he was a model for others, and that gave him the strength to triumph over his own fear.

No. 2
Lead from the front - but don't leave your base behind
Mandela is cagey. in 1985 he was operated on for an enlarged prostate. When he was returned to prison, he was separated from his colleagues and friends for the first time in 21 years. They protested. But as his longtime friend Ahmed Kathrada recalls, he said to them, "Wait a minute, chaps. Some good may come of this."

The good that came of it was that Mandela on his own launched negotiations with the apartheid government. This was anathema to the African National Congress (ANC). After decades of saying "prisoners cannot negotiate" and after advocating an armed struggle that would bring the government to its knees, he decided that the time was right to begin to talk to his oppressors.

When he initiated his negotiations with the government in 1985, there were many who thought he had lost it. "We thought he was selling out," says Cyril Ramaphosa, then the powerful and fiery leader of the National Union of Mineworkers. "I went to see him to tell him, What are you doing? It was an unbelievable initiative. He took a massive risk."

Mandela launched a campaign to persuade the ANC that his was the correct course. His reputation was on the line. He went to each of his comrades in prison, Kathrada remembers, and explained what he was doing. Slowly and deliberately, he brought them along. "You take your support base along with you," says Ramaphosa, who was secretary-general of the ANC and is now a business mogul. "Once you arrive at the beachhead, then you allow the people to move on. He's not a bubble-gum leader - chew it now and throw it away."

For Mandela, refusing to negotiate was about tactics, not principles. Throughout his life, he has always made that distinction. His unwavering principle - the overthrow of apartheid and the achievement of one man, one vote - was immutable, but almost anything that helped him get to that goal he regarded as a tactic. He is the most pragmatic of idealists.

"He's a historical man," says Ramaphosa. "He was thinking way ahead of us. He has posterity in mind: How will they view what we've done?" Prison gave him the ability to take the long view. It had to; there was no other view possible. He was thinking in terms of not days and weeks but decades. He knew history was on his side, that the result was inevitable; it was just a question of how soon and how it would be achieved. "Things will be better in the long run," he sometimes said. He always played for the long run.

No. 3
Lead from the back - and let others believe they are in front
Mandela loved to reminisce about his boyhood and his lazy afternoons herding cattle. "You know," he would say, "you can only lead them from behind." He would then raise his eyebrows to make sure I got the analogy.

As a boy, Mandela was greatly influenced by Jongintaba, the tribal king who raised him. When Jongintaba had meetings of his court, the men gathered in a circle, and only after all had spoken did the king begin to speak. The chief's job, Mandela said, was not to tell people what to do but to form a consensus. "Don't enter the debate too early," he used to say.

During the time I worked with Mandela, he often called meetings of his kitchen cabinet at his home in Houghton, a lovely old suburb of Johannesburg. He would gather half a dozen men, Ramaphosa, Thabo Mbeki (who is now the South African President) and others around the dining-room table or sometimes in a circle in his driveway. Some of his colleagues would shout at him - to move faster, to be more radical - and Mandela would simply listen. When he finally did speak at those meetings, he slowly and methodically summarized everyone's points of view and then unfurled his own thoughts, subtly steering the decision in the direction he wanted without imposing it. The trick of leadership is allowing yourself to be led too. "It is wise," he said, "to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea."

No. 4
Know your enemy - and learn about his favorite sport
As far back as the 1960s, mandela began studying Afrikaans, the language of the white South Africans who created apartheid. His comrades in the ANC teased him about it, but he wanted to understand the Afrikaner's worldview; he knew that one day he would be fighting them or negotiating with them, and either way, his destiny was tied to theirs.

This was strategic in two senses: by speaking his opponents' language, he might understand their strengths and weaknesses and formulate tactics accordingly. But he would also be ingratiating himself with his enemy. Everyone from ordinary jailers to P.W. Botha was impressed by Mandela's willingness to speak Afrikaans and his knowledge of Afrikaner history. He even brushed up on his knowledge of rugby, the Afrikaners' beloved sport, so he would be able to compare notes on teams and players.

Mandela understood that blacks and Afrikaners had something fundamental in common: Afrikaners believed themselves to be Africans as deeply as blacks did. He knew, too, that Afrikaners had been the victims of prejudice themselves: the British government and the white English settlers looked down on them. Afrikaners suffered from a cultural inferiority complex almost as much as blacks did.

Mandela was a lawyer, and in prison he helped the warders with their legal problems. They were far less educated and worldly than he, and it was extraordinary to them that a black man was willing and able to help them. These were "the most ruthless and brutal of the apartheid regime's characters," says Allister Sparks, the great South African historian, and he "realized that even the worst and crudest could be negotiated with."

No. 5
Keep your friends close - and your rivals even closer
Many of the guests mandela invited to the house he built in Qunu were people whom, he intimated to me, he did not wholly trust. He had them to dinner; he called to consult with them; he flattered them and gave them gifts. Mandela is a man of invincible charm - and he has often used that charm to even greater effect on his rivals than on his allies.

On Robben Island, Mandela would always include in his brain trust men he neither liked nor relied on. One person he became close to was Chris Hani, the fiery chief of staff of the ANC's military wing. There were some who thought Hani was conspiring against Mandela, but Mandela cozied up to him. "It wasn't just Hani," says Ramaphosa. "It was also the big industrialists, the mining families, the opposition. He would pick up the phone and call them on their birthdays. He would go to family funerals. He saw it as an opportunity." When Mandela emerged from prison, he famously included his jailers among his friends and put leaders who had kept him in prison in his first Cabinet. Yet I well knew that he despised some of these men.

There were times he washed his hands of people - and times when, like so many people of great charm, he allowed himself to be charmed. Mandela initially developed a quick rapport with South African President F.W. de Klerk, which is why he later felt so betrayed when De Klerk attacked him in public.

Mandela believed that embracing his rivals was a way of controlling them: they were more dangerous on their own than within his circle of influence. He cherished loyalty, but he was never obsessed by it. After all, he used to say, "people act in their own interest." It was simply a fact of human nature, not a flaw or a defect. The flip side of being an optimist - and he is one - is trusting people too much. But Mandela recognized that the way to deal with those he didn't trust was to neutralize them with charm.

No. 6
Appearances matter - and remember to smile
When Mandela was a poor law student in Johannesburg wearing his one threadbare suit, he was taken to see Walter Sisulu. Sisulu was a real estate agent and a young leader of the ANC. Mandela saw a sophisticated and successful black man whom he could emulate. Sisulu saw the future.

Sisulu once told me that his great quest in the 1950s was to turn the ANC into a mass movement; and then one day, he recalled with a smile, "a mass leader walked into my office." Mandela was tall and handsome, an amateur boxer who carried himself with the regal air of a chief's son. And he had a smile that was like the sun coming out on a cloudy day.

We sometimes forget the historical correlation between leadership and physicality. George Washington was the tallest and probably the strongest man in every room he entered. Size and strength have more to do with DNA than with leadership manuals, but Mandela understood how his appearance could advance his cause. As leader of the ANC's underground military wing, he insisted that he be photographed in the proper fatigues and with a beard, and throughout his career he has been concerned about dressing appropriately for his position. George Bizos, his lawyer, remembers that he first met Mandela at an Indian tailor's shop in the 1950s and that Mandela was the first black South African he had ever seen being fitted for a suit. Now Mandela's uniform is a series of exuberant-print shirts that declare him the joyous grandfather of modern Africa.

When Mandela was running for the presidency in 1994, he knew that symbols mattered as much as substance. He was never a great public speaker, and people often tuned out what he was saying after the first few minutes. But it was the iconography that people understood. When he was on a platform, he would always do the toyi-toyi, the township dance that was an emblem of the struggle. But more important was that dazzling, beatific, all-inclusive smile. For white South Africans, the smile symbolized Mandela's lack of bitterness and suggested that he was sympathetic to them. To black voters, it said, I am the happy warrior, and we will triumph. The ubiquitous ANC election poster was simply his smiling face. "The smile," says Ramaphosa, "was the message."

After he emerged from prison, people would say, over and over, It is amazing that he is not bitter. There are a thousand things Nelson Mandela was bitter about, but he knew that more than anything else, he had to project the exact opposite emotion. He always said, "Forget the past" - but I knew he never did.

No. 7
Nothing is black or white
When we began our series of interviews, I would often ask Mandela questions like this one: When you decided to suspend the armed struggle, was it because you realized you did not have the strength to overthrow the government or because you knew you could win over international opinion by choosing nonviolence? He would then give me a curious glance and say, "Why not both?"

I did start asking smarter questions, but the message was clear: Life is never either/or. Decisions are complex, and there are always competing factors. To look for simple explanations is the bias of the human brain, but it doesn't correspond to reality. Nothing is ever as straightforward as it appears.

Mandela is comfortable with contradiction. As a politician, he was a pragmatist who saw the world as infinitely nuanced. Much of this, I believe, came from living as a black man under an apartheid system that offered a daily regimen of excruciating and debilitating moral choices: Do I defer to the white boss to get the job I want and avoid a punishment? Do I carry my pass?

As a statesman, Mandela was uncommonly loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and Fidel Castro. They had helped the ANC when the U.S. still branded Mandela as a terrorist. When I asked him about Gaddafi and Castro, he suggested that Americans tend to see things in black and white, and he would upbraid me for my lack of nuance. Every problem has many causes. While he was indisputably and clearly against apartheid, the causes of apartheid were complex. They were historical, sociological and psychological. Mandela's calculus was always, What is the end that I seek, and what is the most practical way to get there?

No. 8
Quitting is leading too
In 1993, Mandela asked me if I knew of any countries where the minimum voting age was under 18. I did some research and presented him with a rather undistinguished list: Indonesia, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Iran. He nodded and uttered his highest praise: "Very good, very good." Two weeks later, Mandela went on South African television and proposed that the voting age be lowered to 14. "He tried to sell us the idea," recalls Ramaphosa, "but he was the only [supporter]. And he had to face the reality that it would not win the day. He accepted it with great humility. He doesn't sulk. That was also a lesson in leadership."

Knowing how to abandon a failed idea, task or relationship is often the most difficult kind of decision a leader has to make. In many ways, Mandela's greatest legacy as President of South Africa is the way he chose to leave it. When he was elected in 1994, Mandela probably could have pressed to be President for life - and there were many who felt that in return for his years in prison, that was the least South Africa could do.

In the history of Africa, there have been only a handful of democratically elected leaders who willingly stood down from office. Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him - not only in South Africa but across the rest of the continent. He would be the anti-Mugabe, the man who gave birth to his country and refused to hold it hostage. "His job was to set the course," says Ramaphosa, "not to steer the ship." He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do.

Ultimately, the key to understanding Mandela is those 27 years in prison. The man who walked onto Robben Island in 1964 was emotional, headstrong, easily stung. The man who emerged was balanced and disciplined. He is not and never has been introspective. I often asked him how the man who emerged from prison differed from the willful young man who had entered it. He hated this question. Finally, in exasperation one day, he said, "I came out mature." There is nothing so rare - or so valuable - as a mature man. Happy birthday, Madiba. View this article on Mandela: His 8 Lessons of Leadership

Travelblog.org/Africa

Africa is a vast continent which, including island groups, holds 53 different countries. Africa stretches from temperate areas in the north to those in the south, and is crossed by the equator. The continent is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.


The climate of Africa varies with areas of arid desert to rainforest, to savanna plains and glorious coastal areas. Africa offers numerous cultural experiences, with a diverse cultural history and a dramatic story of colonial occupation to nation state independence. Africa holds a diverse range of wildlife and flora, vibrant cities, and a stunning landscape. click here To check out this wonderful site

History Lesson

Paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged looks for the roots of humanity in Ethiopia's badlands. Here he talks about finding the oldest skeleton of a humanoid child -- and how Africa holds the clues to our humanity.

Go Back 2 Africa

Great links that showcases the innovative spirit in the Africa






















Afromusing










Nexteinstein

The Fellowship part II

Equiano’s exaltation when he was finally able to purchase his freedom for £40 on July 11, 1766 quickly gave way to the terror of shipwreck. However his determination to survive was, to put it mildly, phenomenal, and he finally, and with considerable relief, left “the American quarter of the globe” and returned to “old England”. There he became a hairdresser, and learned to play the French horn, but the pay did not compare with a sailor’s, so he was soon back on board ship, sailing to the Mediterranean, Turkey and Greenland, on an expedition on which the young Horatio Nelson was almost killed by a polar bear and they barely escaped death when their ship was trapped in ice.

To read the entire article click here

The Fellowship

Part One
Horror and Love

Charles Middleton, James Ramsay, Granville Sharp,
and Margaret, Lady Middleton

Introduction

We are inundated by reports from all over the world, and find it hard to remember the last atrocity while facing the latest. In the world of the 18th century, word on slavery was slow to arrive, slower to be heard. The evil of slavery was growing, but only whispers reached the shires, which were preoccupied with their own problems.

Those who learned about slavery and recognized it as an evil were few in number. These few formed a fellowship to abolish the slave trade.

They were brought together in ways that seem mysterious and inexplicable. Each person brought to the fellowship something only he or she could bring, and without which the whole exhausting, dangerous effort that came close to killing several of them might have failed.

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Change in Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe - The main opposition party claimed outright victory Wednesday for its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, saying he had won 50.3 percent of the vote compared to 43.8 percent for President Robert Mugabe.

The ruling ZANU-PF party rejected the opposition's claims, saying that it would await the full results from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, which has not yet published the outcome of Saturday's presidential poll.

The state Herald newspaper, meanwhile, predicted a runoff in the first official admission that Zimbabwe's autocratic leader of 28 years has failed to win re-election. A presidential candidate needs at least 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a runoff.

However, Movement for Democratic Change general secretary Tendai Biti said there was no need.

"We maintain that we have won the presidential election outright without the need for a run-off," Biti told a news conference.

click here for full article

Continuing the Good Fight

Clooney Puts Pressure on Olympic SponsorTuesday March 11 8:35 AM ET
LONDON (AP) Hollywood star George Clooney has put pressure on an Olympic sponsor to speak out over China's foreign policy in Sudan.
Clooney promotes Omega Watches one of the worldwide Olympic partners for the Beijing games.
"I have talked with Omega (about China) for over a year and will continue to talk to Omega," Clooney was quoted as saying on the BBC Web site on Tuesday. "I have and will go to the places I and China do business and ask for help."
Clooney has publicly spoken several times about the crisis in Darfur, Sudan, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and about 2.5 million people displaced in three years of fighting between African rebels and government troops allied with Arab militia known as janjaweed.

Click here for more

African Fractals: modern computing and indigenous design

Fractal geometry has emerged as one of the most exciting frontiers in the fusion between mathematics and information technology. Fractals can be seen in many of the swirling patterns produced by computer graphics, and have become an important new tool for modeling in biology, geology, and other natural sciences. While fractal geometry can take us into the far reaches of high tech science, its patterns are surprisingly common in traditional African designs, and some of its basic concepts are fundamental to African knowledge systems.

African Fractals introduces readers to fractal geometry and explores the ways it is expressed in African cultures. Drawing on interviews with African designers, artists, and scientists, Ron Eglash investigates fractals in African architecture, traditional hairstyling, textiles, sculpture, painting, carving, metalwork, religion, games, quantitative techniques, and symbolic systems. He also examines the political and social implications of the existence of African fractal geometry. Both clear and complex, this book makes a unique contribution to the study of mathematics, African culture, anthropology, and aesthetic design.

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Click here to order book from Amazon.com

Ashes & Snow Feather to Fire

Ashes & Snow a meditation on man and nature




The Why

Africanhiphop.com

Africanhiphop.com serves the goal of unifying everybody who's inspired by hip hop and by the cultures of Africa and of African origins. The info at Africanhiphop.com is provided mostly by the artists themselves, and edited by the Africanhiphop.com web team in Amsterdam, Holland. Africanhiphop.com is a project of the African Hip Hop Foundation, a non-profit organization registered in the Netherlands which is run by a group of young volunteers from different countries and backgrounds. The foundation board consists of pioneers in African hip hop from South Africa, Uganda and Holland. Our editorial team is made up of young media professionals from Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Cape Verde and Angola, while we work with freelancers from all over the continent.

Click here to see the artist

Africans 4 Africa

I have spent part of this year focusing on Africa, because it is critical that African Americans youth understand that their future may lie in many of the emerging opportunities that will be available in Africa. First we must educate ourselves beyond what the media presents us, war and Aids. The continent must be seen in its entirety, its poverty, riches, progress and opportunities. The three speakers below believe African must fix Africa and that foreign aide hampers not assist progress.

Andrew Mwenda: Let's take a new look at African aid

Eleni Gabre-Madhin: Building a commodities market in Ethiopia

Patrick Awuah: Educating a new generation of African leaders

Darfur Right Now

Click here for the Darfur Now Curriculum Guide

Darfur Now My space link

THE DIVERSITY OF ETHNIC GROUPS IN AFRICA

Tribes of Africa A-Z a gorgeous site

Click here

What is Hardcore

Lyrics 'What's Hardcore?'I put a pen to the paper, this time as visual as possible, guns blast at the hospital,the walls are white washed with tin rooftops, to show love you lick two shots, it's dangerous man, journalists hire gunmen there's violent women, kids trust no one cause fire burnt them, refugees die in boats, headed for peace,is anyone scared of death here' Not in the least,I walk by the old lady selling coconuts under the tree, life is cheap here but wisdom is free, the beach boys hang on the side, leaning with pride,scam artists and gangsters fiendin to fight, I walk with three kids that can't wait to meet Godlately, that's Bucktooth, Mohamed and Crybaby,what they do everyday just to eat lord have mercy,strapped with an AK and they blood thirsty...So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.We begin our day by the way of the gun, rocket propelled grenades blow you away if you front,we got no police ambulance or fire fighters,we start riots by burning car tires,they looting, and everybody start shooting,bullshit politicians talking bout solutions, but it's all talk, you can't go half a block with a road block, you don't pay at the road block you get your throat shot,and each road block is set up by these gangsters,and different gangsters go by different standards,for example, the evening is a no go, unless you wanna wear a bullet like a logo,in the day you should never take the alleyway,the only thing that validates you is the AK,they chew on Jad it's sorta like coco leafs,and there ain't no police...So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.I'm a spit these verses cause I feel annoyed,and I'm not gonna quit till I fill the void,if I rhyme about home and got descriptive,I'd make Fifty Cent look like Limp Biskit,it's true, and don't make me rhyme about you,I'm from where the kids is addicted to glue,get ready, he got a good grip on the machete,make rappers say they do it for love like R-Kelly,it's HARD, harder than Harlem and Compton intertwined,harder than harboring Bin Laden and rewind,"to that earlier part when I was kinda like"we begin our day by the way of the gun,rocket propelled grenades blow you away if you front,we got no police ambulances or fire fighters,we start riots by burning car tires,they looting, and everybody starting shooting...So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore?Hmm.So what's hardcore? Really, are you hardcore? Hmm.

Knaan website

Ethiopia's New Millennium

By ANITA POWELL Associated Press WriterADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia Sep 11, 2007 (AP)

Seven years after the rest of the world, Ethiopia celebrated the third millennium Tuesday those with money shelling out for a gala concert headlined by the hip hop group Black Eyed Peas and others gathering in quieter, candlelit observances. Ethiopia's government, which follows the Coptic calendar instead of the more common Gregorian, spruced up the capital for months before the festivities, moving homeless people to the countryside and poisoning stray dogs that roamed the streets.

While many in this impoverished country complained about the money spent for the celebration, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi predicted it would usher in better times.
"A thousand years from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome the fourth millennium, they will say that the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the end of the dark ages in Ethiopia," Meles said at a multimillion-dollar concert hall built for the occasion.
Ethiopia, which captured attention in the 1980s with a civil war and famine that killed as many as 1 million people, remains among the world's poorest nations and suffers chronic food shortages that affect hundreds of thousands every year.

Many people dismissed Meles' description of the holiday as an "Ethiopian renaissance," saying their celebrations would be subdued because of a tense political situation, a conflict with separatist Muslims in the Ogaden region and Ethiopian involvement in Somalia's war.
"The average people, they have nothing," said Kiddy Tesera, a 40-year-old who nevertheless was out in the capital celebrating. "It's the millennium," she said.
But she disdained the appearance by the American singers Black Eyed Peas, which followed a cultural and musical festival at the new concert hall and cost $170 a seat two months' pay for an average Ethiopian. "For me, it's not worth it," she said.
Yoself Passew, a shoe shiner, had no party plans but said he hopes the new millennium will bring him gainful employment.
"In the future I will have a job, that is my hope," said Yoself, 25. "The future will be bright

Officials at the Millennium Secretariat noted some festivities were free, notably several cultural events at a stadium in Addis Ababa and at a field just northeast of the city center. The concert also was broadcast live on television and on a big screen at the stadium, which holds more than 15,000 people.Officials at the Millennium Secretariat noted some festivities were free, notably several cultural events at a stadium in Addis Ababa and at a field just northeast of the city center. The concert also was broadcast live on television and on a big screen at the stadium, which holds more than 15,000 people.

Understanding Slavery

The rich cultural traditions of Africa
Africa has a long and rich history. There were many diverse and powerful kingdoms throughout Africa, particularly in the west. These include the kingdoms of Mali, Songhay, Benin and the Asante, all built on wealth from mining gold. Economic networks and craftsmanship characterized these cultures.
Background information
The background information provides an introduction to West African History. This overview will help contextualize this history to support pupils’ learning about the continent before the transatlantic slave trade.
An Excellent Learning Tool Click Here