Ms. Ory Okolloh

So I was busy admiring the photographs taken by Jessica Hilltout in the NYTimes that are part of her book, Amen, where she explores “grassroots soccer” where “the beautiful game exists in its purest form” when something about the article that accompanied the images bothered me.

At first, I was like there you go again you sensitive African…the book does after all capture the ingenuity of young kids who come up with beautiful soccer balls from the most improbable materials.

…and then via (the-fantastic-blog-you-all-should-read) Africa is a Country, I read Jessica’s… ( Read on! )

If you’ve been following my tweets lately you can tell that World Cup fever has set in for me. And it’s not just because I’m living in Johannesburg.

I’ve had a long love affair with football thanks to my late father. You see I was *the* quintessential daddy’s girl (in many ways I’ve inherited both his best and worst traits) and for the first few years of my life I was pretty much attached to his hip…all his workmates at the airport knew me, all the waiters at his favorite drinking spots knew me (especially at the Thorn Tree in the then New Stanley where he liked to have a… ( Read on! )

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Last week the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Bar Association (IBA) jointly launched a six-month campaign to increase the number of women lawyers authorised to represent defendants or victims at the International Criminal Court (ICC). In this first phase the campaign will focus on African countries.

To date, women counsel are still under-represented on the ICC List of Counsel. In particular, the ICC recognises the need to increase the number of women counsel from African countries, including those countries with situations under investigation before… ( Read on! )

Kwani Trust invites you to submit short stories of between 3000-8000
WORDS, that focus on Africa and the experiences of African people,
with a particular focus on Africans born after 1978. The theme of the
call out is ‘THE AFRICA I LIVE IN’. Published authors will be paid a fee of $100.

If you are interested in participating in this exciting initiative, please send your creative work to myafrica.kwani@gmail.com for consideration.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: JUNE 30TH 2010.

Visit our Kwani for more details.

I spent the last few days at the World Economic Forum Africa in Dar-es-Salaam. The larger plenary sessions mainly comprised of platitudes and a restating of the challenges facing Africa – I think the format just doesn’t allow for anything else. The smaller sessions I managed to attend were interesting, as in past WEF conferences I’ve attended, people tended to speak openly (with a few exceptions) about their experiences either in business, government, or social entrepreneurship…I and I learned new things especially when I attended sessions that didn’t automatically jive with my… ( Read on! )