African Youth from the Continent and the Diaspora to Converge on York U. for 12th Annual All-African Students' Conference

TORONTO, May 23, 2000 -- African and ethnic-African university students from every continent on the globe will converge on York University this week for the 12th annual gathering of the All-African Students' Conference (AASC) May 26-28, on The Role of African Youth on the Continent and in the Diaspora in the 21st Century.

The conference takes place at a time of mounting international concern about the future of young Africans. On parts of the African continent they are threatened by civil war, grinding poverty and the spectre of HIV/AIDS. Those scattered around the world in the diaspora face poverty and racism associated with displacement, migration and resettlement. A lost generation of youth in many parts of Africa is the greatest casualty of an unending spiral of civil war. In Sierra Leone alone, estimates of the number of children who have fought in the nine-year war in that west African nation run as high as 10,000. Most of them have been kidnapped, drugged, and forced to kill or be killed by their militia captors.

"Peace in Africa is a major concern of African youth," said Ismael Musah Montana, a York University PhD candidate and local coordinator of the conference. "The use of children as weapons of war in Sierra Leone and in other civil conflicts in Africa must be stopped. We urge the West to halt the continuing sale of arms to the continent," said Montana.

Coordinator of York's African Studies program, Prof. Pablo Idahosa, says the conference can act as a catalyst for young people of African heritage the world over to help address the problems afflicting their peoples. "It is both a showcase and evidence of the optimism for what young people can do to effect change," he said.

Distinguished speakers at the conference include: His Excellency AndrČ Jacquet, South African high commissioner to Canada; Rachid Driss, chair of the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomacy Studies, president of the Association of International Studies of Tunisia and former Tunisian ambassador to the United Nations; David A. Comissiong, director of the Government of Barbados Commission for Pan-African Affairs; Epsy Campbell, president of the Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Women's Network based in San Jose, Costa Rica; and Carolyn Cooper, specialist in women's studies and Jamaican popular culture, and coordinator of the fledgling Reggae Studies Centre at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.

Dr. Edmund Abaka, co-founder and national coordinator of the AASC, will address the conference on the role of youth in the democracy movement in contemporary Africa. Abaka, a York alumnus, is associate professor of history at the University of Miami. Graduate and undergraduate students from Paris, France to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, as well as a contingent from Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone, will present research and position papers on a range of issues for African youth in cultural and economic development, cross-cultural leadership, citizenship and nationality, family violence, relations between the sexes, urban unemployment and the fostering of micro-enterprise.

Presentations will also include viewpoints on transcontinental hip-hop and reggae and how music shapes the African identity.

For the first time, the AASC will reach out to high school students in the local community, bringing up to 100 participants from schools in the Greater Toronto Area to participate in a day of workshops and consciousness-raising:

Toronto's Universal Black Students Association will lead and engage students in discussions of voter awareness, developing unity in youth networks, organizing for Caribana, and communicating in a multicultural society;

A French university student will introduce methods of conflict resolution applicable to local situations;

The African Food Basket of Toronto will lead a discussion on food and health;

Scarborough high-school teacher Cynthia Romany will talk about dress, decorum and strategies for positive thinking;

Blueprint for Life, a Toronto-based dramatic arts group, will help students develop plans of action for success, with a presentation from local rapper, music entrepreneur and York student, Dan-e-o.

The All-African Students' Conference was founded in 1988 in Waverly, Iowa to involve African and ethnic-African youth as stakeholders in the promotion of peace and sustainable development on the African continent, and to build international networks of young people working for an African renaissance.

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For further information, visit the website at www.yorku.ca/aasc/index.html or contact:

Nasra Abdi
AASC media coordinator
York University
(416) 736-5866
(416) 791-8142 cell

Pablo Idahosa
African Studies Program
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 66939
(416) 658-7265 at home

Ismael Musah Montana
AASC local coordinator
York University
(416) 736-5866
(416) 650-3130 at home

Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22091
sbigelow@yorku.ca
YU/055/00

For information on the high school workshops on Friday only, contact Mark Campbell at (416) 891-6777 (cell).