{"id":28462,"date":"2023-10-19T16:21:58","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T20:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=28462"},"modified":"2023-10-24T13:16:56","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T17:16:56","slug":"afrikiya-afro-night-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/afrikiya-afro-night-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Student club shows unity in action during Afro Night Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

The songs, group dances and poetry recitals performed by the members of the student organization Afrikiya<\/a> gave the audience for Afro Night Out plenty to cheer about \u2013 and reflect upon.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ellis Edinkrah \u201925 (left) and Lo Vodo \u201925 were emcees for Afro Night Out in October 2023.<\/p><\/div>\n

Dozens of students, Afrikiya members and non-members alike, came to the Trone Student Center for the event, built around the theme of African unity and designed to further one of the goals in the group\u2019s constitution: to \u201cbuild a bridge between Furman students from Africa and other Furman students in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within the first few minutes of Afro Night Out, students from a dozen different African countries had carried their nation\u2019s flags to the Burgiss Theater stage. Many of them were joined by non-African members of Afrikiya who felt a connection to a particular country, said the organization\u2019s president, Tanya Masvimbo \u201926, a computer science major from Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the theme, we were thinking about how we have managed to unite on campus, even though we\u2019re from different parts of Africa,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a contrast between how unified we are (in Afrikiya) and how disunified our countries actually are in reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cultural engagement<\/h3>\n

The campus provides fertile ground for that unity, said Masvimbo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an open-mindedness and willingness to learn more about things you don\u2019t know about at Furman,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just Africans dancing at Afro Night Out. We had Americans and people from all other places dancing with us, and that\u2019s because they were open-minded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afro Night Out directly aligned with Furman\u2019s mission<\/a> of \u201cadvocating respect for all people and actively welcoming perspectives from a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures and beliefs,\u201d said Franklin Ellis, associate dean and director of the\u00a0Center for Inclusive Communities<\/a>\u00a0and special assistant to the president for diversity and belonging.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis event allowed for our domestic students to gain a stronger understanding of the rich cultures that our international students<\/a> bring to campus,\u201d he said. \u201cIt embodied a liberal arts and sciences education as it offered students the opportunity to engage in learning about other cultures, which allows them to think broadly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unity in motion<\/h3>\n
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Tyler Pearson \u201926 dances to amapiano music from South Africa during Afro Night Out in October 2023.<\/p><\/div>\n

Music and dance have never been hemmed in by boundaries, with or without TikTok. A Kenyan can pick up the moves of the Shaku Shaku craze that started across the continent in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

As the audience cheered for group dances choreographed by Afrikiya members and set to contemporary hits from South Africa, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire and Nigeria, it was also getting a live demonstration of African unity, said Masvimbo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult for all of us from different places to come together to agree on a song and on dance moves,\u201d she said. \u201cWorking together to make those dances shows the ability to unify.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfrica is a gem,\u201d said Liberian student Roger Abim-Karmon \u201926, the organization\u2019s treasurer, in the panel discussion moderated by Ellis that concluded Afro Night Out. \u201cWe all cherish it, and we love to share this gem with you. It\u2019s not Afrikiya without you being a part of it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lasting legacy<\/h3>\n

Toward the beginning of Afro Night Out, emcees Lo Vodo \u201925 and Ellis Edinkrah \u201925 led a moment of silence to honor Janet Kwami, Afrikiya\u2019s first faculty advisor, who died in May 2023.<\/p>\n

Kwami, an assistant professor of communication studies, was instrumental in revitalizing Afrikiya as a continuation of a previous student group, Baba Africa. Along with Laura Baker, an outreach librarian and Pathways advisor, she helped facilitate the organization\u2019s first Cultural Life Program (CLP<\/a>) event in March 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer legacy and impact on this campus are undeniable,\u201d said Baker, who sponsored the recent CLP with Ellis, prior to the event. \u201cAfrikiya is but one example of her legacy. This vibrant student group is making its mark at Furman.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cultural and educational event continued Afrikiya\u2019s mission of building bridges between African students and the Furman community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":28479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,70,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-center-for-interpersonal-connection","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}