Monday 30 April 2012

Changing Perspectives of Africa

Africa has long had a fairly unwanted image in the Western world. Fascination with the 'Dark Continent' aside, the general public tends to associate several things with Africa: famine, poverty, and war. A history of colonial oppression, inequality and genocide has cast a pall over the continent. What a lot of people don't realise is that Africa is a diverse continent, bubbling with culture. 

This is not to say that Africa does not have problems. It most assuredly does. The continent does face conflict, poverty and myriad other problems. However, we need to start looking beyond this 'face' to see the other real Africa - where people love, laugh, work, and learn. As geography teachers, it is very important that we present nuanced views and images of the world. To that end, I have compiled resources that look at daily life in Africa and African perspectives. 

If you have more, feel free to email them to me or tweet me a link to the resources using the details on the left. Alternatively, paste the link in the comments box. I hope that you find these useful. 

Changing Perspectives looks at families living in the North-East of England. 

African Dream - A great series of articles and interviews on the BBC with African entrepreneurs and how they succeeded (BBC, 2012)

Grassroot entrepreneurs in Africa (BBC, 2002)

African Lives - A collection of articles by the Washington Post (1997) that look at both good and bad aspects of life on the continent. 

Africa: My World - 4 photojournals of daily life at schools in 4 different African countries (PBS)

African Success is a database of successful African personalities

Video - African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes - well worth watching:

Video - Africa debate: What do Venezuelans think of Africa? (BBC, 2012)

Video - Africa debate: What do Pakistanis think of Africa? (BBC, 2012)

Video - BBC debate: Is Africa's global image justified? (BBC, 2012)

Pictures: The many images of Africa's daily life (BBC, 2012)

Pictures: Africa Media Online - the pictures are professional images and not free, but are still worth perusing - the 'daily life' ones are particularly good/useful. 

Pictures: Images of life in rural Ghana, where the photographer lived for 8 months. 

An eclectic collection of lessons on Africa - perhaps a touch outdated and also geared towards a younger audience; however, there are still some good ideas and resources here.