The P.A.L Project

I am Yayra Tamakloe, the founder of The P.A.L  Project. I am an iron-willed woman passionate about humanity and solving its problems at the core by imploring sustainable and long term solutions. 

I have a BFA from the College of Arts at Kent State University with multiple directing and performance as well as leadership and scholarly experiences. Some of these include being Senator for the College of the Arts, the president of the African Students Association as well as a McNair Alum.

I consider myself a storyteller as most of my work is geared towards addressing or representing different social occurrences or cultures either in an academic or artistic way. As a black woman from Ghana living in the diaspora, I believe it is imperative to restructure the African narrative by telling it from the Africans perspective and the P.A.L  Project is one way I plan to achieve this.

Many indigenous cultures face the risk of extinction due to poor or no documentation and continuous cultural  education.

I am proposing the P.A.L  Project which will collect, house and make accessible cultural content from the Pan-African communities around the world in an "edu-taining" way.

The P.A.L Project will be a tool  to help elevate humanity; particularly people of African descent by:

• Organizing, documenting and preserving Pan-African culture through folk-tales and legends.

• Making cultural literacy for previously oppressed communities accessible. 

• Helping create a holistic sense of identity for people of African descent by making cultural education possible.

• Creating a global sense of community within Africa and the diaspora

• Preventing misrepresentation of cultures across the Pan-African community thus empathy, understanding and unity. 

• Giving black children role models with whom they can identify with culturally thus promote black pride.

There is very limited availability to cultural education. Particularly for people of African descent  due to  a lack of properly documented and easily accessible cultural content.

As a person born in Africa living in America, I see this problem in both worlds and people from other Pan-African communities; with whom I have communication, have expressed similar concerns.

• Many countries that used to be western colonies still use western systems of education which have limited information about the cultures of the people they are supposed to serve.

• Black people in western communities; who are most likely the minority, are educated within systems that do not provide adequate resources to cater to their specific cultural needs.

Some of the contributing factors to this problem include colonization and slavery which forced many black people to assimilate to western systems in order to survive. 

According to the USA census bureau, 13.4% of the 300+million people in America as of 2019 identify as black. That number plus the 1+ billion Africans on the continent of Africa and the rest of our brothers and sisters in the rest of the diaspora are affected by this problem with the most highly impacted being the black child. 

The P.A.L Project (Pan African Library) is a project that strives to promote cultural literacy for people of African descent. P.A.L is not just a project, it is a movement with the purpose to collect, curate and share Pan-African cultures with the world; particularly the Pan-African community, cultural content from the diverse black populations of the world.  

Africans have used audio-visual media throughout our history. This means most of our history has been recorded in our music, languages, poetry, adages, proverbs etc(audio) and dance, drumming, dress etc (visual). Historical occurrences such as colonization and slavery have stripped many of their cultural legacies.

Nonetheless some components of these cultures still exist, and with the technological age, it is imperative that accessibility be associated with technology. By digitizing cultural and artistic artifacts (stories, dance, poetry, proverbs/fables, etc) in an educational, accurate yet informative way and through the use of web domains, apps and other forms of media, the project will make cultural content easily accessible to black people all over the world. Thus enabling the preservation of what is left of black culture worldwide while encouraging global education within the Pan-African community and the world as a whole.

One of the pressing concerns parents of black children have is the limited availability of resources that black children can relate to. Therefore children of African Descent, will benefit in the following ways.

• Introduction to cultural elements such as languages, to help reinforce cultural education

•  Exposure to cultures of other Pan-African communities thus encouraging global education. 

•  Access to role models through folkloric characters, to whom children can identify both in culture and in color. 

The oversaturation of western ideals in Pan-African communities has made it difficult for many black people to feel confident about their cultural literacy. The P.A.L Project will help by:

• Providing mainstream access to documented cultural and historical information.

• Providing education on pre-slavery and pre-colonial black history embodied in folklores and legends to enable an embodiment of confidence and historical pride.

• Helping to facilitate unity and cross-cultural communication on the basis of empathy and understanding within the Pan-African community

• Contributing to the healing from the PTSD that affects us as people of African descent from events like slavery and colonization by giving access to stories prior to those events.

• Using culture to facilitate job creation within communities by hiring talents and using local media to share project.

Black communities are the most underserved  population. "..the world is far from giving all people and groups the same opportunity to live a healthy and prosperous life" (UN World Social Report 2020).

Understanding the culture of different populations gives an understanding to why they are the way they are which in turn helps build respect-based. 

By making Pan-African cultural content accessible, more awareness is brought to the education needed to holistically understand and respect the Pan-African community. There can only be progress when there is education and adjustments to self. Until then we don't know what we don't know.

I have always been frustrated with the unavailability of properly documented African cultural content in mainstream media. There were times i went to local public libraries to find books on Cheikh Anta Diop only to be told they had none. I tolerated this because I figured I could manage to use the marginal information I found online however the tipping point for this project occurred when I was preparing in fall of 2018 to audition for an MFA program in New York. 

The literature I planned to use was written in Krio (a language spoken in parts of Western Africa). I could somewhat understand Krio but I was not literate enough to read it easily so I searched online for an audio or visual version of the story but found none. 

I went on a searching spree to find properly documented African stories and the result was not encouraging. It got worse when I began to search for pre-colonial African stories and that is when I decided something needed to be done about it. I discussed it with some of my mentors in school who also expressed their disappointment in the lack of culturally uplifting pre-colonial black content.

When history is not passed on and is not well documented, it dies with the people. To let that happen to what remains of the history of Africa and the diaspora will be cultural suicide. Very little is made widely available about pre-colonial Africa and it's imperative that what is left is preserved for a people who lose their culture, have lost their sense of self. 

I am an African woman of the Anlo-Ewe tribe yet all I know of my people are text book versions which do my culture no justice. In school, we would get penalized for speaking native languages. I am not proficient in my mother tongue and I fear I'll have nothing culturally to give my children. I want to fix that!  

The PAL project is one way to bring culture to the forefront for black people worldwide. Globally, we live within a very westernized system yet I believe people do not need to “dig” to learn about their culture and different cultures that relate their holistic identity. But most importantly, The P.A.L project wants to ensure the new generation of black and brown children have an “edu-taining” way of learning about themselves through their culture. 

Many people have visions but there is a great difference between dreamers and doers. I fall into the later category and I confidently say this because the things I put my mind to, get done with distinction. 

I am a visionary who puts in the work to bring to fruition things people do not see. I have a trail of evidence which includes starting the now 5 yrs running FOA(Face Of Africa) Pageant at Kent State University as a way to celebrate the African culture in the Kent community. I also created the annual student-centered survey for the College of Arts when I was senator. I am the first fashion student to get a $2000 grant to produce and direct an original play on sexual abuse in the school of theatre. 

These are a few examples I give to show my habit of going against the grain. As an artist, an activist, a leader, a black woman, immigrant and a scholar, I always have to think outside the box to represent these parts of me accordingly.

I am certain many people do not think of cultural literacy as an avenue that needs exploring however, I see the endless opportunities as well as the positive domino effect embarking on this project will have for not just black people, but the world. I  belong to the group of people I am trying to help and I see beyond the obvious therefore this  puts me in the position to deliver this project efficiently.

A big component of The P.A.L Project is authentic storytelling. There has to always be an accurate and respectful representation of communities if it is to be done. Knowing this, my mentor and I decided it would be a good idea to start telling folktales from my Ghanaian culture. 

My first session was with kids and it was successful however a day to my second session, institutions in the state of Ohio shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I met up with the director of the children's library at Kent State to use the empty space but I was refused. 

Desperately I went to the children's wing of a public library that day, and they allowed me to use their space. I knew I had to record enough content to last a while so without an audience, I set up a camera and recorded some stories. I did same the next day which was also the day the public library shut down.

I am glad to however say I got more content recorded that day and through collaborations, I have managed to have more than enough diversified content to release every single week, representing the diversity in black culture.

In November 2019, I was honored to represent Ghana in the annual Miss Africa USA pageant with 16 other intelligent young women. The categories for the pageant were as follows, the opening number, introduction, cultural showcase, parade of nations and evening wear. We were expected to arrive at our location with everything we needed to compete. 

One contestant who had ordered her costume had not received it a day to the pageant even though her tracking number said it had been delivered.  Feeling distraught she did not know what to do so after talking to her to inquire about the details of the garment, I suggested to the rest of the ladies that we contribute about $5 each so i could make a run to the fabric store to buy some fabric which they happily obliged to.

I pencilled down a design for the lady, she liked it  and I put my design skills to use by pulling an all-nighter the eve of the pageant to construct a new costume for her from scratch.  “No sister left behind” was our mantra and with the help of the other contestants, I led us to make sure we had our sisters back!

This grassroots organization is currently in the process of determining the best and most appropriate organizational structure.

There are studies that show children who were asked to choose between a white and black doll, most of them; both black and white, chose the white one because they thought the black one was ugly. Though culture is a way of life, adaptation has a stronger hold because it could mean survival. 

The above is evidence of what remains of a constructed narrative created by a power imbalance which forced previously ethnic identifying people to be grouped as "black" and inferior. Till today has altered the global perception of black people. 

Utilizing technology, this project will use positive reinforcement to expose the world, particularly black people to cultural and historical content they would usually not have access to.

By working with local and international media houses, we will broaden access. The heavy involvement of members of the community is imperative to the success of this project and to keep them interested, community members will be heavily involved in ways to help us help them preserve their culture.

 Lastly, this project will work closely with the educational systems in the countries to include African studies as a core subject. We will work with researchers and scholars to provide adequate authentic materials from the content we collect to enable this idea take root. 

Action and  repetition is key to mastery and repeatedly making the content available and accessible should create a paradigm shift in the perception of what it means to be black in the world.  

Imagine turning on your TV and knowing that a couple times throughout the day or week, you will be able to watch family friendly content in the form of artistically told folktales and legends from all over the Pan-African community, in language you understand and you have access to this form of media on a website or phone app whenever you want. Formal education of former western colonies still use western systems of education. (Ezeanya,2019)

The P.A.L Projects primary goal is to make cultural literacy accessible and available especially to the Pan-African community and on a daily basis, activities will include visiting black communities starting with Africa and the Caribbean to collect folktales and legends,  processing them and making them available via website, apps and mainstream television to the Pan-African community. Short term, this undertaking will help provide jobs to the local talents implored to help facilitate this project as well as an entertaining way to deliver traditional African stories to children and black families thus promote cultural literacy. 

In the long run, the continuous exposure of black people to cultural content will help in re-educating the Pan-African community about each other. There is a mutual ignorance about each other on all  sides of the globe thus confusion and misconceptions about each other due to our current cultural differences. Even though those will still remain, exposure to the "why" factor will help facilitate understanding, conversations and empathy towards each other thus the cumulative growth of the black community. 

This project will set the younger generation up to exist in a world where their culture is a lot more easily accessible and accurately documented which will reduce the need to "search" for a sense of identity because they would be growing up knowing holistically about who they are within their individual cultures as well as as a part of the global pan-african culture. 

 High self-esteem for a group of people is key for the development of that group and that is essential to self sufficiency and sustainability. 

Currently the project with social media promotion reaches/serves a couple thousand with the highest number so far being 8,272 on instagram. Without social media promotion, it is in the 100’s. 

Within a year; with a properly implemented marketing strategy, the project should reach about 100,000 people virtually from different parts of the world. 

In the next 5 years, with diversified content easily available to black and brown people, I estimate us reaching about 10 million people world wide. 

Within the next year there should be:

• An actively running platform and corresponding app with at least 100; well curated and documented, folktales and legends from across the pan-african community. These stories should represent the regions of the America’s, Carribean, North, South, East, West and Central Africa.

• Conversations with local governments about incorporating content from the projects into the educational systems

• Partnership conversations with higher educational institutions on promoting African studies as part of the core curriculum

• Commence the process of transcribing and digitizing stories to aid childhood literacy

Within the next five years there should be:

• A  million stories on the platform. 

• Working systems within all the various subregions which will utilize local talents, volunteers and workforce to fulfil the purpose of the Project. This will create employment opportunities.

• An expansion of the cultural contents from folktales and legends to incorporate music, dance, drum patterns etc 

• Continuing conversations with higher education institutions to incorporate African studies; thus The P.A.L Project as part of their core curriculum .

• Turn the P.A.L Project into a globally inclusive movement by adding more cultures and languages as system updates.

The current barriers we face include financial, technical resources and culture. They are broken down below

• Financially, there is the need for funding to move the project past its current stages. Funds will cover expenses which include but may not be limited to travel expenses to the different locations, production crew, purchasing or hiring of equipment, studio spaces in different locations, technical staff, moderate stipends for volunteers and marketing.

• Technically, I will need help getting crews together in the different locations as well as the standard staff that will be processing footage and managing the website and application remotely. The technical staff and resources needed will include cinematographers, sound technicians, light technicians, video editors, language interpreters, IT technicians, studio  space rental and distribution channels.

• Culturally, there will be the need to figure out accessing the communities in a way that we (the team and the project) are welcomed thus we get the most out of the community. Barriers in this segment will primarily be about language and cultural differences as well as having an educated idea on the different communities that reside within those regions. 

Financial:

• Grants and Fellowships:

  • Applying for grants and fellowships both individually as well as through collaborations with people in academia and other specialties. I currently work with 5 of such collaborators.

  • I will apply for both international and  local governmental grants within the different countries by including the natives of those countries in the project. 

• Crowdsourcing:

  • Crowdsourcing volunteers through local universities to get student staff to help manage projects in the different countries. This could help cut down cost for hiring staff as well as ensure the people working on the project are just as enthusiastic about the project. 

• Personal finances:

  • Use of personal savings and “side hustles” to raise money for the project

Technical: 

• Partnerships

  • I will partner with countries I am working in to utilize local talent in the recording, capturing, transcribing and the local management of the project. 

  • I will also work with local universities both in and out of America to work with students in the areas of expertise needed. I will propose to the departments a system of getting technical support for the project in exchange for students to get course credit through internships for which I will provide stipends if possible. 

Cultural:

• Collaborations

  • To get access to the communities, I will work with the different ministries of culture within the countries to get educated about the different communities that exist in the countries. 

  • To work with the locals to navigate the language barriers and cultural differences that might exist.

I am currently working with Kent State University’s professors, LaunchNET and the University of Ghana, Legon. Though not directly with the institution, some of the most helpful resources I have received to help direct this project have come from individuals from Kent State faculty and staff from the School of Libraries and Information Sciences, Department of English, Department of Computer Science, College of Arts, The School of Lifespan Development and Educational Science and the Pan-African Department. The individuals from these departments primarily have provided guidance, mentorship and intellectual resources to help direct me as well as consultations in order to help make the project holistic and self-sustaining.

The P.A.L Project will help pioneer the holistic education of black culture for black people; especially the black child by delivering Pan-African content through multiple platforms such as digital media, literature, apps  etc 

 Organizations to pay for this project include educational institutions, arts, culture and humanities preservation agencies, donors, grant funders, developmental psychology researchers and cultural anthropologists. In return,  P.A.L Project will provide content, data, mission and  opportunities to propel global diversity and growth.

While the business structure for this is still under development, key activities include collecting, processing & curating stories into digital platforms, sharing stories on multiple platforms, marketing of the P.A.L Project and general administrative duties.  

Partners, key stakeholders and resources to drive this will include, official P.A.L Platforms, social media, finances, story collectors and connectors, academic collaborators, business administrators, production personnels, advisors and mentors.

P.A.L is  in phase 1 which, through collaborations and virtual connections is singlehandedly run by Ms. Tamakloe to make content available. The next phase will involve collecting stories on site in the Carribean and the cost will cover travel, crew, website management, marketing and distribution, processing and brand management.  

Revenue for P.A.L will be generated through grants, donations, personal funds, fellowships, business extensions of P.A.L and e-commerce or goods by locals affiliated to P.A.L. 

Surplus will then go into expanding reach of the project into more Pan-African regions, adding more cultural content such as music, dance, food, dress etc, maintenance and development of platform and fellowships and scholarships to pioneer the cause.

• Grants

  •  I will apply for local and international  grants as an organization as well as through collaborations with academic professionals who have expressed interest in studying some components of this project. 

• Percentage of external business proceeds

  • As an art entrepreneur, I will be working on setting up businesses separate from the project of which percentages of those businesses will go to funding this project.

• Donation list

  • There will be a list created for people to donate either once or accruing on a monthly basis with different levels which will include incentives for higher level recurring donors.

• Sale of merchandise

  • Merchandise affiliated to the project and the brand will be created and made available as well.Also the digital platforms will have an extension that will make available to consumers, the ability to purchase local artisan goods made by the different communities from which a percentage of the proceeds will go into funding the project. 

• Informational's, workshops and seminars
  

  • Monies paid to the organization for speaking and training events will go to funding the project

• Business extensions of P.A.L
  • Aspects of the content will be published. Ex: children's books, books on music of a particular region etc. Also content aired on mainstream television will bring in income so long as the content airs so the plan will be to keep it up to date running.

Funding: 

• Numbers for travel were based off plane ticket prices to Tobago and Ghana. Accomodation in Ghana and Tobago  will need to be covered for  myself and the crew with whom I travel to these communities. Equipment rental to meet industry standard was accounted for including rental of studio space, adequately compensating language liaisons and miscellaneous costs that might incur. results for the project. 

Mentorship: 

• I would like to partner with mentor(s) who specialize in cultural anthropology, audio-visual technology, film and entertainment, African and African-American studies to  enable me to use their research as a build block to ensure the project serves  its intended purpose.

Legal and regulatory matters:

•  I would like to partner to get help with navigating the different legal systems I will be encountering.

Marketing, media & exposure:

•  Partnering with various distribution agencies and marketing firms will help push this project to enable it reach more people of African descent.

I am applying for the elevate prize because this award seeks to help innovators solve some of the world's most complex problems. As a woman of color from Africa, living in America, i do not need to say how much culture my identity and other members of the Pan-African community carry with them. However, too little of that culture, particularly that of pre-colonial and pre-slavery is made accessible to us and this has led to miseducation of black people.

 I am applying for the elevate prize because with the resources this award provides, I can start a movement to help  preserve and make it easily accessible to enable us educate ourselves holistically on our culture and the cultures of other Pan-African communities.The finances, guidance and mentorship will help me structure this project so it is effective.

We cannot grow if we stay separated and the recent occurrences in our world makes that evident. By educating each other about our experiences and culture, we will be able to understand the “why” behind different communities, be more empathetic and grow collectively as a people. People who do not know their past have no future and if one does not know themselves, they are lost. The elevate prize can help me help my people help the world.

• Funding: 

  • Numbers for travel were based off plane ticket prices to Tobago and Ghana. Accomodation in Ghana and Tobago  will need to be covered for  myself and the crew with whom I travel to these communities. Equipment rental to meet industry standard was accounted for including rental of studio space, adequately compensating language liaisons and miscellaneous costs that might incur.

  Mentorship: 

  • I would like to partner with mentor(s) who specialize in cultural anthropology, audio-visual technology, film and entertainment, African and African-American studies to  enable me to use their research as a build block to ensure the project serves  its intended purpose.

  Legal and regulatory matters:

  •  I would like to partner to get help with navigating the different legal systems I will be encountering.

  Marketing, media & exposure:

  •  Partnering with various distribution agencies and marketing firms will help push this project to enable it reach more people of African descent.

I would like to partner with local ministries of culture for the different countries as well as the ministry of education to work on including the content generated into the education system. 

I will also like to partner with UNESCO as this project aligns with their mission which is to create " the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values." UNESCO's affiliation will help catalyze the progress of this project by adding some credibility. UNESCO also allocates funds to projects that fall within their mission and the P.A.L project could benefit from that while simultaneously helping UNESCO's mission.

Lastly local organizations that promote culture in the countries will be tentative partners as they will come from a place of knowledge about their communities and can help the P.A.L project correctly navigate the collection of these contents.