Africa in 50min

I am Kingnide Aurel Allagbe, 25 years old, Beninense, and permanent resident in Brazil. In fact, my highest academic trajectory started at the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences of Benin in nutrition and food security and continued at the Federal University of Alagoas, in Brazil, with a title of agronomist  and, a Master in Development Sociology. I did many work in Brazil, Benin, Togo and Mozambique.

In Brazil, I was a cultural representative of African students, participated in movements to defend the rights of all, gave workshops in schools, universities and in events on various subjects related to Afro-Brazilians and Africans living in Brazil. I organized cutaneous missions together with the prefecture of my city to create a link between Alagoas and my country of origins BENIM.
I am a social activist out of love for my origins, for my life experience and also for the way I see life.

Have you ever imagined entering the classroom and not feeling comfortable because your colleagues know nothing about your origin and always ask strange questions that make you sad and uncomfortable?

Have you ever imagined receiving questions like: Do you live with animals, has home, are there dead bodies on the street? 
Have you ever thought of being discriminated against in your own country for having African origins?

There are some situations that I went through when I arrived in Brazil. With Africa in 50 minutes, I intend to continue helping several high school students to get to know a little bit of Africa, so that they can have a better knowledge and not hurt in the future people. Also to motivate people of African descent to look more delightfully at their origins, to accept themselves and to develop a self-esteem in them that is fundamental to life (in  50min workshop).

Brazil is a country of great mixes, a very colorful and diverse people, when you ask a Brazilian of European or Asian origin what your origins are, you realize a great pride in your automatic response, but when you ask a Brazilian of Africa  to talk about her origins, the attempt is to have a long, tangled and suffered response. I believe  this is a result of history but much more because these young people know very little about Africa or what they know is always unpleasant things.

Brazil has a history very close to Africa, it has the second black population in the world, but it knows very little about Africa, even my teachers do not know that Africa is a continent. All issues tend to make the African inferior and left him very sad and helpless. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics  estimates today that there are more than 4 million Africans in Brazil whose 500 thousand are enrolled in universities, and reports of discrimination due to lack of information about Africa make it difficult to insert them in the environments where they are found.

With the same project we intend to solve two major problems.

I understand that if this lack of knowledge about Africa is very noticeable at the university among colleagues and professors, the problem has to be solved at the Base prohibiting its rise to the upper level. This is what our activities are focused on and will be focused on young people in secondary education.

At first I went directly to schools, taught about Africa and saw in the eyes of the students the happiness of learning something new, and I saw more on the faces of the young black people present in the room a charming smile, at the end of my lectures, he comes to talk to me with great pleasure to know more about Africa and feel better with my presentation. I became a model for them too.
I realized that I broke several paradigms and changed the vision of many young people.

Now, I hope to spread this to 10 major Brazilian capitals, where Africans trained by me will speak, talk to young people in schools, in 50 minutes.

The impact of my project is immediate, Automatically read on the faces, in the questions (seriously in Africa there is this, I thought that without misery there, Thank you for making me proud of my origins etc ...) the feedback from the teachers , from the principals of the students themselves gives a sense of accomplishment.

So the project does not only have an impact on reducing discrimination towards Africans in Brazil, but it helps everyone, it helps to improve the whole society, there is more acceptance, more respect, more friendliness, more LOVE.

It all started in 2013 when I arrived in Brazil for my higher education. I arrived, full of expectations,  unconcerned about racism, prejudices because people already told me that Brazil is a welcoming country , especially with my country (Benin was the country that most sent slaves to Brazil). But shortly afterwards I realized that many had a very wrong reading of Africa, the embarrassing questions did not stop, worse was when my own professors at the universities had no idea that Africa is a continent and not a country. Every day I was more sad and sometimes felt very excluded and marginalized, one day I solved a math question and my teacher even told King that he came from Africa and he understood that. There, I decided to talk a little bit about Africa with people, and I never stopped.

I also realized that many Afro-Brazilians did not accept their origins or find it difficult to speak about Africa, and I believe that it is very much because of the story poorly told in the media. That affected their self-esteem a lot, and a lot that seeing me at the University asks how I did it.

I consider myself an extremely sensitive person, it worries me sometimes and I make a lot of mistakes due to the fact, but my sensitivity makes me look for a solution to the thing that I don't like. I experienced things that many Africans live in Brazil and talking about it will certainly help many not to live the same. Many times, I wanted to give up on my dreams and go back to my country where I didn't feel uncomfortable, but I believe I chose the right path, today I have many friends, in addition to the Africa in 50 min project, I have already organized on May 25th of each year for the commemoration of Africa Day, I have already been called in several other inventions, today I participate in THE ELEVATE PRIZE, and soon my project will reach 10 cities in Brazil directly impacting more than 100 thousand young people. This is Passionate.

Lately, with the Covi-19 pandemic, the Brazilian state has offered emergency financial aid to all the unemployed in Brazil, some Africans have been killed by Brazilians for xenophobia, saying that these Africans do not deserve help and nothing has been done.

I have been working with this type of project for over 5 years, as you can see in the links below.

My project doesn't have a link yet but here are some links made

https://drive.google.com/drive...  (Some pictures)

(state congress television)

https://ufal.br/ufal/noticias/... ( UFAL university) 

http://agenciaalagoas.al.gov.b... (government of Alagoas)

http://felipecamelo.blogsdagaz...

http://gazetaweb.globo.com/gaz...

http://www.maceio.al.gov.br/20... (city hall of maceio)

I started with Africa in 50min in 2017 and I know very well what should and how to do it.

I started my project at the age of 22, they spoke Portuguese very badly because in my country they speak French, I was not afraid to face the current logic of things, I went after my dream with a lot of courage and I use it even to motivate young people, I walked miles out of my continent of my country, I left my family my friends the search for a better life. If I can, everyone can. I did not receive any funding from anyone, myself who matched the choices, went to them and did everything with what little I had and never wanted to stop.

I was responsible for the culture of the core of African students in Alagoas. During this time we have restructured many important points, we have organized many international meetings.

I was the only African student to organize the cultural mission of the state of Alagoas for an African country

The innovation of my project is in its simplicity and objectivity. There are schools where students have never had contact with Africans, everything they know has been told or seen on television. my presence enabling questions and dialogues is very enlightening for teenagers and becomes an important moment in everyone's life.

On the website of the national senate you can read: The 2003 law that made it mandatory to teach African history and black culture in schools. It is an important and necessary content, above all because 55% of the Brazilian population is black. Even so, only a small part of schools obey the law. Principals and teachers will find a thousand arguments to justify non-compliance and say that this has nothing to do with racism. Many are racists out of ignorance, ignorance, but many others are racists in an informed, conscious way. 

To be black in Brazil is to have the conviction that you will receive different treatment from the world - says Dean José Vicente. - The most common rights will not be made available to you in their entirety, and you will always have to demand them with more intensity and even fight for them. Not even the right to come and go can be enjoyed serenely.

According to the philosopher and jurist Silvio Almeida, president of Instituto Luiz Gama (an NGO that works for racial equality) and professor at Mackenzie University and Fundação Getulio Vargas, when the existence of racism, segregation, discrimination are admitted, the moral obligation of act against him Education is the key.

My presence in the classroom, talking to young people talking about my tragectory, my story directly with them has a marked impact. Believe it is a change that we all want.

Africa in 50 min has already directly impacted more than 3000 young teenagers, due to Covid-19 this year, it is difficult to end the virtual reach since this year, but in a year it aims to reach 5000 teenagers and if possible with the help of THE ELEVATE PRIZE to expand more and reach 2 milion young people in 5 years.

As goals for the next year is to train more Africans to work in their cities, Brazil, due to its size, needs a large team to reach more people. 10 state capitals were chosen to implement the Africa in 50min Project.

5 years from now, in addition to expanding a project to all capitals and second cities in all states of Brazil, I intend to reach a level in my project that I always dreamed of, opening a platform to help Africans living in Brazil and who suffer daily with discrimination, inequality or some kind of problem that affects their well-being.

The great barrier that now presents itself is financial, because throughout the project I have already identified the gaps and have already been corrected. But to reach more young people and expand the project, financial resources are needed.
I will also need technical support (writing a good  Business plan, how to keep the project alive) to restructure my idea, make it more interesting, more professional because I still consider myself a lover.

In order to overcome these barriers, I now try to request support, precisely what leads me to apply for The Elevate Prize program.

I don't have a partner yet (The schools and universities that open their doors to me are my allies), although I am confident that SOLVE had become my first partnership helping me to solve a problem because together we have a purpose. Find Solutions

I confess that I don't have a business model because I always thought I didn't need it, my goal was and still is to solve a problem that hurt me and still hurts me a lot. I wanted to give myself 100% in the simplest and fastest way possible. But my idea has always been very clear, to impact people, to change the mentality, to make the environment where I lived less aggressive to blacks (Africans) and less unequal as possible, not to see more people suffer as I suffered, to observe changes. My plan was, is and will be this.

I think that through the knowledge that is and will be provided by Africa in 50 minutes, we can change Brazil and the world. change begins at the grassroots, in young people, in adolescents, and the best way to change is using facts or life histories.

My project is totally non-profit, aiming to help 100% this vulnerable group of Brazilian society. My goal is to work on a voluntary basis, I have a whatsapp group of 257 Africans with whom I want to talk and call future volunteers for the Africa project in 50 minutes. For the formation of these, for the good functioning since, I intend to request a donation through campaigns, participate in social events and competing for prizes.

I have not yet raised any funding. Due to the totally unprofitable nature of my project, I will not generate revenue.

To reach the level that I always dreamed of for my project, I intend to raise a value of US 50 000 dollars in donation for the start of the next school year of the next year 2021, with this I will be able to set up an information platform for assistance to refugees. students and foreigners in Brazil and also Afro-Brazilians themselves. It will be a very interactive platform for solidarity monitoring and help. But I will be able to train more than 50 future ambassadors of Africa in 50 minutes in more than 10 cities in Brazil.

Due to this Covid-19 pandemic, the situation in Brazil became very complicated and made Africa's activities in 50min in schools impossible. Also, as I did not have a formal team and did everything on my own, I confess that I am now unable to extinguish a monetary value for 2020.

But in an optimistic way, if the activities return normally from November, I will only have time to adjust, structure the team, project the activities for 2021. For these activities, US 5,000 dollars will be foreseen.

There is a saying that if you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far go accompanied. I want to go very far with my project, one day I want to be able to see Africa in 50min in all schools in Brazil. For that, I will need a priori financial help, and certainly in the maturation of the project as a whole.

All those who fight for a better life, a less prejudiced world, a more equal world, a world that offers well-being to all, are potential partners of the Project, but mainly I believe that in Brazil I can quote, Instituto Zumbi dos Palmaris, Educafro, Raizes Africa.