AFRICAN UNION DIASPORA HIGH LEVEL MEETING

African Union Diaspora Task Team

c/o The Permanent Observer Mission of the African Union to the United Nations

305 East 47^th Street, New York, NY  10017

Tel. : 212-319-5490, Fax: 319-7135

 

Press Release                                                                        For more information, please contact:

For Immediate Release                                                       Chika Onyeani, 917-279-4038

                                                                                              Georgina Falu, 646-246-8302

                                                                                              Dorothy Davis, 646646-413-0058

                                                              

 

AFRICAN UNION DIASPORA HIGH LEVEL MEETING

 

The biggest gathering of selected high caliber African Diasporan will take place on Thursday, October 6, 2011, during the African Union Diaspora High Level meeting organized by the African Union Diaspora Task Team to aggressively pursue the concrete realization of the dream and mission indicated when the African Union created and recognized the African Diaspora as the 6th Region of the African continent.  The meeting will be held at the Conference Hall of the African Union Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations, 305 East 47th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10017, between 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

 

The African Union Diaspora Task Team was created by the African Union during a two-day meeting on October 21st and 22nd, 2010, titled "Building Bridges Across the Atlantic: African Union Consultation with the African Diaspora in the United States."  Some of the objectives of the meeting included, among others:

 

a) To establish the foundation for a solidarity platform that would facilitate a stream of continuous dialogue and discourse within the global African family that would promote and sustain African renaissance;

 

b) To use this platform to strengthen the framework of engagement between the African Union and the African family in the United States in particular with a view to consolidating appropriate legal and participatory frameworks for effective participation of the African Diaspora in the building of the African Union; and

 

c) To brief and sensitive the African Diaspora on needs and developments within the AU system and obtain their inputs for assisting its growth and developments.

 

According to the Chairman of the AU Diaspora Task Team, Dr. Chika Onyeani, the African Union Diaspora High Level meeting is aimed at bringing together a group of high caliber African Diasporan who have consistently empowered the aspirations and issues of the African Diaspora as well as the African continent in realizing the objectives African Diaspora as the 6th Region of the African continent.

 

Many African Diaspora personalities have already accepted to attend and speak at the conference, including Ambassador Tete Antonio, Prof. Molefi Asante, Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari, Ambassador Dudley Thompson, Mayor Wayne Smith, Prof. Bereket Selassie, General Ishola Williams, Dr. Julius Garvey, M.D., Dr. Ron Daniels, Chief Tunde Olatunji, just to name a few, plus a high-powered delegation from the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.