Who We Are
AfricAvenir is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation created in 1990 by Professor Kum’ a Ndumbe III, aiming at the promotion of development, international co-operation and peace. The main office of the foundation is located in Bonabéri-Douala in Cameroon with a smaller section in Berlin, Germany, devoted to encourage exchanges between Africa and the rest of the world. The current AfricAvenir coordinator is Lobe, Marie-Rose. She is assited by a multicultural team of employees and voluteers. The founder and director is Prince Kum' a Ndumbe III.
AfricAvenir is committed to the goals of an African renaissance, which means to root African development on the reality and culture of African peoples and to re-invent and re-construct the African continent according to African priorities and values.
AfricAvenir’s overall aims therefore are to promote initiatives of endogenous development, to restore consciousness and pride in local African culture and history and to ultimately reduce Cameroon's and Africa's external dependency.
AfricAvenir has pioneered issues of democratisation, civic education and conflict prevention in Cameroon. Since its establishment in 1990, the foundation has organised numerous conferences and African palavers, round tables and seminars on topics like ethnicity and elections, democracy and decentralisation, religious conflicts etc.
The foundation’s strength is its ability to consume and take part in global discourses while at the same time domesticating them to fit local realities and settings. Continuously and on a daily basis, the foundation is closely working with the population, informing, dialoguing and educating.
Despite its focus on endogenous development, AfricAvenir has always been open to the rest of the world, promoting educational and professional exchanges and trying to foster a 'Collective Destiny Perspective' so urgently needed in the emerging global village.
Civic Education
Civic education has a long tradition in AfricAvenir's work. Scientific conferences, African palavers, seminars and workshops on various topics are regularly taking place in French, English and in Cameroonian languages. Experts, politicians, representatives of different religions, young people, women, and sages are subsequently invited to share their viewpoints on topics like the African renaissance, democratisation, conflict prevention and resolution, decentralisation, ethnicity, education and HIV/AIDS.
Centre of Scientific Research and Education
Primary basis of AfricAvenir’s projects is the results of its own research program. Scientific research, including thesis and doctoral research of both Cameroonian and foreign scholars and students, has been going on for over 10 years. The results of this research are used for the evaluation of projects and the implementation of new programs of the different international organisations working in and on Africa.
Information Stock Market
The information stock market is one of AfricAvenir's big projects. The idea is to make the knowledge and the information necessary and relevant for the development of the Central African sub-region and of Africa in general accessible through different means, including the Cheikh Anta Diop library, a reading corner and AfricAvenir’s website.
Cheikh Anta Diop Library
The library is open to the public since 1993 and approximately bears 5000 titles on key subjects like the African renaissance, African history, conflict prevention and conflict resolution, peace education, appropriate technologies, developmental and ecological problems etc. Currently, the library primarily benefits students and scholars from the universities in Douala, Buea and Yaoundé.
Reading Room
The reader will find most titles of the Cameroonian press, a selection of international newspapers and magazines dealing with Africa, specialised journals and other information material in a reading corner, opening workdays between 10.00 and 20.00 hours.
The Website - www.africavenir.org
The website intends to contribute to the building of an African Information Infrastructure. Considering the crucial importance of Africa-centred knowledge and information for the success of an African Renaissance, the site supports the reconstruction of the neglected African heritage, the evolution of the present emerging Africa and its proposals for a different, prosperous, peaceful and better world.
Arts and Culture
The Arts and Culture section aims at promoting artists, writers, musicians, choirs, theatre groups and all other creative persons or groups always eager to create a transformative encounter between African tradition and modernity.
Cinema
A space for the screening of films made by African filmmakers, the multiple faces of the continent seen through the eyes of those who live the continent's realities day by day, the perspective of those who see the continent moving.
Exchange and Dialogue
Through this program AfricAvenir presently gives the opportunity to Europeans to discover Africa differently by meeting the human being, by living and working with Africans, in their environment, in a country like Cameroon. More than 30 European students have already made the experience by completing an internship of two to six months at AfricAvenir Douala. Several educational trips have been organised during the past few years, aiming at an authentic encounter between cultures on the basis of common professional interests.