Bainbridge Island

#africaisnotacountry - crossposted from saidia.org

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 17 May, 2012 - 01:58

The topic of my Ignite talk tonight is #africaisnotacountry.

What is Ignite Bainbridge?

In the words of fellow OfficeXpats member Leif Utne:

The first-ever Ignite Bainbridge! is less than 24 hours away! Join us tomorrow night (May 16) at the Pavilion for a fun and fast-paced festival of stories and ideas. Hear 14 Bainbridge Islanders present on topics ranging from African development to local currencies to karaoke. The Ignite format is simple: 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds/slide, auto-advancing. The fun starts with a mixer at OfficeXpatsat 6:30. Presentations begin downstairs in the movie theater at 7:15. Tickets are $5 at the door.http://www.ignitebainbridge.com/

Intro to #africaisnotacountry

My simple goal with this 5 minute talk – and this blog post and hopefully the video that will be shared online after the event – is to remind you that Africa is not a country.

In fact, Africa is a continent – a very large continent.

To put Africa’s size in comparable context – the land mass of Africa is big enough to contain the United States (including Alaska), China, and all of Europe.

Africa contains 52 countries and an incredible diversity of languages, cultures, and ethnicities.

Africa Roundtable Featuring Kabissa on April 6, 2012

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 12 March, 2012 - 23:32

The Africa Roundtable is an initiative of Kabissa to organize lunch meetings on the first Friday of every month to bring together people with a mutual interest in Africa for networking, featured speakers, peer learning and mutual support. Events take place on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle on the west coast of the United States, with remote participation by Internet possible. This month, Kabissa itself will be the featured topic at the roundtable.

(Curious about how Africa Roundtables run? Take a look at the video of last month's roundtable event featuring Lumana - it was incredibly interesting!)

Video now online: Africa Roundtable featuring Lumana - March 2, 2012

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 12 March, 2012 - 00:39

I posted the video of the Africa Roundtable featuring Lumana to my Screencast.com account (direct link: http://www.screencast.com/t/7cUij9Cx1) for the benefit of participants who want to refresh their memory of what was discussed at the event and for others who were not able to attend and want to see Sammie Rayner's very interesting talk about Lumana Credit's work in Ghana and get to know the other participants. I also included below the list of participants - a great group of people that I look forward to meeting again soon. I apologize for the poor quality of the recording - we will do better next time, I promise (see lessons learned at bottom).

Registration for the next Africa Roundtable on April 6, this time featuring Kabissa, is now open! Click here to register immediately or here for more info about the roundtable before registering. Hope to see you there!

Update on the upcoming Africa Roundtable featuring Lumana Credit

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 23 February, 2012 - 23:13

I am pleased and very excited to report that interest has been sufficient to go ahead with our plans to host the inaugural Africa Roundtable luncheon on Friday, March 2 featuring Lumana Credit.

Below are some important logistical items about the roundtable - please take a look and feel free to add your comments to this post or email me with questions, suggestions, or any feedback at all about the roundtable.

The program and full details are on the registration page at EventBrite: http://www.africaroundtable.org

Registration remains open until 24 February

We need to be able to tell the catering company how many people are coming, so please complete the registration form at http://www.africaroundtable.org by tomorrow, 24 February. Remote participants can continue to sign up next week but it helps with our planning if you sign up as soon as possible. Thanks!

Africa Roundtable Featuring Lumana on March 2, 2012

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 8 February, 2012 - 06:39

Yippee! After months of planning and discussion, we finally have the Africa Roundtable on the calendar! Our inaugural catered luncheon will take place on Friday, March 2nd, and from then on the first friday of every month. Each Roundtable will feature a guest speaker and provide plenty of time for each participant to share their own news, goals, and opportunities with the group.

Please join and share! Invitation to join the Africa Roundtable on Bainbridge Island

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 25 January, 2012 - 22:01

I just sent the email below to Kabissa members and supporters in Washington State about the Africa Roundtable, an initiative I am starting up here on Bainbridge Island where I live. This is something I've been interested in doing for a long time, and if it works here on Bainbridge we should join forces with others to replicating it in other parts of the world. Please help spread the word and let me know if you have ideas or are interested in helping out. Thanks!

Dear Kabissa friends in Washington,

I am writing to let you know about a new initiative I am starting here on Bainbridge Island where I live called the Africa Roundtable.

I would appreciate it if you could take a moment to learn about the initiative, join in if you are interested and help spread the word in your network by forwarding this email, sharing the Africa Roundtable facebook page, mentioning @africaroundtabl on twitter or just simply pointing people to http://www.africaroundtable.org.

Where does this idea come from? In the months since returning to Bainbridge from Berlin, and while networking and looking for organizations to work with, I have come across a number of people on the island who have an interesting Africa connection but who have never heard of each other. As the founder of Kabissa, an African civil society networking platform operated by volunteers, I am committed to grassroots empowerment through technology capacity building and networking. I'd love to do this on Bainbridge with people and organizations working in Africa, with regular face to face meetings to explore opportunities for cooperation, peer learning and mutual support.

The idea behind organizing both lunchtime and evening meetings is to accommodate schedules (not everyone is actually on Bainbridge during the day) and types of engagement (not everyone works on Africa on a day-to-day basis but many would like to learn what is being done for Africa from Bainbridge and support it). Another idea is to have these events be catered - Simply Bainbridge have made us a terrific offer which I think will contribute greatly to making our Roundtable gatherings enjoyable and successful for all involved.

Here’s the link again to join in: http://www.africaroundtable.org.

With thanks,

Tobias Eigen,
Kabissa Founder

P.S. Here’s a sample short text you can take verbatim (or tweak) to share the URL with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter:

Do you work on Africa from (or near) Bainbridge Island? Join the new Africa Roundtable! http://africaroundtable.org

Looking for an interesting volunteer project on or near Bainbridge Island? Join the Kabissa team as coordinator

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 24 June, 2010 - 14:13

Kabissa's founder and executive director, Tobias Eigen, is currently in Berlin, Germany but returning to Bainbridge Island next year. We are looking for a coordinator based on or able to come regularly to Bainbridge Island to work together with Tobias to recruit volunteers (online and locally), organize events and outreach on Bainbridge Island and generally move the organization forward.

You are:

Based on or within reach of Bainbridge Island
Interested in Africa and contributing to positive change on the continent
Interested in connecting people locally for Africa through face to face meetings and locally organized activities
Curious about and ready to learn about blogging, social media and social networking for social change
Self motivated and task oriented
Capable of working in teams and managing volunteers
Able to devote between 10-20 hours a week on an ongoing basis.
Optional: speaker of other African languages besides English, esp French

You will be in charge of:

Stewarding and posting regularly to the Pacific Northwest blog on Kabissa http://kabissa.org/group/pacificnorthwest
Recruiting and managing volunteers on a range of tasks as needed for community building in the Pacific Northwest and online, including organizing events, newsletter/content editing and production, and other projects.
Organizing and participating in regular face to face Kabissa meetups and informational events hosted by other likeminded organizations in the Seattle area
Maintaining relationships with donors and other stakeholders, especially in the Pacific Northwest
Supporting board of directors on fundraising, strategy, and governance
Supporting web development team on testing and improving site functionality and user experience

Interested? Please send us an email via the contact form. Thanks!

On Bainbridge today? Get to the Grange to check out Products from Hamar Community in Ethiopia

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 6 December, 2009 - 13:13

I was pleased to see the announcement below in the mail from Kabissa member Global Team for Local Initiatives, a local organization based on Bainbridge Island that works with the Hamar, a small community in Ethiopia. They are selling Hamar products at the Grange today, Sunday 6 December.

Connect Pacific Northwest

Submitted by Jennifer Hayes on 8 July, 2009 - 17:39

The group Connect Pacific Northwest was launched on July 8, 2009. This group will help Kabissa to connect people in the Pacific Nothwest with initiatives in Africa, which are empowering Africans to make change. Look to this group to keep people in the Pacific Northwest abreast of what people at Kabissa are working on and what they can do to support us. You will be hearing more from me in the weeks and months ahead.

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