Bellaire High School, Pin Oak Middle School Students To Participate In Teach Africa Youth Forum

The Africa Society, Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership and the World Affairs Council of Houston will come together again for a U.S. Agency for International Development funded Teach Africa Youth Forum on May 11.  More than 1,500 Houston students will fill the George R. Brown Convention Center to learn about Africa. Bellaire High School and Pin Oak Middle School students will attend the forum.

 

This Africa immersion program will open with a keynote panel of ambassadors, scholars, and policy makers. Students will have the chance to learn about US-Africa Relations, Energy in Africa, Democracy & Government, and Youth in Africa and more.  

 

Featured speakers include: Her Excellency Josefina Diakite, Ambassador from the Republic of Angola to the United States;  Ambassador Robert Houdek, Former U.S. Ambassador to Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda; Sola Oyinlola, vice president and treasurer, Schulmberger; Dr. Gail Ifshin- president of Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership and Bernadette Paolo- president and CEO of The Africa Society.

 

Students will also receive learning materials pertaining to Africa-education, including the film Africa Today. Funded by USAID as part of the Teach Africa initiative, the film was produced by the nonprofit Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership in collaboration with The Africa Society. The film, directed by Africans in Africa, chronicles the cultural and intellectual exchange between Ugandan and American teachers and students. It is also shows Africa – its geography, its diverse cultures, its stories – from an African perspective. 

 

Launched in Houston last June, Teach Africa is a multiphase program designed to provide educators with the background and tools needed to raise student interest in Africa through an engaging, multidisciplinary approach.  Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis, Congolese Ambassador Faida Mitifu, and others discussed the importance of bringing Africa into Houston classrooms at the first phase of this initiative. More than 230 Houston educators received new materials and methodologies for teaching about Africa at the second phase of Teach Africa, a professional development workshop held at Texas Southern University in October.

 

To date, Teach Africa has been implemented in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Portland, Houston, Los Angeles and Atlanta, orienting more than 1,400 superintendants and principals, training more than 1,700 teachers and educating more than 4,000 students.