C. Paschal Eze, author 'For Blacks (and others) Who Really Care'
For many in North America and Europe, making a mark in Africa is all about pitying the poor and giving them handouts because poverty readily comes to mind when they think of Africa. But Iowa-based life coach and former newspaper editor-in-chief C. Paschal Eze disagrees, telling his media, conference and seminar audiences such handouts only promote dependence, not development.
“Instead of these sporadic better-than-
To Eze whose 9th book 'For Blacks (and others) Who Really Care' discusses smart ways to make a real difference in Africa from afar, the ‘magic pill’ donation paradigm has mainly served three purposes: (1) make the donor feel good, and get good tax deductions, (2) help western celebrities reposition and push their brands, and (3) fete staff of those big nonprofits which spend a large chunk of the donations they get on overhead and administrative costs than on capacity building live large in Africa. “Besides, I have also seen unbelievable poverty in some American, British, German cities. So who says it is unique to Africa?”
Thus, instead of donations, Eze says those who want to make real difference in transitional African countries should focus more attention on inspiring and mentoring African youth, transferring technical skills, organizing roots trips, buying goods made in African countries, setting up small and medium enterprises there that create jobs while generating good profit for the entrepreneurs, and providing point and click micro loans through Kiva.org, eBay-owned Microplace and Myc4.com, among others.
That’s why Bankole Thompson, senior editor of Detroit’s Michigan Chronicle newspaper calls it the author’s “best book yet” while Desmond Davies, editor of the London-based African Prospects Magazine describes it as having “home truths,” commending the well regarded author for telling it like it is.
The book starts with an inspiring poem “Because Africa is incomplete without you” targeting the Black Diaspora, and ends with 7 group discussion questions that engender cross-pollination of ideas on the subject. It also has 8 things a reader must not do in Africa, and an interesting chapter on “You and Africa’s greening advantage” in which the author examines how tapping Africa’s green living potentials could be the best thing to happen to the continent of nearly I billion people in the 21st century.
For more information on the book 'For Blacks (and others) Who Really Care,' please visit its Amazon.com page, http://www.amazon.com/
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