afropresencia.com  is proud to host the first conference on "Healthcare in the Black Americas," February 23rd, 2008 in New York City.

The conference will be held at The Graduate Center,City University of New York, 365 Fifth Ave, New York.

Click here for more information.

You can help a school development project in Haiti win the "World Challenge 2007," by casting a vote for it at www.theworldchallenge.co.uk.

"World Challenge 2007" is a competition for projects that will be both financially prosperous and give back to the community. Sponsored by BBC World, Newsweek, and Shell, the contest awards individual or group winners US$20,000, and two runners-up each receive $10,000.

The twelve schools that make up Haiti's Paradis des Indiens educate some 2,411 students. The students are trained in manual labor and reforestation, embroidery, handicrafts, beekeeping and modern agriculture.

Students at Haiti’s Paradis des Indiens 

There are 11 other finalists in the "World Challenge 2007" competition, but many are supporting this one in Abricots, Haiti.

Voting in the "World Challenge 2007" ends on November 16.

Resolutions have been passed to add the "Day of Africa" and "Day of the Black Women in Latin America and the Caribbean" to the official calendar of events in São Paulo, Brazil, thanks to the efforts of São Paulo City Councilwoman Claudete Alves.
 

São Paulo City Councilwoman Claudete Alves (www.claudetealves.com.br).  

If Gilberto Kassab, the current mayor of São Paulo, signs the resolutions into law the "Day of Africa" will be commemorated every year on May 25 and the "Day of the Black Women in Latin America and the Caribbean" will be commemorated each year on July 25.

Councilwoman Alves is also a co-author of the law that made November 20 Brazil's "Day of Black Consciousness/ Dia da Consciência Negra" in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. ("Black Consciousness Day" recalls the life of Zumbi who, on November 20, 1695, was betrayed by a follower, captured by Brazil's Portuguese soldiers and beheaded. Zumbi was a leader of the quilombo of Palmares - a community of self-liberated Afro-Brazilians who had fled from the sugar plantations in Pernambuco. Sometime around the year 1600 Afro-Brazilians founded Palmares, a maroon society that would eventually have more than 30,000 residents, in the Serra da Barriga hills. Zumbi was born in Palmares in 1655.) Alves also helped implement a law that required changes to the school curriculum and mandated the reading of a book entitled, "General History of Africa and of Blacks in Brazil."

According to Councilwoman Alves, the inclusion of a "Day of the Black Women" commemoration will help build a sense of respect and honor for Black women, who have traditionally been denigrated in the Americas.  The "Day of Africa" is designed to promote Brazilian recognition of African Liberation Day (ALD), an annual holiday in several African countries that recalls Africa's struggles against the evils of colonialism.

"One way of promoting racial equality in Brazil is by furthering knowledge about the African continent," Alves said in a press release. "During the ‘Day of Africa' various agencies and public schools will be able to take part in events that show Africa's contribution to our country, not only culturally, but also what it gave us by means of enslaved labor which made this country prosper."