It is a truism that when we fail to learn from our mistakes we are bound to repeat them. Therefore, it cannot be gainsaid that accountability is essential to attracting group participation and followership, and it is equally a necessary instrument for maintaining followership and retaining the confidence of the followership.

Hard Work = Commitent, Consistency, and Dedicaion, the vehicle for achieving our goals. Therefore, the need to be accountable to you for what we say and do for you and on your behalf becomes a fundamental aspect of this mathematical equation, our commitment to you. We want to be accountable, we should be accountable, and we shall be accountable. That’s a promise you can cash! Whether you watch or not, we shall do it anyway, if only to assure you that we are different and we mean business. The goals of the corporation, as enumerated in the October Issue, will be accomplished through the creation of Standing Committees that will be responsible for the Administration of specific projects so as to each predetermined objectives. The corporation will establish these administrative standing committees for various activities:

A. The Social Services Committee will be responsible for social events, emergency assistance, legal counseling and assistance, social services counseling, emergency food, shelter and clothing, cultural adjustment counseling, health ounseling and assistance, legal fairs, and work to establish a free medical clinic to serve the uninsured in our African immigrant and non-immigrant community.

B. The Human Development Committee will be responsible for career counseling, job placements, psychological counseling, job training, cultural development, conferences and education (including the teaching of African languages to our children), seminars, conventions, fairs(health, legal, immigration), trade and commerce. A principal task of this Committee is Leadership development.

C. The Public Relations Committee will be responsible for advocacy issues, negotiations involving African countries or other countries (if an African or African country is involved) in the areas of peace, disaster relief, and other neutral, independent and nonpartisan political affairs, and advocacy issues concerning African immigrants and non-immigrants. Will work toward the establishment of African Affairs Office in local governments in the Washington Metropolitan Area and throughout these United States. Will be involved in international aid activities to Africa, participation in world conferences on Africa, and participation in the deliberations conducted by the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, U.S. Congress, and other esteemed bodies on matters of interest or concern to Africa and her peoples (we should not stand idly-by while others discuss us and make decisions about us and for us that are bound to have any number of

consequences). Will be responsible for all publication, fund-raising activities, welcome centrs, membership drive activities, social and cultural activities. Will be responsible for establishing friendly links with all African embassies and the publication of the Corporation’s calendar of events and newsletter.

D. The Physical Development Committee will be responsible for mapping out the long-term development of the Africa Solidarity Council, Inc. Its primary function will be to explore avenues for fiscally and programmatically shoring up the functioning of the Corporation through such instruments as endowments, for-profit "feeder" systems or businesses, and for-fee services. This Committee will also be responsible for the expansion of the goals and objectives of the Corporation within and without the United States of America, especially in Africa. To this end, this Committee will work in concert with the Human Development Committee in that Committee’s efforts as regards Leadership development. This Committee, when necessary, will work in concert with the Fund-raising Committee and the Finance Committee in the construction of an overall plan for long-term development of the Corporation.

E.The Fund-raising and Budet Committee will be responsible for securing direct, short-term support for the Corporation through grants, special events, and donations. In concert with both the Finance and Physical Development Committees, this Committee will design an overall fund-raising strategy to obtain predetermined fiscal goals for the improved functioning of the Corporation, direct and conduct the recruitment of grant monies, corporate support, and specific fund-raising events. This committee will also prepare a proposed budget for the coming year which will include funds for such programs as the Board of Directors has approved, estimates for new programs the Board of Directors wishes to undertake, and identification of needed resources of money to cover all expenses. Adoption of the budget requires a majority vote at the annual Board of Directors’ meeting. This committee will also pursue avenues that will enhance the Corporation’s financial health.

F. Program Committee will be responsible for the development of programs for the Corporation and for recommending priorities for social action, education, information, and referral activities to the Board of Directors for approval. Further, the Program Committee will plan and coordinate the implementation of the Annual Meeting, seminars, health and legal fairs and ensure Board participation in coordination/liaison activities. The Program Committee will also conduct regular assessment of the management and administration of the Corporation. This Committee will establish systems of monitoring and evaluation deemed necessary in performing internal assessment and will work with the Executive Committee to produce the Annual Report. It will monitor adherence to administrative policies and procedures, recommend modifications to the Bylaws as needed, and recommend new policies and procedures to improve Corporation’s operations.

G. The Nominating Committee will be charged with the responsibility of seeking, identifying, screening, and nominating qualified persons for selection to serve as members of the Board of Directors as the need arises to maintain the Board at its most productive level and of submitting a slate consisting of members of the Board, officers, and the next nominating committee. Further, the Nominating Committee will nominate persons for selection by the Board of Directors as officers and at large members of the Executive Committee. The Nominating Committee will consist of seven members, at least four of whom will be members of the Board of Directors. No person will be a member of the Nominating Committee for more than three consecutive years. A majority of the Nominating Committee will constitute a quorum, and all questions will be decided by the vote of a majority of its members present in person.

H. The Finance Committee will review corporate assets and liabilities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding financial decisions; recommend and assist the corporate officers with any systems for financial management of the Corporation; review and make recommendations to the Board regarding legal and financial matters, fund-raising and long term development of the Corporation. Ad Hoc Committees will be established when necessary to serve or provide specific need or services.

WHY IS THIS EFFORT NECESSARY?

I have to tell you, my friends, but I am very concerned and angry today! Not at you, of course, but at the fact that many African immigrants and non-immigrants, including Africans on the continent, have become complacent and mesmerized by the comfortable nothingness those of us in foreign lands seem to have and we risk losing Africa again or at least fail to reclaim her. I know you will gree that we face a number of hardships because of political and institutional indifference simply because we lack effective organization.

At the heart of the mission of the Africa Solidarity Council, Inc. are the growth and development of African immigrants and non-immigrants through the discovery of self and the application of knowledge of self that will enlarge and fulfill our lives and the lives of our posterity. It is an effort to build friendship ties with each other here, the future public servants of Africa when they return home, while serving our needs and protecting our interests here, and eventually using this friendship in the service of our people knowing that we, both man, woman, and child, are "a community too stable to be unproductive, too dynamic to be static, too dignified to be unimpressive, and too African to be Western."

So you see, there is a lot we want to do, and probably a lot more that can and should be done, if only the African immigrant and non-immigrant can become engaged, take the bull by the horn, and begin to assume, beyond our narrow factions and interests, the responsibility toward leaving a worthy legacy to our posterity.

Never for a moment think that we are biting more than we can chew. How can we when we have the manpower. You. Take a look around us and you will discover the array of talents and energies we possess. What a mountain can’t we, as a people, climb or have not climbed? Except, of course, we climbed and continued to climb for the comfort of others and their children. Whether the climb was voluntary or coerced is not important. We climbed.

What a challenge can’t we, as a people, overcome or have not overcome? We are the grandsons and granddaughters and the great grandsons and the great granddaughters of our ancestors. Remember? They built their masters’ house. They fought in Burma, a war, its cause or purpose, they knew not. And on their heads and backs, they carried their masters and their masters’ loads, never stopping to breathe in a rest until their destination was reached at a distance far away. They trekked all that distance under the ruthless and scorching heat. Many succumbed, the rest continued. And some picked cotton and farmed and cured tobacco in foreign lands and lived under the most humiliating conditions. And yet, out of their bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. And here we find ourselves today, their great great grandchildren, in whose veins run the same ruddy drops that ran through theirs, only they had courage while we are enamored by comfortable nothingness rapped up in the stupor of laissez-faire.

Somebody, nay, Soothsayer, please take us to the oracle, to our ancestors go, for counsel and entreaty, for thy children are adrift. Courage, Oh! Courage. If only we can muster a pint of their courage, and then, add a measure, full measure, of our freedom!! What a force for positive change for Africa and her people will there be!!! Our Africa will be the better for it and our posterity will be happy we were here.

Courage derives from commitment and dedication for a cause, but alas, these we seem to have in short supply. The condition of Africa and her people today, no matter where we may be or find ourselves, is such that we can no longer afford to remain complacent and lethargic. My friends, let the courage of our ancestors, and not our fear, guide our actions as we, together, become relevant and dedicated to causes that will improve our lives, the lives of our children, and the lives of our children yet unborn, both in foreign lands and in Africa where we hope to return to one day, soon, dead or alive.

But before we return, and when we return, we would have achieved cohesion and built friendship and trust with each other for the sole purpose of transforming and building our society. As public servants (civil servants, head of states and governments, and all) we will begin to sow the seeds of trust, accountability, progress, and security. And perhaps, one day, the African living can forcefully say, "we are a member of the community of nations and ‘never again’." And for us departed, we will wear a very broad smile across our faces on that day too and happily say, "those are my boys and girls, it took a long time coming, but it did. Bravo." If this comes to pass because we sojourned, wonderful. It would be an achievement long overdue!

Will you join us and become a part of this cause, this crusade? Will you? Call or write:

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