— Yaa Nkansa, ACCL intern
On Saturday, February 25, African Community Center of Lowell held a Black History Month event.
They invited local community members to come share their inspiring stories and get a tour of Cape Coast Castle through the senior tour guide, Robert Morgan Mensah.
The day started off with ACCL's computer skills class, part of a 6-week program offered in collaboration with UMass Lowell. UMass Lowell students come on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and teach some of the community immigrant members the basics on how to use and navigate through computers.
After the class was over the Black History Month event began. The event started off with local immigrant members talking about their inspirational journey from their homeland to the United States. People from countries in the western part of Africa, including Ghana, Nigeria, and Liberia, spoke, as well as people from Uganda, Kenya, and the Republic of Congo. Each person spoke about their struggles and how they had the opportunity to come to the United States.
“Everyone has their own journey, but we all have the same story -- to have better opportunities here that aren’t available in our home country,” one Nigerian said.
Another member, a Congolese woman, said, “My country was going through a civil war, which led me here as a refugee.”
After the stories, we had the privilege to listen to Ghanaian traditional music and watch a dance from Sudan by one of the local members. The group was pleased to have among them the chair of ACCL's board of directors, Susanne Curry, and a professor at Berklee College of Music, Herman Hampton.
Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, we weren’t able to get in contact with Robert Morgan Mensah to show the tour of the Cape Coast Castle.