Largest Pan-African event celebrating the diaspora comes to DC

A one-day conference that celebrates African and Caribbean culture will take place in the nation’s capital Saturday. 

Experience Africa, organized by The Voice of Africa, will feature food, fashion, music and keynote speakers and panels that highlight the different African and Caribbean diasporas and the contributions they have made to the global society. 

The ticketed event, which will take place along Embassy Row, hopes to champion African and Caribbean embassies and their peoples, said Kadmiel ​​Van Der Puije, founder of The Voice of Africa. 

Van Der Puije, an immigrant from Ghana, said this event and its mission to educate is personal for him.

“I moved here when I was 12. I lived in a neighborhood, this place called Scranton, Pennsylvania. I went to high school where I was literally the only full Black kid,” Van Der Puije told The Hill. 

He said he was constantly bombarded with “jokes,” such as other kids telling him Africa was just all jungles. 

“They didn’t know if Africa was a country or a continent,” Van Der Puije said. “What I really want to be able to show through Experience Africa is each country has its own unique culture but we are one big community.”

Van Der Puije said he wants Saturday’s event to help educate people about the culture but also about African politics and economy.

“A lot of people don’t know more of the nitty gritties about what’s going on with Africa’s free trade, what’s going on with technology,” he said. “I think my biggest takeaway is people should be able to go there and feel as though they’ve experienced Africa without even having to be there.”

Panels at the event will feature leading African and Caribbean voices in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. Discussions at these panels will delve into investment opportunities in both Africa and the Caribbean through business, art and travel.

Other panels will discuss the current disputes and solutions to the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Featured guests to help with that education include Hilda Suka-Mafudze, African Union ambassador to the U.S.; Mohyeldin Omer, senior advisor at the Africa Bureau of U.S. Agency for International Development; shadow Rep. Oye Owolewa (D-D.C.); and other professors and entrepreneurs. 

“It’s so important to celebrate African culture because it really leans into who we are as a people, and especially in American culture,” Owolewa told The Hill.

Owolewa, the child of Nigerian immigrants, said he’s “grateful” to have such a large event in a place that used to be considered “Chocolate City” because of its majority-Black population. 

“It is important for it to be in the nation’s capital to really show how we see ourselves as a diaspora, how important we see our culture and how we’re raised to also lead in this country and not just as they say back home in Africa,” Owolewa said. 

“I was born and raised in the United States, and I’m proud to be born and raised in the United States, and I feel like I can make a difference here,” he added. “Having such an event here in the United States, in D.C., is very important not only for historical significance but also for what we’re going to be like in the near future.”

But featuring so many different elements of African culture is also the beginning of a deeper discussion around racial identity, Owolewa said. 

“I think it’s the beginning of a conversation of what makes us Black,” he said. “When it comes to being Black, there’s different types of being Black, and it’s not about setting barriers. It’s about really embracing each other.” 

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement that she, too, is thankful for such an event happening. 

The event, Bowser said, allows for D.C. residents to celebrate “the rich and diverse African and Caribbean nations and the enormous contributions African and Caribbean embassies make to our city and the nation.” 

Not only will keynote speakers highlight these contributions, but many of the panels will explore how the U.S.-African relationship can be built better and stronger.

But there’s another side to Saturday’s event — Van Der Puije said he is hoping to raise money for The Voice of Africa’s orphanage in Kenya. 

“We have lots of different projects that we’re currently working on, but the biggest is trying to build them a dormitory because right now they’re all staying at a house,” Van Der Puije said. “We want to build an actual dormitory where everyone has their own bed, everyone has their own bathroom.”

The Kenyan orphanage was created in 2010, when Van Der Puije’s father, a missionary, traveled to Kisii and met with a pastor who had 12 orphans living with him. Van Der Puije said his father was an orphan, and seeing the children in Kenya experiencing a similar situation tugged at his heart. 

While Kisii County is home to more than 1 million people, some 240,000 children are orphans. 

Van Der Puije said their work in Kisii has continued to grow over the years, and the orphanage is now home to 54 children. But The Voice of Africa hopes to provide more for parentless children in the area. 

“We have a church over there, so usually what will happen is you have some kids come there and we find out that they usually don’t have anyone,” Van Der Puije said. He added that he and his family have also expanded into other countries, establishing orphanages in Ghana and Zambia.  

After Saturday’s event, Van Der Puije hopes to take an extended stay in Kenya, where he can spend several months bonding with the children in Kisii. 

But, he said, he’ll also begin planning next year’s Experience Africa. 

“The goal is to make this an annual event,” Van Der Puije said. “I want to stay in D.C., but I do see it eventually going into New York or LA or Texas and then even eventually going out of the country to maybe Ethiopia, South Africa, places like that.”