The Fate of ADAM

Nova Scotia to help African Immigrants Integrate and Stay in The Province

HALIFAX

Sunday, December 11, 2005 The Daily News, Page 5.

By
Baha Abushaqra
Special to The Daily News

The province is helping Nova Scotians of African descent integrate into society through the services of a new organization.

The offices of African Nova Scotian affairs and Immigration co-sponsored an information session and dinner yesterday for the African Diaspora Association of the Maritimes (ADAM).

The meeting in Dalhousie University Club meant to provide information to people interested in forming ADAM, with the planning committee already established, as well as putting together some strategies to go forward in forming the organization, Angela Johnson said, spokesperson with African Nova Scotian Affairs.

‘Community Mobilization’

“It’s a community mobilization form… to establish this association,” said Tony Eghan, ADAM interim-president.

“Nova Scotia is trying to look for immigrants, and we want these immigrants, we want to lure them, we want them to settle, we want them to integrate and we want them to remain in Nova Scotia. So this organization, hopefully, will become what we call a welcoming community.”

Eghan said the Nova Scotian African community needs to get organized.

“If somebody is coming from any part of Africa, and he knows that there are some Africans in Nova Scotia, when he goes to Halifax for instance, I will get in touch with these people. I will know where to go to church, where my children can go to school,” said Eghan.
ADAM would help immigrants with language training, education, accommodation, employment, medical and other social services.

The Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs estimates there are 19,670 African Nova Scotians in the province, 90 per cent of whom are 64 years of age or younger.

It had sponsored research to find out the need of African immigrants. It looked at education, culture, social services and employment, said Eghan. One of the main recommendations was the creation of an overall association to cater to all African immigrants.

The office of immigration gave $12,000 for the community mobilization and to hold elections to elect officers to look after the organization.

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Commentary:
By F. Stanley Boyd

I was ready to condemn this grant to start this organization until this morning after reading the local press. The reasons I considered condemning ADAM were simple.

First, the approach of asking African immigrants to begin an organization by offering them money would only stack the cards in favor of it happening. Usually, in a case like this a few leaders emerge and coincidentially highjack the organization and use it to their own ends. Who really initiated this oranization? Its need seems to be justifiable, but what spirit is its guiding light?

Second, there is the manner in which the organization meeting was conducted. It took place at the Dalhousie University Club, the planning committee was already established and in place. There was no pretense of the organization emerging; its emgerance was planned. Who are its real leaders and why and who chose them? Is the hand to be invisible, or is it a slight of hand?

Third, there was the expense of conducting the meeting and a dinner that followed. Who paid for that? If the cost of the oranization meeting were paid out of public funds why isn't the involvement more transparent? Who provided the funds or seed money? The office of immigration, who is that?

Fourth, there was a press release on the website of African Nova Scotia Affairs and at its bottom it says: "For more information and to register, contact the Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs by phone at 902-424-5555 or by e-mail at: ansa_newsletter@gov.ns.ca."

There is no indication of how broadly circulated this invitation was and specifically who was invited.

Fifth and finally, the phrase "Community Mobilization" was the same phrase use to inaugurate the Black United Front of Nova Scotia in 1968. Seeing the similarities of strategies at work here, like those of 1968, made me think out loud; it raised the question: what fate would befall this organization? Would it be the same fate as that of the Black United Front? Like the BUF ADAM owes its existence to the same most untransparent strategies which gave rise to the BUF.

In 1968 the Federal government threw the Black community of Nova Scotia a bone and like dogs we fought over it; in 2005 the Office of African Nova Scotia Affairs is throwing a similar bone to African immigrants and they too will fight over it.

In the end they'll pose no threat to anyone but themselves.