Afrikan Goddess (AG) Online

Written By: N. Amma Twum-Baah

Africans are widely known to be communal people. Somehow, once we cross the shores of Africa, that communal spirit quickly evaporates and is replaced with a sense of privacy and individual entitlement. Unfortunately, this tendency runs deeper with African women than it does with African men, due to various factors – whether justified or not. It is a trend we all complain about, but very few have done anything (if anything) to attempt to right what we find disturbing. But we need not despair any longer because one courageous woman is not complaining about it, but is doing something about it. Rita Apaloo has made it her personal mission to unite African women living in America, and she has started with the women of Minnesota where she currently resides with her husband and three children.

Growing up in a small iron ore mining community in Liberia, Rita’s life experience was nothing short of fun, filled with love and laughter, and a sense of belonging. It is no wonder that she found a way to incorporate these very ideas into the organization she founded. Both her parents worked hard to provide a comfortable life for her and her siblings. They lived in a ranch-style house, as Rita describes it, with a lush green lawn; complete with the luxuries so many take for granted – VCR that introduced her family to American pop culture, and magazines subscriptions such as Essence and Right On!. Her mother was the first female in her family to graduate from high school and start a career. In a community where women depended heavily on their husbands for any kind of support, graduating high school was not only a big deal to her mother; she also wanted it to be a big deal to her children as well. To be sure that her daughters understood that, she instilled in them the knowledge that a sound education ensures a woman’s independence and freedom to achieve her dreams.

The community Rita grew up in was a diverse community where the residents were a mix of people from around the world – Europe, America, Asia, the Middle East, Liberia and a host of other African countries. It is for this reason that Rita developed the ability to look outside her own African community and at the broader world-scope at a very early age. She also discovered the divisions between classes and status at an early stage in her life and because of this, she says she learned how to interact and work with people from an array of backgrounds. She’s experienced first-hand the benefits that come with being, and feeling, part of a larger community – the peace and comfort one feels knowing they belong, that there are others willing and ready to help you up when you fall.

It is this combination of community, sense of belonging, need for interaction, fun and meaningful friendships that led Rita, in early 2004,  to found African Women Connect (AWC), a relationship-building organization for women in their 20s and older. AWC is based in Minnesota. Her discomfort with the fact that African women were not venturing outside their comfort zones---be it a particular African community, a selected group of friends or a family circle, is one of the many reasons Rita made it her goal to bring African women together in a united front. And though she wasn’t quite sure what would come of her efforts, she tried anyway.

She invited a few of her girlfriends over after she and her husband, Jacques, bought their first home, then placed an ad in the community newspaper inviting women to simply come over for some relaxation and fun, and has never looked back.

Little drops of water sure do make a mighty ocean because today over 100 women have taken advantage of the opportunities provided by AWC. Such opportunities include financial planning, breast cancer awareness programs, networking tips and opportunities, personal development, community involvement, and information-sharing opportunities.

The AWC, however, still maintains its initial idea of being a fun organization; so the women get together every now and then to do just that. Bowling, going to the movies, and a yearly holiday dinner, are just a few of the many fun things on their agenda. 

Rita admits that “one topic that comes up over and over again in AWC meetings is the fact that a lot of African women are feeling lonely and isolated,” even amidst the chaos of unending schedules and deadlines.

As she so precisely put it: “Many of us are separated from our families and important friendships and ties have been broken because of our moves. It takes time and energy to make new friends and build lasting relationships and unfortunately, some people just give up. Another thing we see is that women with spouses or significant others often phase out of social interactions with others --- we want women to know that it is healthy to maintain connections with people outside of romantic interests and close family ties.” This, Rita stresses, will help African women “learn new things and stay updated on what’s going on with others and in their communities.”

Rita’s story serves an inspirational purpose because she has also experienced the devastating effects and horrors of a senseless civil war - a war that took the life she once knew and tore it apart. Rita says she was dramatically, yet unknowingly, affected by the Liberian civil war. It took her over 10 years to start feeling like herself again – though she sometimes feels like she’s not 100% there yet. The war taught her some valuable lessons about life, but also took a part of her that she admits she’s still struggling to get back – like the ability to plan for the long term. The fear and exposure to the idea that a person could die any minute for any number of reasons keeps her from living beyond today and looking forward to tomorrow. Although the Liberian civil war destroyed many earthly possessions and human spirits, Rita says she still has happy memories of her time growing up in Liberia – memories she shares with her three children, Rae Simone 12, Jacques-Philippe 7, Alice Anna 3.

This high-spirited woman makes the energizer bunny seem slow. As a married mother of three young children, it is a mystery that she has time for anything else. Apart from connecting African women in the Minnesota area, Rita is also the program coordinator at the Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA). She writes and has contributed articles to local community newspapers, such as Mshale and the African News Journal. She also keeps a blog at http://www.rapaloo.blogspot.com/.

She is more than halfway through fulfilling her longtime dream of earning her Bachelor’s degree in Professional Communication with a focus in Public Relations, and is excitedly looking forward to a spring 2010 graduation. Rita is also a proud 2008 graduate of the LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) Careership Emerging Leaders program.

Despite its success, the AWC still has a long way to go in terms of financial support and various resources needed to reach the national stage. According to Rita, “there is so much more to be done in Minnesota. We have not even begun to scrape the surface.” Near future goals of AWC include development of a comprehensive membership registry of African women to build a database. Rita stresses “the database will assist with networking and matching experience and expertise with various opportunities in the community, and will help strengthen our larger community and leverage women’s skills and talents.” She also intends to create a resource database to help members connect to services and opportunities of interest to them as “people are starting to think of AWC when looking to reach a cross-section of African women.” AWC is very pleased to be able to contribute in whatever way they can.

The benefits of AWC have not only been experienced by the women who come in from the outside, but also by the very woman who founded the organization. Rita says she has met some really fabulous women and has built relationships with many awesome African women she probably never would have met otherwise. These women she says have inspired her in many ways, and she is grateful for the interest, support and trust they have placed in her to lead them in their efforts to rethink and rework the African definition of community.

After all is said and done, African women are doing well, says Rita, achieving their dreams and reaching for the stars. “On a personal level, we seem to be doing well – we’re making sure our families are well taken care of. Yet when it comes to connecting the dots, we are failing to look at the big picture because we haven’t been taught to look that far out. The critical question that I’m trying to address through AWC is WHO ARE WE TOGETHER? What’s our legacy as women going much further than our mothers before us? We are achieving more than any generation of African women yet we have not begun to figure out who we are as a group, what we stand for, and how we want to be viewed. What differentiates us from other women?

African Women Connect has a website under construction and once ready, can be accessed by going to http://www.africanwomenconnect.com/

Author’s Notes: The term “Diaspora” is a word widely used among Africans living abroad, but it’s interesting to wonder how many of us actually understand what it means. I didn’t, so I looked it up. I was awed to find out that the word Africans so proudly use when referring to themselves beyond the shores of Africa was nothing short of the truth. We are indeed a dispersed group living in the United States and even where boundaries – imagined or unimagined - are non-existent; it is easy to notice that there is lack of a sense of unity and connection.

The interview with Rita Apaloo was a rather extensive one that detailed a lot of the vision, goals and successes of African Women Connect. To get an in-depth look at woman behind AWC, and her vision for the organization she founded, read the interview in its entirety by clicking here.