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DISCUSSION: If you could make a positive change in Africa for $100, what will you do?

We are continuing the discussion from our online digital edition’s Question of the Issue. Join the discussion with your comments below.

Responses from our Digital Edition: “I’m not sure if $100 can make much of any difference in Africa. When I think of Africa’s problems, it becomes overwhelming. What will $100 do to stop AIDS? How many children will it educate? Will it create good governance? A million dollars more can make a dent in some village but $100 is a joke.” —Joel “I will donate my $100 to a micro financing organization such as Kiva, Grameen or any of the many organizations out there. This way, my $100 can help people over and over and over again. I think this is the best way to give because personally, I attribute many of the problems in Africa to a lack of jobs and poor economies. If people had jobs, their kids will be educated, they will be able to afford healthcare etc. So with my $100, I will select women from the micro financing organizations who need just the little I have to offer to boost their businesses. When they pay me back, I will find the next woman to help.” —Vana

Holiday Gift Giving that changes lives

	SHOP PRODUCT(RED) and HELP Africans with AIDS Each time you purchase a (RED) product or service, at no extra cost to you, the company who makes that product will give up to 50% of its profit to buy and distribute antiretroviral medicine to our brothers and sisters dying of AIDS in Africa. Brands include: Apple Converse Emporio Armani Gap Hallmark Susan Hanover Designs Starbucks
	SHOP at World of Good and make a difference Your purchase impact People Positive Eco Positive Animal Friendly Supports a Cause
	SHOP at Ten Thousand Villages and make a difference Ten Thousand Villages is a founding member of the International Fair Trade Association(IFAT). IFAT is the International Fair Trade Association, the global network of fair trade organizations. IFAT’s mission is to enable producers to improve their livelihoods and communities through fair trade. IFAT is a global network and advocate for fair trade, ensuring producer voices are heard. African Artisans include: • Benin • Burkina Faso • Cameroon • Congo • Kenya • Niger • Nigeria • Tanzania • Uganda

Top Stories

01|	Getting to know Millionaire Atlanta Falcons Fullback Ovie Mughelli
02|	13 Questions for Amina Kamara
03|	2008 South Africa Style Awards. Red Carpet Moments
04|	Our Holiday gift guide that changes lives
05|	DISCUSSION: If you could make a positive change in Africa for $100 what will you do?
06|	Kimora Lee Simmons is expecting Djimon Hounsou’s Baby

Hottie of the Week: Akon

13 Questions for Amina Kamara

It feels good to be queen. Just ask Amina Kamara, the first ever Miss West Africa, who was crowned Saturday the 8th of November 2008 at the prestigious Conway Hall in London. The beautiful pageant representing Sierra Leone stole the show in a beautiful green dress by Keni Magma amongst 11 other great pageants from various countries. The beauty shed tears as her mother ran up to hug her in her victory walk.

African Vibes Online’s AV Reporter caught up with Amina Kamara shortly after her win with 13 Questions:

AVReporter: Now that you have won the crown, what are the first three things you would do as Miss West Africa?
The first thing has been done already; I had a celebration with my closest friends. So the next two things you should find me engaging in soon is working with sickle cell charities as this is a main concern of mine and touring West Africa which I’m very much looking forward to.

AVReporter: Have you ever been to Sierra Leone?
Yes, I visited Sierra Leone in 2003. It was amazing to see my family and my two sisters I had never met before.

AVReporter: Have you encountered any issue with the fact that you are London born and raised?

Well, I’ve not come across that yet; everyone I’ve met has embraced me as Miss West Africa, which is a great symbol of growing unity within our people’s mentality. I’ve never personally experienced any negativity towards me because of my ethnicity. I always worked hard for what I want. When Obama won the elections, Africa celebrated, even more so Kenya. No matter what ‘science’ the government or a passport may say, I am an African of Sierra Leone origin. For those that say I don’t deserve it, I can only say actions speak louder than words, and I can assure everyone that if they are of West African heritage they surely would appreciate my reign as Miss West Africa.

AVReporter: What are some of your aspirations?
I aspire to be one of the best beauty pageants ever. I don’t want people to look at me and simply say ‘Oh that was Miss West Africa 2008′. I want to set standards for Miss West Africa; I want people to know this title is more than a few photo shoots and events. There are political and social conflicts between and within West African countries, as well as horrific poverty in many areas. I can not change this, but I wish to use my position to highlight it. I aspire to be someone who when you can look at and say she was a true hero and took full advantage to do the best she could as Miss West Africa and as an aspiring model.

AVReporter: How do you think the combination of brainpower and beauty is important in achieving your goals and aspirations?
I think this is very important. Beauty attracts a lot of attention. It is necessary to combine the two because young girls and generally everyone wants to be beautiful, being beautiful and an intelligent role model makes them aspire to the characteristics attached. Just as we see some celebrities before our time were the centre of attention we aspired to their characters no matter how good or bad because we all wished we would be in their shoes some day. I think it’s also important for the guys as well, seeing a beautiful smart female figure gives them something to look forward to when in search of that right partner. And most importantly people are naturally interested in beautiful people, they want to know more about them, being beautiful and intelligent allows you to raise issues they might never have cared for before you exposed it, so beauty and brains actually is very important and that’s why most beauty pageants are attached to goodwill work.

AVReporter: What are your words of wisdom:
Don’t underestimate anyone

AVReporter: How about your secret to success:
If I told, it wouldn’t be a secret, he he

AVReporter: Fair enough. Who inspires you the most?
My Mum. She is a prime example of a strong woman who looks after her family.

AVReporter: What are some of your favourite beauty brands?
I mainly use beauty products such as Simple for exfoliation, Mac and Mary Kay products for make up.

AVReporter: Your favorite all time 3 movies:
Blood Diamonds (because it is based in my country Sierra Leone), Ironman, Love & Basketball

AVReporter: Your favorite all time 3 books:
Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, Screw it Lets Do It by Richard Branson and Garanteed Success by Percy Miller (Master P)

AVReporter: What is your sign (Zodiac)
Aquarius

AVReporter: What is your favorite dish from Sierra Leone?
No doubt, Cassava Leaf.

Miss West Africa 2008 UK

Getting to know Millionaire Fullback Ovie Mughelli

28 year old Ovie Mughelli is single, handsome, the highest paid fullback in the NFL and one of its hardest working athletes. In an interview with African Vibes Magazine’s Amabel Niba for the Jan/Feb 2009 Issue, Mughelli talks about his experience growing up in the US with Nigerian parents, their cultural differences and some of the challenges he had to overcome to become one of the best fullbacks in the NFL.

The Interview Preview:

Amabel Niba: Did you feel any different from the African American kids?

Ovie Mughelli: I always knew I was different from the African American kids. My mother would usually say “you are not like everyone else. You are an African child”. Some of the things that the other kids could do, I wasn’t allowed to do.

Amabel Niba: You took a tough journey and are now the highest paid Fullback in the NFL. Did you ever doubt yourself?

Ovie Mughelli: I doubted myself in college. Wake Forest was a very distinguished school. I was the only football player there who tried to go Premed. I was taking all the hard classes such as Organic Chemistry, Biology… I even took Anatomy. The students in the class were not athletes so they had twice as much time to study; to prepare and to be involved in the class. Being a student athlete, I didn’t have as much time. I was flying to Texas, New York … all over the place to play games and then I had to practice. It was difficult for me. I would go to class sometimes, tired and sleepy drinking coffee trying to stay awake. I would sit in the class for an hour and have no idea what the teacher was saying yet the test was tomorrow.

There are times when I would say “Am I even good enough to try to be a doctor like my Dad? Am I even good enough to be a Premed student? The stuff is so hard. I can’t even understand it.” Whenever I got into situations like that, I would go back to what my parents taught me as a child. I would look at everyone in the class and say “If these people can do it, I can do it too. I just have to work hard. There is no reason I can’t do it. I just need to calm down, work harder, get more help and properly schedule my time.” Time management is what my parents preach. That’s how they got to where they are today. I had to cut out the partying, cut out hanging out with girls so I could spend more time on my major which was Sports Medicine. If I wanted to be good, I had to work at it.

The same thing goes to football. When I got into the NFL, I doubted myself so much. I thought to myself “I was good in College. I was actually great in college but can I make it in the NFL? The guys are so big and so fast.” You had Guys like Ray Lewis … I could beat linebackers in college but in the NFL, the line backers were monstrous. They were beastly. They had veins popping out of their arms. They were like gladiators with red eyes. That’s how they seemed to me at the time; Like these immortal monsters. I felt like there was no way little old me could block them. I remember going up against Ray Lewis who is a perennial pro baller and one of the best in the league and he knocked me down. I went up again and he knocked me down. I got up again the third time and he knocked me down. It took every bit of courage that I had, to get up again and say you know what? I’m going to keep on coming at this guy full speed until I knock him down. It took me a couple of weeks of getting into the weight room working out and working on my technique but eventually I was able to not get knocked down. Soon I was able to hold my own and push him back.

It’s just about working at it. I would never have gotten to the point where I could knock him down, where I could take on any linebacker and feel like one of the best at what I do if I had given up. It’s all about persistence, sticking to it and not giving up on yourself because if you give up on yourself you will not have a chance to know how good you really are.

Read the entire interview in the upcoming digital and print edition of the African Vibes Magazine coming out January 1st 2009.

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Ghana goes to overtime with its Presidential elections but the example is not lost

Ghana is doing it again. Their elections are fair and transparent and they are respecting the process. A claim that cannot be made of many African governments. U.S.-based Carter Center, founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, said to the Associated Press that the vote was an example. “This is an electoral process that is as transparent as any the Carter Center has seen of the 72 elections it has observed,” said John Stremlau, a former U.S. State Department official who is leading the delegation.

According to results released Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that Nana Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party, or NPP, received 49.1 percent of the vote – just 1 percentage point shy of what he needed to win the election in the first round while opposition candidate John Atta Mills campaigned on a platform of change, arguing that the country’s growth has not been felt in people’s wallets. He received 47.9 percent of the 8.6 million votes cast, according to returns from all but one of the country’s 230 precincts.

Ghanaians voted in large numbers on Sunday to choose between two foreign-trained lawyers hoping to lead them into an era of oil-funded prosperity in a tight poll that may set an example for African democracy. The neck-and-neck race has become a referendum on Ghana’s stunning economic growth, which saw the country’s foreign investment grow over 2,000 percent and exports more than double since the ruling party took office eight years ago. Neither party secured enough votes to win the presidential election outright, forcing a runoff scheduled for Dec. 28 2008.

While no contender has come out the winner at this time, Ghanaians take seriously their status as a role model for the continent and say that regardless of who wins the election, the ultimate winner is Ghana which will have pulled off its fifth consecutive democratic vote.

Obama accused of not being American Enough. Why all this nonsense?

When I celebrated Obama’s Nov 4th victory, my joy came not only from the historic nature of his win but from the pride that I too could claim him as African in my own way but little did I realize that what I saw as a small detail would spiral into an undying circus.

I hadn’t given much thought to the nonsense that had surfaced before the elections about his citizenship because it seemed quite absurd then and still does now. I am quick to say let’s move on and never speak again of this lawsuit dismissed by the Supreme Court Monday questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship. But it looks like this issue will not die an easy death; especially on the web.

The suit, filed by Leo Donofrio, “reasoned” that since Obama had dual nationality at birth – his mother was American and his Kenyan father at the time was a British subject – he cannot possibly be a “natural born citizen,” one of the requirements the Constitution lists for eligibility to be president.

This mess put me to task immediately as I quickly researched “natural born citizens” and eligibility requirements for the US presidency. I found the United States Constitution requires that Presidents (and Vice Presidents) of the United States be natural born citizens of the United States although the phrase “natural born Citizen” is not defined anywhere in the Constitution, as is true with most Constitutional terms.

While the Obama team has largely dismissed questions about his citizenship, the persistence of the questions drove the campaign in June to make public his birth certificate. It shows, among other things, that he was born in a Honolulu hospital at 7:42 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961.

Anyone born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen, regardless of his or her parents’ immigration status. Hawaii has been a state since 1959.

Despite all the information the Obama camp has made available to quel this issue, we will all have to deal with it one more time. A Pennsylvania man is pursuing a court challenge to Obama’s presidency claiming the president-elect was born in Kenya and not Hawaii as both he and Hawaii officials confirmed.

I am hoping that will be the last time wasting challenge we have to stand. So let the stupid tricks end and let Obama have his chance to govern already.