How Aduke Africa is Encouraging You to Visit Africa Through the Lens of Benin

By Ayah A.

Meet Adébissi Bello, the founder of Aduke Africa. The 28-year-old fi nancial analyst is a Benenise and French national born in Benin Republic. Adébissi moved to Paris at age nine, which is where she primarily grew up and is currently based.

“I belong to the Yoruba African

ethnic group from Benin and

Nigeria mainly,” she told Travel Noire. “I’ve always loved traveling and have always been curious about discovering new amazing places in the world, and gaining international experience.”

Aduke Africa originally started as a travel blog to share Adébissi’s experience as an expat in the U.S. while she spent two years living in Miami. However, since the beginning of 2021, she has been working to refocus her brand. Now, Aduke Africa is focused

on helping Western-based millennials with African-born parents gain a deeper connection

to their country of origin.

“Due to them living in Western countries, there is often a disconnect between these individuals and their home country. Many of them feel overwhelmed when they think about traveling to Africa. We support them by providing positive resources and tools along with grounding travel experiences to inspire them to start their own journey towards gaining a deeper connection to Africa at their own pace.”

The mission of Aduke Africa revolves around changing the narrative of tourism in Africa by encouraging these African millennials, through the lens of the Benin Republic, to tackle their doubts about traveling to Africa and place more African countries on their travel bucket list, starting with their origin countries.

Adébissi’s primary inspiration behind the decision to repurpose her brand in this manner were her personal experiences and journey as an African woman living in France.

“I have lived most of my life in Europe and have enjoyed traveling in Europe and internationally. I am always curious about a country’s history and culture and love visiting museums and exhibitions, but grew tired of fi nding myself unrepresented in those. At some point, I asked myself, ‘Do I want to die having experienced the world but not knowing

about my own country?’ I realized I’d prefer knowing more about Benin and other African countries than the rest of the world.”

Being born in Benin, the country always had a special place in Adébissi’s heart. Despite growing up in France, she was raised surrounded by Beninese culture, traditions, and food. As she grew up, she matured enough to let go of the social stigmas, trauma, negative narratives, fears, and doubts she had about Benin and returned to her motherland in search of more of herself.

Adébissi took her fi rst solo trip to Africa in January 2018. She spent a month between Benin and South Africa and promised herself it would

Benin - from page 35

not be her last visit. Once she began exploring Benin and its history, Adébissi unlocked a world of priceless cultural wisdom. Visiting the Royal Palace of Abomey and learning how the Kingdom of Oyo impacted the Dahomey Kingdom’s history was a life-changing experience.

“Indeed some Yoruba families from Porto-Novo are originally from some states of Nigeria. My family is from Oyo state in Nigeria. This situation can be explained by the fact that the borders that we know for many West African countries were artifi cially designed at the Berlin conference in 1884-1885 by most of the European colonizing countries. It also explains why you can fi nd the same ethnic groups in diff erent bordering countries in Africa.”

In February 2021 Adébissi returned to Benin for another month-long trip. This time she was able to visit the south and central parts of the country. In the south of Benin, she discovered authentic African culture and history in Porto-Novo and Ouidah. She visited the Negro and African Pantheon in Porto-Novo and the Dasilva Museum, honoring the memory of many of Benin’s heroes and martyrs.

“Porto-Novo has the biggest return Afro-Brazilian community. They came back after the abolition of slavery and made it their home. In this town, you can visit the Ouadada Cultural Art Center and see all the voodoo temples that they are renovating. The royal palace of Honme, residence of the last king of Porto-Novo is another great spot. Ouidah is where you can find the Door of No Return and the Slavery Route. This town is full of historic spots that teach African descendants how slavery happened and welcome them back home.”

Ouidah is also home to a beautiful beach and amazing accommodations for tourists. Visitors can take a boat ride to Ganvié, the African Venice, where some ethnic groups ran away to in order to escape slavery. You can also visit Bab’s Dock for a lakeside brunch or a boat ride through some amazing West African mangroves.

In the north of Benin, one can enjoy a safari in Pendjari Park, viewing the amazing Kota Waterfall in Natitingou or the Dassa Hills landscape. The Vodoo Carnival is celebrated in

Benin each January 10, and emphasizes the link between Afro-descendants in the Caribbean and Latin America and the people of Benin.

With so many things to explore and so many breathtaking landscapes to enjoy, Adébissi believes Benin is a prime candidate to be Africa’s next hot spot. A unique country that manages to stay authentic to itself and loyal to its ancestors’ traditions, more and more Afro-descendants are getting to know this country better as they feel their ancestors calling them home.

Since 2016, one of the main projects of the new government has been the development of the tourism sector in Benin. In November 2021, the International Museum of Memory and Slavery will be inaugurated in Ouidah. They have been rehabilitating tourist sites and improving the infrastructures in hopes of attracting more tourists.

The Netfl ix documentary High on the Hog showcases Benin as a important country to visit if you want to bond with the African heritage, culture, traditions, and history you may have lost due to slavery. Her amazing month spent in Benin this year was the fi nal confi rmation Adébissi needed to take her brand in its current direction.

“I wanted people like me to be able to experience what I experienced. There is a proverb that says in order to know where you are going, you need to know where you are from. Knowing about your roots, culture, traditions, and heritage will bring you a fulfi lled vision of who you are and help you be more confi dent about how you carry yourself in this world. As individuals, our cultural heritage plays a huge role in our development.” “Knowledge is power. Do not lean on only what you learn at school, online, or on TV. Telling your own stories and being your own fi rsthand source of information will change the narrative for sure. So I’m building a unique brand around this experience and changing the narrative about traveling to Africa for African millennials and the Afrodiaspora at large.” Adébissi says there a number of factors contributing to some Black people’s hesitation in considering Africa as a top travel destination. In many places, there are negative stigmas surrounding the continent. Positive imagery of Africa is simply not shown.

“Also, some Africans living in Western countries have experienced traumatic situations, which led to the immigration of their family, so they associate the country with that. The fear that is often transmitted by their parents’ experience in Africa and the negative mass media narrative around the African continent does not help either.”

Other issues Adébissi cites are a lack of great infrastructures, lack of reviews and intel on tourism off ers, fear of security issues and political instability, unclear visa application information, and language barriers. These are some of the issues Aduke Africa can help people navigate and provide clarity on.

As Adébissi works on building awareness about her brand, her goal is to be able to provide digital products by the end of 2021 to support African millennials in their quest of gaining a deeper connection with their origin country. She is organizing an exclusive retreat to Ghana and Benin for the New Year and looks forward to sharing this journey with people. For more information, follow @adukeafrica. https://travelnoire.com/aduke-africa-visit-africalens-of-benin Image credit: Aduke Africa

Growing a Destinationa and a People

How a National Park in Africa is Thriving After War - Mozambique By Dan Tham, CNN

In the middle of Mozambique, at the southern end of the Great African Rift Valley, Gorongosa National Park is a haven for wildlife.

Crocodiles patrol its rivers, hippos splash in its lakes, antelopes graze on the fl oodplains and lions stalk the savanna, looking for their next meal. Some of the park’s creatures, such as the Mount Gorongosa pygmy chameleon (only as long as a pinky fi nger), are not found anywhere else.

The 1,500-square-mile (4,000 squarekilometer) park is fl ourishing now -- but it has had a tumultuous history.

Gorongosa was fi rst established as a hunting reserve by Mozambique’s Portuguese rulers in 1920. They gradually opened it up to tourists and in 1960, declared it a national park.

However in 1977, two years after Mozambique declared independence from Portugal, a bloody civil war erupted and Gorongosa became a battleground. Elephants were poached for their ivory, which was used to buy weapons, and almost all the other large animals were butchered to feed the soldiers.

When the war ended in 1992, the landscape was devastated and more than 90% of Gorongosa’s large mammals had been killed.

Eff orts were made to rehabilitate Gorongosa after the war but it wasn’t until 2004, when American philanthropist Greg Carr partnered with the Mozambican government to restore the park, that it started coming back to life.

It was a massive undertaking.

Pedro Muagara, Gorongosa’s current warden, says that when he fl ew over in a helicopter in 2006, he saw “a disaster.” It took two weeks for him to see an elephant and a month passed before he spotted a lion.

Since then, millions of trees have been planted, animals -- including wild dogs, elephants, hippos, zebra and buff alo -- have been translocated into the park, and a team of rangers has been trained to combat poaching.

These eff orts have paid off . During the last aerial survey, in October 2018, more than 100,000 large herbivores were counted in the park.

But the work didn’t stop there. As well as restoring the park, Carr and his team have created new opportunities for women in a bid to tackle Mozambique’s entrenched gender inequality.

Currently, a third of the park’s 600-strong workforce is female -- with a goal to reach 50%.

Before Gorongosa closed in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic, CNN visited and spoke to three of the women who are working to rebuild this natural treasure.

The importance of educating women

Under the shade of a tree, in a village just outside the national park, girls are singing, clapping and dancing in unison.

They are attending Girls Club, a free education program that operates in 50 villages around Gorongosa.

ephants are a “keystone ecies” in the Gorongosa ecosystem ▼Waterbuck -- a type of ge antelope -- graze on Gorongosa’s fl oodplains on lounges on a tree in orongosa National Park

Larissa Sousa, the program manager, says the club off ers supplementary lessons to girls from poor families aged 10 to 16.

Mozambique has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, with almost half the country’s women becoming brides before the age of 18.

Sousa says that Girls Club encourages girls not to drop out of school to get married. Girls who complete high school have better employment prospects and more life choices -- which can help to break the cycle of poverty.

A key focus is moving the needle on literacy. According to UNESCO, 58% of Mozambique’s women are illiterate (compared to 45% of the adult population as a whole).

Sousa points to the trickle-down eff ect of female education. “If the mother is educated, she will ensure that kids are educated.”

Beyond reading, writing and mathematics, the girls participate in discussions on sexual reproductive health, conservation and the role of women in society.

Sousa’s mission is to help girls break the cycle of poverty ▲Larissa Sousa with members of Girls Club education program ►Gabriela Curtiz’s life experiences refl ect th Gorongosa and the parallel eff orts to empow

Thriving After War - from page 39

Having fun is also on the curriculum. “Normally, the girls are the ones that take care of the siblings, they are the ones who cook, they’re the ones who need to carry water,” says Sousa. “So we said in the club, you have a time that you just play.”

Bringing back Gorongosa’s elephants

Dominique Goncalves remembers crying the fi rst time she shared her story at a Girls Club.

The girls reacted with amazement to photos of her working with elephants. It was “a magical moment,” she says.

Goncalves manages the park’s Elephant Ecology Project, which she started in 2018.

With her team, Goncalves monitors Gorongosa’s growing elephant population -- which is bouncing back now that poaching has been curtailed.

“Once the wildlife starts feeling that they are safe ... they start to be less stressed, and they start to reproduce more,” she says.

Elephants are a “keystone species” in the Gorongosa ecosystem. By knocking down trees and eating tall grasses, they keep the landscape open and clear, which allows grazing mammals to fl ourish.

Fewer than 200 elephants survived the war, but the population has grown to around 800 since then, says Goncalves, who is pursuing a PhD on interactions between elephants and people at the UK’s University of Kent.

Sometimes elephants stray beyond the park boundaries to raid crops such as maize and bananas -- angering local farmers. Goncalves says her team’s top priority is to improve well being for both elephants and the people who live alongside them. Elephants are “intelligent and learn to adapt ... so we have to use many diff erent strategies,” she says.

The team have put GPS collars on 20 elephants so far. When a tracked elephant heads towards a farm, rangers will try to usher them back to the park by making loud noises with fi rearms and fi re crackers and, on occasion, swooping above in a helicopter. The team also takes advantage of the elephants’ fear of bees by stringing beehives along fences to dissuade them from breaking through.

Despite these challenges, Gorongosa’s growing elephant population “gives us a lot of hope,” says Goncalves.

The fi rst female safari guide in Gorongosa

Gabriela Curtiz’s life experiences refl ect the revival of Gorongosa and the parallel eff orts to

he revival of wer women.

empower women.

Curtiz and her four siblings grew up in a single-parent household in a village 60 miles (96 kilometers) from the park. As a child, during the civil war, she remembers hearing gunfi re nearby. As an adult, she became “the fi rst woman ever trained as a safari tourism guide in the history of Gorongosa,” she says, with eff usive pride.

Curtiz’s mother, a teacher, instilled a love of education in her children. In her last year of high school, Curtiz visited the park for the fi rst time -- and that sparked her interest in working there.

Curtiz trained as a tour guide and started taking groups of tourists on safari last year.

She says she loves showing visitors around, although she has to deal with disappointment, occasionally, if the lions and elephants don’t show up. “I always remind them it’s not a zoo and this is a national park,” she says.

Growing up, she says, girls were often told that

Girls Club members listen to Dominique Goncalves as she recounts her experiences with elephants only boys could do what they wanted in life. Curtiz has led by example. Now, four of the park’s 13 guides are women. “I want to keep being a role model,” she says, “inspiring other people’s lives, too.” www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-anational-park-in-africa-is-thriving-after-war/arAAN92ff ?ocid=msedgntp Image credit: © Brett Kuxhausen/Gorongosa Media, © Bruce Buttery/CNN