4 minute read
The Best of Africa awards
Celebrating the best
Stars from worlds of sport and entertainment were out in force for dazzling tenth edition of the Best of Africa awards. By Matthew Chadder
THE PRESTIGIOUS Best of Africa (BoA) awards celebrated its tenth edition during Black History Month by doing what it does best — recognising and celebrating African excellence.
In 2011, founder Francis Nkwain had a vision; to celebrate and draw attention to African contributions in the United Kingdom and the Motherland.
Over a decade on, BoA has welcomed some of the biggest names with African roots to its latest celebration. They included Patrick Vieira, Anthony Joshua and Kano among others.
BoA does not describe itself as an event; it is a call to action, a better understanding, greater exchanges and a commitment to deeper engagement with the continent.
Aisha Hughton attended the very first event in 2011 as a guest, and a decade later is organising Best of Africa as CEO.
She told The Voice: “What started off as an evening to celebrate some of the charitable work that people of African heritage were doing is now a call of action, and people are leaving wanting to do more.
“Seeing how we’ve grown over the years from a smaller dinner in Mayfair, to over 300 people at the beautiful Londoner Hotel in Leicester Square was such an honour.”
Aisha said it wasn’t until joining BoA that she found her dream job, emphasising how special the organisation is.
“To be able to work for an organisation that allows me to bring sport, the continent and charitable work together is a dream. I want to do justice to it all because I know what we have is so powerful and I know the reach that we have.
“I just want to grow it from being an awards evening to an organisation that has a real impact in the future.”
The daughter of former Newcastle and Brighton manager, Chris Hughton, the BoA CEO went on to explain how beyond celebrating African excellence, a big part of the organisation’s aims are to change the perspective around the continent.
“There is such a negative narrative around Africans. You hear stories about players be-
ing lazy or happy to sit on the subs bench and spend money on cars, not knowing what that player is doing for his village back home.
“This event allows us to paint a better picture of Africa, share better stories of Africa, and change the narrative.
“We use sport, entertainment and business, because we know the platform these people have, and they’re able to help change the narrative around Africa.”
She explained just how important the evening itself can be in creating positive images and redefining stereotypes.
“When it comes to black events, there are negative connotations. To have an evening celebrated in the best hotel, with the best food, people dressed up, that’s where we deserve to be, and I don’t think we should settle for less.”
Despite being surrounded by high profile stars on the evening, Aisha emphasised how celebrating those behind the scenes was a highlight for her, including The Voice’s very own Rodney Hinds.
“Being able to celebrate someone like Rodney, that’s what Best Of Africa is about, finding the stories, things people are doing in the background, whether it be charitable work, businesses
or what he’s done, helping a community for so many years. Being able to shine a light and highlight it is what we’re about.”
Best of Africa won’t be slowing down anytime soon and wants to continue to reach as many people as possible.
“We want to try and find ways that we can make best of Africa more accessible. We want to create communities outside of the awards,” Aisha said.
“I’d like us to have our own foundation where we work with a group of people on a project every single year and our awards evening becomes a place to showcase what we’ve been working on that year.”
RECOGNITION:
The Voice’s sports editor Rodney Hinds was honoured at the event
of African heritage
CELEBRATION TIME: Clockwise from left, Crystal Palace manager Patrick Vieira with host Eddie Kadi, boxer Anthony Joshua, Best of Africa CEO Aisha Hughton, Brighton footballer Danielle Carter, Chris Hughton with broadcaster Charlene White, BoA founder Francis Nkwain (all photos by Urszula Soltys)
