Nothing develops in a society unless people start having conversations about the things that matter and what needs to be done to bring about the desired change.
If you want to develop more economic power and a higher financial literacy in any given community, then you provide opportunities for education and ongoing conversations bringing people together to talk business, entrepreneurship and money matters.
For so long in our communities we have been talking about and celebrating all sorts of sorts of things . We talk about cultural empowerment, we organise festivals, we attend churches and mosques for worship, we dance and eat together , we play sports and we entertain ourselves in all sorts of ways.
But when it comes to wealth creation, most of our Afro diaspora organisations prefer to leave this to individual attention. Then we complain about racism, inequalities and other disadvantages.
We also want our stories to be told and heard by the broader community, but we forget that in capitalist societies where we live, lack of financial power is a form of handicap.
If you want your story to be heard and reinforced in the public sphere, you need to have the financial means and/or entrepreneurial skills that are required to make that happen or otherwise you can only count on the goodwill of the people in position of power to help you.
Most Africans in the diaspora and African professionals in the continent have grown up in communities where most of our role models have held jobs all their lives. Hence we are very comfortable with with our employment thanks to the “job mindset” that controls us. As long as we have a stable income, have bought a house or two and drive a nice car, we think we have made it. And because starting a business and successfully developing it is not an easy thing to do, we rationalise our passivity and feel good in our comfort zone.
For us living in Australia, we have so many OPPORTUNITIES that billions of people around the world can only dream of. The word Opportunity starts with the letter O and ends with the letter Y. The letter O stands for Organised and Y stands for You. Organise yourself to take advantage of the opportunities available and this applies both individually and collectively. There is a mindset that is holding us back and at the centre of it is lack of trust that stifles collaboration and partnership.
The Afropreneurs Summit Australia network (ASAN) is open to all business-minded individuals who want to collaborate and build businesses together. We provide opportunities to talk and do business for aspiring, emerging and established entrepreneurs. We are motivated by the saying “if you want to go fast go alone and if you want to go far go together. You can join ASAN today thru this link: bit.ly/3jgWKT5
The Afroprenerus Global Network is the international arm of ASAN and encourages connection and collaboration of Afropreneurs around the world. Click this link to join. https://lnkd.in/gBd2wnnG
