African Footprint International

African Footprint International is a Ghanaian non-governmental, non-profit, non-political and non-religious organization, which reaches out to disadvantaged and underprivileged people to acknowledge them and unite them with advantaged and able people.
 
Everyone has potential
African Footprint International (AFI) was established in 2000 by Mr. Samuel Kweku Addison as he saw that the resources and talents of the underprivileged and disabled people often are undiscovered. This lack of basic acknowledgement is the basic and motivational factor for AFI to work.
 
AFI, an NGO is also known as a professional dancing/drumming group and has performed many times around the world successfully for years. The NGO part of AFI is equally important as we develop programmes and initiatives to support our members, the local community, the organisation and society at large.
 
Giving the young generation a reason
Young boys and girls often leave the small local communities to seek their fortune in the bigger cities, which most often end in a life on the streets. The work and initiatives of AFI motivates young people to stay as they see that they can acquire skills and exploit their talents where they are.
 
What do we do?
We use music and dance as a means to attract/assemble people as music and dance forms an integral part of the traditional African societies. When people are assembled and we have their attention we can disseminate our message.
 
Vision
Our vision is to bridge gaps between disabled and the able, the privileged and the less privileged, using the music, theatre and dance as a medium.
 
Mission
We encourage the underprivileged and disabled to live out their full potential and become fully literate and productive.
We provide the skills to cope in the fast moving modern world.
We create awareness of the resources and talents of the underprivileged and disabled
 
The Base set up
 
AFI has the base set up as a musical group which tours every summer abroad to build bridges between cultures and differences and thereby create increased understanding and insight.  Moreover, the aim of the tour is to exchange knowledge and ideas between cultures, artistic genres and people.
 
This is expressed in AFIs music and dance where traditional African music and western instruments join forces in a cross cultural celebration.The meeting between the very different music traditions forms the foundations for AFIs new music and dances about war, love, faith, inspired from different regions in Ghana.
 
AFI as a music and dance group consists of both deaf and hearing members, who have travelled to Europe since 2002 to perform shows and conduct workshops to create awareness of musically talents of hearing impaired and raise money for the work of the organisation.