Indiana State University Newsroom

People can learn more about the perils and promise of future development in Africa at an upcoming conference at Indiana State University.

The African Student Union at Indiana State will host "The Reality of Africa and its Future Perspectives" on Nov. 7 from 6 - 8:30 p.m. in the Cunningham Memorial Library Events Area. Some of the faculty members from the history department will be speaking during the conference, which is free and open to the community.

"It has been two years since we had a conference, and for domestic students especially it is really important to get a different perspective about the rest of the world," said Roger Bisimwa, president of African Student Union.

The community will benefit from the conference because they will learn about how the entire continent exists with 52 countries together and, coming from experts in African Studies at Indiana State, it is pretty valuable, Bisimwa said.

"We are attempting to present Africa in the most realistic way. We will present Africa, the real one, from an African perspective. Then, we will present the future prospects of the continent because most of the time it is depicted as a sad story, while it should not since the continent has ... all types of resources," Bisimwa said. "If you look at the continent in that perspective, you see a bright future and that is what we want to show people so they know what Africa is and what Africa can be."

African Student Union's mission is to represent Africa, including teaching American and other international students about the different cultures, traditions and many different aspects of the continent, Bisimwa said.

"No one knows how happy I am to have the occasion to educate people about my culture, to share my experience with them and to add something since I have learned a lot from studying here," he added. "When you go out, you get to learn so much more than you would in your own world. Since I learned a lot from coming here, the minimum I could do is teach people around me what I know."

The conference is sponsored by the Center for Global Engagement, Office of Diversity, history department, Cunningham Memorial Library and Student Government Association.

Contact: Roger Bisimwa, African Student Union, Indiana State University, rbisimwa@sycamores.indstate.edu

Writer: Beth Pickerill, media relations assistant, Office of Communications and Marketing, Indiana State University, 812-237-3773 or bpickerill1@sycamores.indstate.edu