The African World – bringing Ireland, Africa & the world together.

Toms Ugwu studied journalism and sociology in his native Nigeria where he worked as a journalist for over eight years. This is a profession he has kept up since moving to Ireland five years ago. For a year and a half he volunteered as the associate editor with the African Voice, a development education newspaper set up in 2007 to give a voice to issues affecting the African continent and Africans in the Diaspora.

 

With Toms’ professional background as a journalist and writer his vision was to create a new newspaper that would be unique to its readers and cover all of their news and events to the highest professional standards. After a year of planning with a team of African journalists African World was born and launched its first edition in March of this year. The newspaper is a free community paper, which aims to provide objective and quality information about Africans in Ireland, Africa and around the world. Currently the paper comes out once a month but Toms and his team have hopes to make it a bi-weekly publication.

 

One of the unique aspects of the African World is that it is all volunteer-led with volunteers filling roles such as writers, researchers, cartoonists and photographers. Before setting up his newspaper Toms visited his local volunteer centre, Dublin City South, and sought advice in getting their volunteer programme going. He advertises through the volunteer centres and other social media sites and says, “Dublin City South Volunteer Centre came at a time when we really needed volunteers.”

 

Toms: We try to make volunteers part and parcel of the paper. Everyone is a volunteer like us. Some are professionals and some not so but everyone has a part to play.

 

Toms: We conduct an informal interview and assess their area of interest or specialism. If they are a journalist we ask them to send in two or three articles then get them to cover an event. If their language abilities are not good we see if there are other areas for them to get involved e.g. computer work or research.

 

Toms: They get passion for this field of work, the chance to mix with other volunteers and to improve their English language skills if necessary. For example we have a Brazilian volunteer at present that was a journalist in Brazil and is in Ireland studying English. Volunteering gives her the chance to keep up her journalism while learning English. Overall though I would say volunteers get the room to interact with immigrant communities here and learn about integration and multiculturalism. 

 

Toms: Yes. Due to the levels of awareness and poverty people in Nigeria are not too keen when it comes to volunteering and would like to be paid and progress to another level. Here in Ireland people are more interested in serving societies, contributing to them and not expecting anything in return.

 

Toms: I think Dublin City South Volunteer Centre and other volunteer centres are doing a wonderful job. Giving people the opportunity to volunteer gives them an opportunity to be part of society and what to expect in the labour world. For some immigrants it also gives them a very real insight into life here in Ireland.