Cameroonians in Canada promote their culture at Heritage Festival

Frankline Aghbor, a young man takes active steps to make Edmonton, Canada witness some culture from Africa as he spearhead Cameroon’s first pavilion at this year’s Heritage Festival.

“There are about 1,000 Cameroonians living in Edmonton and we’d like to showcase our culture,” says Aghbor.


Singers, dancers and drummers are included in the pavilion’s display, but so too is koki, a classic Cameroonian snack of black-eyed pea paste and vegetables steamed in banana leaves.


“This will help take food items being offered at the Heritage Festival this year from 360 items to 500,” says Jack Little, the festival’s enthusiastic executive director.


Other new foods coming to this year’s event, which runs from Aug. 2 to 4: Mazondo, a cow-foot-soup with spice and sauce from Zimbabwe; Dodo, deep-friend plantain from Nigeria; Mastasw, a beverage from Kurdistan, and Israeli deep-fried pickles.


“We are delighted to welcome Frankline and his go-ahead team,” says Little. “Our festival this year will boast of 85 cultures housed in 65 pavilions.”

A green crusade


Arriving from Cameroon via Belgium and the UK as an environmental engineer five years ago, Aghbor has been working with two friends, Dale Rowe and Jim Spiers, to create the Edmonton Solar Centre Project.


“We have the land for the project and are working on government grants and fundraising,” he says.


“The idea is to diversify Edmonton’s energy industry, create jobs, address Alberta’s tarnished environmental image and reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by burning coal.


“We also hope to help build a renewable industry in Alberta by creating a site for solar research and provide training for solar technicians. By creating a ‘seeing is believing’ centre, we’d promote solar education and recreation.”

Aghbor also recently published his sixth quarterly, glossy edition of his Afro-Canadian Magazine. It includes stories about young people, businesses, food and travel.


“We initially targeted people from African countries,” he says. “But the magazine proved so popular and we are now including other ethnic communities, including China.”


The magazine is also an arm for a Green Crusader mission, which promotes the use of a green business program and a green school program to support businesses in becoming low carbon users and in using resources efficiently.


Acing the drive


Popularity and a proven track record of your chair people is important when an organization hopes to score well at a new, relativity-unknown public golf course in Edmonton.

Just ask Mebs Juma and his team at the Aga Khan Foundation. Last week, they raised more than $450,000 at their World Partnership Golf Tournament at the Quarry Golf Course, which opened last year.


“Anne McLellan, former deputy Canadian Prime Minister, served as chair, with ATB Financial President and CEO Dave Mowat as co-chair,” says Juma.


Mowat is Grant MacEwan University’s 2014 Allard Chair in Business and leader of the Light the Bridge project, and his company is a sponsor in this year’s Tour of Alberta bike event. He and McLellan are both extremely well-liked in the community.


“We had very strong support from both in attracting new donors,” says Juma. “Many of our donors have been with us for years. We have about a 60-to-70 percent renewal rate.”