Friends of the African Union Conference Call Saturday Oct 6th

Friends of the African Union (FAU) is a new media civil-society assembly body founded to work for the benefit of the African Union, the African Diaspora and their host countries has a weekly Conference Call Saturday Oct 6th at 11:00 EST at Dial-in Number: 213.493.0700 with Participant Access Code: 106132#

Agenda

1. FAU Introduction, Honor of our Ancestors and Welcome 
2. Old FAU Agenda Items
3. TC Adams Update
4. FAU Update
5. Questions and hopefully Answers
6. Big Black Call - H2 Communications
7. OKI Urban Tech Fair - Urban Tech Fair
8. smartHOME Housing Program - Bill Callery
9. Infrastructure Africa - TC Adams
10. African Diaspora Investment Trust to buy land in Africa
11. Comments and New Agenda Items
12. Closure

My Statement as it regards to Friends of the African Union

As a previous African Diplomatic Staff member, I was proud in 2003 when the African Union Assembly Heads of State passed amendment 3(q) of the African Union Constitutive Act,. Article 3(q) of the AU's amended Constitutive Act, "invites the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our continent in the building of the African Union." Based on that decision, I looked forward to implementation of the invitation of the African Diaspora to participate as voting members in the advisory functions of the AU.

For a variety of reasons, that has not worked as originally contemplated.

In 2005, the AU defined the African Diaspora as “... peoples of African descent and heritage living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship, and who remain committed to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union.”

I formed Friends of the African Union, as an organization in formation, attended the December 16^th 2011 meeting in Washington at the invitation of Prof. David L. Horne. Her Excellency Ambassador Amina Salum Ali the African Union’s Permanent Representative powerful remarks called on all people of African Descent in the USA to organize around the African Union roadmap for the Diaspora.

Friends of the African Union (FAU) is our response.

It is a social, economic, humanitarian, charitable, educational and new media civil-society organizing body founded to work for the benefit of the African Union, the African Diaspora and its host countries. FAU will work with the allied peoples of the African Diaspora in the USA, non-governmental organizations and governments of the world who support the African Union and the people of the African Diaspora. FAU was founded on Jan. 16, 2012 [Martin Luther King, Jr. Day] at the World Peace Bell with members of South Fairmount Community Council and Hargrove Engineering.

We operate in the shadow of the African Union Diaspora Summit on May 25th 2012 which was the first of its kind just a year before the 50th year [May 25th 2013] celebration of the birth of the African Union. It was organized by the AU worldwide with the view to harnessing African Diaspora contributions to support bilateral and multilateral trade between a worldwide association of 1.4 billion people with over 4 trillion dollars in annual revenue. They asked us, as a people of African Descent in the USA, to organize the African Diaspora civil society in the USA

On that 29^th day the Friends of the African Union [FAU] began a 100 day count down for action which follows up on the aforementioned historic first African Union Diaspora Summit and based on the decisions of the Assembly of the African Union Nineteen Ordinary Session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 15 July – 16 July 2012 and subsequent actions of the new head of the AU HE Zuma the FAU has taken on, of its own accord, the responsibility to assist in the organization of this African American civil society in the USA based on those actions.

It is our position that through proposed alliances with organizations like African Scientific Institute (ASI) and OKI Urban Tech Fair we can better carry out the 9 principals of Friends of the African Union. The proposed 9 operating principals of the FAU are:

1. We support the African Union [AU], it's constitutive act and the history of the predecessor organization the Organization of African Unity [OAU].
2. We support the recognition of the African Diaspora globally and legally by the AU, through the sixth region.
3. We support the UN Declaration on Human Rights and its application to Africans and their condition worldwide.
4. We support the UN Millennium Goals for Africa and the economic-social uplift of Africans on the continent and in the African Diaspora as well as the work of the African Union to increase trade between African Nations and will incorporate the work of the International Year for People of African Descent [2011] as it was designated by the UN and Organization of American States.
5. We support the strategy and agenda of the Economic Social and Cultural Council [ECOSOCC] and through organization of African American Civil Society, we support the legacy projects and continuing efforts to strengthen the Global African Diaspora Initiative of the AU.
6. We support Peace, Security and basic human dignity within Africa and around the globe, with a emphasis on stopping slavery in the AU and the African Diaspora.
7. We support the organization of African and peoples of African Diaspora in the United States of America.
8. We support the African Growth and Opportunity Act [AGOA] of 2000 and by 2014 the creation of a new plan between the United States of America and the African Union that is supportive of the African Diaspora in the USA and would be sustainable not only in Africa but also in the host countries of the African Diaspora.
9. We support political empowerment of the 950 million Africans in the 54 nations of the African Union as individual citizens and in free associations with cooperation and solidarity in the continent and in the African Diaspora worldwide that has over 450 million people through a committee structure, congress of the people the African Diaspora in the United States of America, the FAU Inter-organizational Assembly of African American Civil Society and in service to these bodies establishment administrative and membership body as a American Non Profit called the Friends of the African Union, USA Bureau.

Hershel Daniels will lead the proposed formation on October 16^th 2012 of the FAU Inter-organizational Assembly of African American Civil Society. The purpose of this assembly is to concentrate on the issues of sewers, water and health, in part, through established affiliated organizations like ASI and OKI Urban Tech Fair along with faith based alliances, existing and new, and inclusive policies that reach out to all who qualify under the rules of the African union and or would be supportive of this action.