Thinking about multicultural coexistence through “African Weeks”

April 27, 2021

“African Weeks 2020” were held from November 30, 2020 to December 18, 2020. During this time, students who major in African regions plan a variety of events related to Africa.

During “African Weeks”, events like movie screening, talk sessions with African youth, an online talk live with Professor HIROYUKI, Suzuki of Kokushikan University and Mr. and Mrs. Nyama Kante, and an exchange meeting with international students from Rwanda were held. For further details, please check “African Weeks” homepage.
https://africanweeks2020.wixsite.com/jafrica

All events were excellent. The film School of Babel, which follows the lives of students with differing nationalities provided us the perfect opportunity to think about multicultural coexistence. We invited Ebade Dan Airin and Sato Shamina from “African Youth Meetup”, a community for young people with African roots. During their talk session, they shared with us their thoughts on what needs to be done to realize multicultural coexistence.
Further, we learned the importance of trust-building without the need to use the word “multicultural coexistence” from Professor. Suzuki and Mr. Nyama’s talk. At the international student exchange meeting, we saw the bond between students from the Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences (Rwanda).

“African Weeks” originally started as an event that aimed to deepen TUFS’ students understanding of Africa. However, “African Weeks 2020” was not only about knowledge of Africa as it provided as the opportunity to think about multicultural coexistence.

“African Weeks 2020” was made possible through the help of the Center of Intercultural Studies’ project “TUFS activities on multicultural coexistence”.