The
Aims of the Organisation are:
1. To work
in partnership with individuals and organisations for
a fair and just society which empowers African people in Britain
and affords them with an equal opportunity to work,
learn and live free from negative discrimination and
covert and overt prejudice based on gender, ethnicity,
culture, physical ability and/or class. As such, we
seek to work in partnership with individuals and organizations
that;
• Increase employment opportunities
for African Britons and in particular encourage and
support programmes and enterprises that aim to develop
and establish African owned businesses with a community,
corporate, environmental and social responsibility policy.
• Increase access to higher
and alternative education for African Britons, in particular
those elements of education that involve the development
of cultural knowledge and education programmes that
involve exchange, interactions and placements in Africa
and across the Diaspora with African people and communities.
• Reduce human rights violations
by police and other associated central and local government
institutions on African Britons particularly though
ensuring that African Britons are aware of their legal
and social rights as citizens in the UK.
2. To promote African self determination via
the media and reduce misrepresentation of African people
and culture by;
• Creating media resources and outputs of diverse
educational, historical, social, artistic and current
African interests presented and produced by African
people with the primary aims of empowering and informing.
• Maintaining, expanding and
continually developing Ligali’s online resources
(websites) to ensure that they are informative, up to
date and educative.
• Establishing and/or supporting
independent African British national TV and radio stations,
production companies, print media and advertising companies
that adhere to a principle of social, community and
political responsibility.
• Ensuring that the groups within
our community who face additional prejudices are integrated
into every element of media and ‘storytelling’
outlets, in particular women, the elderly, people with
disabilities, the youth, the working class and unemployed,
carers, the mentally ill, victims and survivors of crime
and institutional racism and migrants.
• Promoting the 'Africa
by Africans' philosophy throughout the media.
• Monitoring, investigating
and publicly challenging any media institutions that
publish, broadcast, perform or distribute material that
is defamatory, anti-African, sexist and offensive to
African people in Britain and throughout the world.
We aim to eradicate negative ethnic and cultural stereotypes
and images across the media and challenge historically
ingrained perceptions that stigmatise and caricature
African people.
• Challenging media and institutional
use of offensive, degrading and repressive terminology
that seeks to dehumanise African people and disconnect
them from their culture and history.
• Encouraging media institutions
to incorporate sufficient quantity of quality African
British programming into their schedules, particularly
that which does not conform to a stereotypical and offensive
remit.
• Establishing and/or supporting
independent African British national TV and radio stations,
production companies, print media and advertising companies
that adhere to a principle of social, community and
political responsibility.
3. To reduce social exclusion and achieve institutional
acknowledgment of African Britons as stakeholders in
Britain by;
• Seeking central and local
government usage of 'African British' as
an official legal identity for a British national with African
ancestry.
• Seeking central and local
government recognition and institutional support of
February as International African History Month.
• Establishing official periods
during which African people can celebrate, commemorate,
remember and inform themselves about their own history
and culture. e.g. African Remembrance Week.
• Supporting campaigns promoting the
need for rearations to Africa and Africans.
4. To raise the academic achievements of African British
pupils by;
• Seeking and promoting the
inclusion of consistent and effective mentoring programmes
within all schools for both African boys and girls.
• Seeking enrichment of the
national curriculum by the inclusion of African and
African diasporic history, in particular the history
of the Continent and its people prior to european and
arab colonialism and subsequent enslavement regimes.
• Reducing pupil exclusions
and establishing the procedure to only be used as a
last resort.
• Supporting and promoting organisations
that assist the 'invisible children', who
fall through the gap in mainstream academic institutions.
• Establishing and/or supporting
a national African British student’s forum.
• Establishing and/or supporting
a national African British teacher’s forum.
• Establishing and/or supporting
a national African British Governor’s forum.
• Advocating the training and
education of all teachers in effective and interactive
cultural diversity awareness.
• Supporting and encouraging
the establishment of organisations and supplementary
services that promote high academic and creative achievement
of young African Britons, particularly those independent
education platforms that have an Africentric ideology
and method.
• Promoting awareness, understanding
and respect of African culture to other ethnic minorities
and the ethnic majority in Britain.
5. To tackle the root causes of violence and
crime towards and within the African British community
by;
• Encouraging the African community
to become aware of their social, human and legal rights.
• Encouraging and supporting
the establishment of victim and survivor support organisations
and initiatives that provide a forum and assistance
to African British victims of crime.
• Discouraging the use of redundant
initiatives and implementing workable and practical
solutions to crime through effective analysis and subsequent
holistic policy forming and application.
• Seeking a sufficient quantity
of community youth provisions with a sustainable development
plan including supplementary schools/services, after
school programs and youth clubs offering a safe environment
for culturally empowering programmes.
• Supporting other organisations
that deal effectively with crime within and towards
the African British community.
6. To act as an independent and representative
body, campaigning, protesting and debating issues relevant
to the African British community’s social, economic
and political concern’s by;
• Establishing a legitimate
political forum from which to voice African British
concerns.
• Supporting initiatives that
allow the African British voice to be heard, undiluted
in multiple formats by encouraging African Britons to
use art (spoken word / film / music / photography) as
a means of political, cultural and spiritual expression.
• Creating and maintaining our
own media network.
• Encouraging young people to
express themselves in political terms with an effective
outlet and the means to self-empower in order to effect
a positive and progressive change.
7. To encourage productive Pan African relations
by forging strategic relationships with Africans in
the Diaspora and in Africa by;
• Promoting awareness of other
Pan African organisations and initiatives.
• Promoting and supporting organisations
that are involved in conveying economic, populace, academic
and social resources to the Continent and other Diasporic African nations.
8. To increase social and intercommunity awareness
and promote enhanced facilities, research and/or treatment
for, but not exclusive to, the following health issues;
• Mental health, quality of
care for the elderly, disabilities, Sickle cell, Cancer,
diabetes, strokes, hypertension, heart problems, pregnancy,
diet and nutrition and other health concerns specific
to the African British community.
• Where appropriate to encourage
a natural and healthy lifestyle as a means to prevent
serious and minor ailments that affect the African British
community.
9. To increase African British engagement with
the political processes by;
• Promoting and encouraging
the sustained development of alternative methods of
political engagement that are not limited to mainstream
political processes.
• Monitoring and holding central
and local government accountable for the delivery of
solutions addressing African British concerns made in
Manifesto pledges and public statements.
• Monitoring, challenging and
holding to account African British politicians and other
‘community representatives’ who make commitments
and promises regarding local services, the implementation
of solutions and the social progression of the African
British community.
Last updated 9 May 2006
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