Africans in Hong Kong | Founding of the Africa Center, self-financing and rejecting donations, hoping that the public will respect local cultures

For many Hong Kong people, Africa is a strange place.

Innocent Mutanga, a young man born in Zimbabwe, Africa, fled due to political persecution at the age of 22 and came to Hong Kong as a refugee. Most people were not optimistic about his future. However, he studied hard in Hong Kong, graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and became a financial analyst. Teacher, founded the Africa Center in Hong Kong, dedicated to promoting African culture and helping fellow citizens living in Hong Kong. "Many times, when people hear about the Africa Center, they want to donate to me, but I don’t accept it because I want to prove it. Everyone, we can do it ourselves."

The Africa Center Hong Kong was established in 2019 by Innocent Mutanga, a native of Zimbabwe.

Innocent hopes to pass on African culture through the Africa Center, and can also use this platform to teach different people to respect each other, "You can bring friends or family to participate in different activities and experience different cultures."

Innocent, the founder of the Hong Kong Africa Center, was born in southern Zimbabwe. Innocent described his hometown as "a place with many trees. The place is bigger than Japan, but the population is smaller than Japan. In Zimbabwe, everyone likes football."

It turns out that the weather in Zimbabwe is neither cold nor hot, so the hotness of Hong Kong once shocked him.

The day of the visit was approaching the Mid-Autumn Festival. Innocent said that there are not many festivals in Africa like Hong Kong. Most of them just celebrate the African Independence Day.

In just a few years since its establishment, the Africa Center has organized various activities, including African cooking classes, African history classes, African drum classes, dance and art classes, etc. It also cooperates with different middle schools and universities to conduct cultural exchanges with students.

The operating center's funds are through the cost of these activities and Innocent subsidies.

At present, the service target of the Africa Center is mainly children. Innocent believes that children learn quickly and educating related knowledge from an early age is the most effective.

He remembers one time at an event when children from different countries gathered together. One of the boys was curious about the hair of another boy. He explained that because African hair has no boundaries, and the hairstyle is different from that of people in other regions, the boy listened to it. Tao, try to touch the head of another child, "I remember he told me at the time that he felt amazing when touching our hair."

Through these interactions, it helps children in different places to understand each other, and when they grow up, they will also reduce misunderstandings caused by incomprehension.

In addition to helping fellow citizens living in Hong Kong, Innocent also hopes to promote African culture through the Africa Center, provide a place for people from different places to get to know each other, reduce conflicts caused by cultural differences, and learn to respect each other.

He also plans to expand the scale of the Africa Center to all parts of the world, such as Japan, Taiwan and Shanghai, so that more people have the opportunity to be exposed to their culture.

Although in the past few years, there have been many kind-hearted people hoping to donate to the Africa Center, but Innocent refused to accept it, "because I want to prove to everyone that we can do it ourselves."

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