KONGAMANO is an umbrella group of students who belong to MSU student organizations that do work in, or have an interest in Africa. Their goal is to increase cooperation among all of the organizations interested in Africa to increase their reach and impact on campus and abroad.

“KONGAMANO has helped GYEC (Global Youth for Education and Change) connect with not only the African Studies Center,” said Hanna Webb, Nutritional Sciences senior. “But other student groups, faculty and organizations with a shared interest in Africa we wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.”

This year KONGAMANO held an inaugural meeting where student groups met and got to know about each other’s work and charted ways to collaborate on each other’s projects.

“When we first started the group we envisioned it as a river system, with KONGAMANO as the basin and the individual members as the streams that feed into it,” said Lorenzo Glanrewaju-Herron, Agricultural Business Management senior. “We wanted to create synergy among the different student groups who have their own unique missions but share a common goal: engagement in and with Africa.”

In September, they held a very successful Peace One event to commemorate the International One Day of Peace, and in October/November they participated in a 30-hour fast, under which they raised $469 to alleviate the famine in East Africa.

Highlights for spring semester include an African Studies Center Information Night at Brody Complex on January 26, and the launch of the Africa Tea Time on February 9 from 4 to 6 pm in the International Center. The tea time will be a social/discussion forum for faculty, student groups and individual students from across the university who are interested in Africa.

For more information about KONGAMANO, upcoming events or other African student groups please visit the African Studies Center website at africa.isp.msu.edu (http://africa.isp.msu.edu).