African-American actor Isaiah Washington contributes to charitable causes in Africa

“A people that does not know its past, its origins and its culture is like a tree without roots.. »  Marcus Garvey.

Slavery has been a dark story for black people. This tragedy robbed millions of Africans of their origins, families and cultures. But glory to God, a child never forgets where he comes from. Many African Americans wanting to find their African roots and the land of their ancestors, decided to perform DNA tests. It is a form of reparation for all the suffering related to slavery.
Today, Afroculture.net is interested in the case of the African-American actor, Isaiah Washington. He performed DNA tests, where he found out he was from the Mende people in Sierra Leone. Very happy to know where he came from, he made a long trip to his home country, where he had the chance to obtain Sierra Leonean nationality.

“I have always been African, but now I am learning the African language and the culture that has been taken from me as descendants of the Mende & Temne people. “

Here are some pictures of the former actor of the series Grays Anatomy, with his family, in Sierra Leone.


Enlisted as Chief Gondobay Manga in 2006, he created the Gondobay Manga Foundation to help the African people of Sierra Leone.

“If we can take our intellects and resources, and reverse the brain drain and help rebuild these countries, we can define our legacies“, Washington said.

The website of its foundation is: https://gondobaymangafoundation.org/
His fight for Africa is seen in various fields.

• 1/ Support education.

Sensitive to the suffering of Africans, Isaiah Washington has decided to donate nearly $ 1 million to build a primary school in Sierra Leone.
 

• 2/ Improve the health of the people of Sierra Leone.

When visiting Bo hospital in southern Sierra Leone, the African-American actor and his team are very saddened to see the state of insalubrity in which the hospital is lacking resources. He decides to help the people of Sierra Leone by committing to the total rehabilitation of the hospital to improve the health of citizens.
In partnership with International Medical Corps “IMC Worldwide”, they are rehabilitating Bo Hospital and several other government hospitals and clinics in Sierra Leone. He also decides to send $ 2 million worth of medicine and medical equipment to Bo’s government hospital. And also negotiated for two other companies prostheses for amputees.

3/ Improve access to drinking water.
Aware of the scarcity of water in developing countries, it is helping to set up a system to filter rainwater and provide villages with access to drinking water. Its work has been carried out in Africa, but also in Bali, Sumatra and Haiti, places that have suffered greatly from earthquakes and tsunamis, which are facing terrible epidemics such as cholera.
It is also putting in place a garbage collection system for communities in Sierra Leone.

• 4/ Mobilize funds in the historical restoration of certain places of memory.

He works with his foundation to mobilize private funds to preserve the site of a slave fortress on Bunce Island. Indeed, Bunce Island is home to a slave castle built by European traders to facilitate their trade in human beings in West Africa.
They want to preserve the castle and develop it as an educational source for future generations, especially the many African Americans whose ancestors were enslaved and abused on their way to the United States.
 

• 5/ Establishment of business opportunity.

Isaiah Washington does not stop there. It is mobilizing to create business and employment opportunities for Sierra Leone. In fact, he traveled to Sierra Leone as part of a Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) mission to explore trade and investment opportunities with the United States.
CCA and its partners in Sierra Leone held five days of high-level meetings, including sessions with ministers. The objective is to study all the business opportunities in transport and telecommunications, mining, energy, power and in the health sector.
A reminder: CCA is an organization of approximately 200 US companies dedicated to strengthening US-Africa trade relations.

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