The Journey with Africa

GMI was awarded "Friend of Africa" by Appreciate Africa Network, 2025

The Journey with Africa

The Friend of Africa Award is an unexpected gift for 2025, but not unreasonable.

My journey with Africa began in 2015, when I was working for an international organization and had to travel to Nairobi, Kenya for the job. The nearly 20-hour flight from Beijing was exhausting and unsettling (I had read a lot of safety tips for Nairobi before leaving) . But when I first got a birdview of Africa from the airplane, the continent hit me hard. Although the infrastructure is yet well built, but to retain the natural purity of the landscape, the worship from my heart naturally emerged.

In the years that followed, I were fortunate enough to go to the University of Hong Kong, where Sammy and I were classmates, and I heard a lot of stories and ideas about her, her country, and the African continent, which prompted me to reflect on the mainstream international development perspective of poverty alleviation and intellectual empowerment, and start to think of a new development perspective of putting people first and learning from local culture and knowlege. I am very confident in the innate wisdom and development capacity of the African people themselves, which might be summed up in the concept of“Africa for Africa”. The best and earliest support is not massive funding or technology coverage, but a simple act of respect and acknowledgement, listening to the inner voices and development needs of the African people themselves.

Dr. Samantha, a mother of two, who raised up her two children on her own, said: “My son graduated from university in China and now is working in Thailand, while my daughter has returned to Zimbabwe to continue her studies.” She has been using her savings, efforts, diligence and continuous accumulation of social resources and support, adhering to the concept of “Appreciate Africa” and“Pride of Africa”, carried out various forms of creative and innovative events year after year in China, to reach out every African people in China, and every international friend who are connected with her, wherever she goes.

I sincerely admire her courage, especially her indomitable spirit, and her uncompromising vision.

Her vision and actions have also been inspiring to me, and motivate me to strengthen my commitment to the mission of investing women and empowering mothers without borders, in another word, closing the gender gap for every women and every mother through #GlobalMoms 's ecosystematic efforts.

Thanks again to the Appreciate Africa Network (AAN) for its acknowledgement of the GlobalMoms Initiative (GMI) and myself's goodwill to her and to African people, I was so honored to witness AAN founder Dr. Samantha's year-to-year efforts to repeatedly pull herself out of the mud and find inspiration and creative ideas from a lack of resources, to further her mission unwaveringly.

After the event, I sent my message to Dr. Samantha: “Dear Sammy, you are the most resilient person I have seen in my own experience, and you made it happen again and again, you deserve the best. Cheers and thank you most sincerely. ”

Jane, 2025.06.29