Edem Djokotoe

He is a Ghanaian-born journalist, writer, newspaper columnist and media trainer who has been living and working in Zambia for over 22 years. He was the first Training Editor of Post Newspapers Ltd in Zambia and was responsible for starting the Business Post, a weekly newspaper supplement. He also undertook a number of investigative assignments as a way of motivating his crop of trainees on the newspaper. He is a founding member of the Southern African Media Trainers Network and has undertaken extensive media training and communication consultancy in the SADC region. He is the author of two books: An Issue-Based Journalism Handbook and Show Me The Money, a study of how government spends and accounts for public money in Zambia. He'll talk "about the so-called Diaspora and what Africans abroad have to do to earn the respect they deserve. I think the biggest challenge we face as peoples from Africa is to keep our culture alive to a point where it becomes a civilisation. Look at Indians, the Chinese. They have exported their cuisine, their martial arts, their work ethic, their religion. What did it take? What does it take? I think that even as the world globalises and become one big village, we ought to see our footprints on it. How we do it is by exporting our cultural institutions and practices."