Additional information
by Rita Jackson Apaloo (Author)
African Women Connect (AWC) was created for African immigrant women to come together, get to know each other, build valuable relationships, share experiences and resources, and find solutions to issues affecting them and their community. This book is about the founder's experiences starting and growing AWC, a social and professional networking group, over a period of six years. This was accomplished through events involving over four hundred attendees from twenty different African countries and the United States. Through experimentation and observation and implementing a set of guiding principles, the founder, Ms. Apaloo, was able to generate interests and build on what was most common. She relied on social norms in African immigrant communities in the United States in general and Minnesota in particular. Her story includes successes, missteps, and discoveries along the way.
Author Biography
Rita Jackson Apaloo is passionate about community engagement and issues affecting women and families. She is the founder of African Women Connect (AWC), a one-of-a-kind networking and relationship-building organization for African-born immigrant women in Minnesota's Twin Cities metro area. She has a wide range of professional experience in the areas of management, marketing communications, partnership development, program design and evaluation, community education, event planning, and others. Rita has a B.A. degree in Strategic Communications and a Mini Master's in Business Communications. She is also a Certified Professional Project Manager. She has contributed writings to community newspapers such as Mshale and the African News Journal. Ms. Apaloo enjoys spending quality time with family, which includes her husband Jacques, three kids-Rae, Jacques-Philippe and Alice-and relatives and friends. She is a native of Liberia, West Africa.
