Salam everyone, I’m Selly Raby Kane, the silent carp with big glasses of YALI Senegal.
For information, I am fashion designer from Dakar and I was selected by the Mandela Fellowship Program for young african leaders of 2015. Clark Atlanta is my new home and yes, I’m back in School with militarized sunsets and sunrises. But this is another post, let’s jump into the heart of the matter: The departure for the US of A!
You see, the experience we are living is worthy of a thriller movie.
Departure day, Thursday june 18th: After what we can call an afternoon of harassment by Big Daddy Kane who was concerned about my slowness in packing my stuff and getting ready, I gave up to his pressure and finally reached the airport 3 hours too early.
All the YALI from Senegal and Guinea eventually met at LSS Airport. We ganged up, YALI Invasion, then we all left Dakar for Paris our first stop before the US. From that moment on, things went south for me. My phone was stolen , I had a fight with a bipolar steward from Delta but I guess these can be considered as collateral damages of the first part of the story I am about to deliver.
For this adventure, we left our country, forgetting the comfort of our lives, of our current statuses to redefine the goals we have set for ourselves in our careers, prospects, respective ambitions.
How to impact the world?
The billion dollar question.
We came to the US as we believe we have a contribution to make to the answers for our continent’s interrogations.
We left because we were chosen; we came because oh well, the name Obama triggers strange connections in our heads.
A concentration of 500 young Africans left the continent for a program that identified them as an essential part of the solution.
Here we are, facing our responsibilities. “What you gonna do YAALI ?!” (Professor Kimbro’s voice from CAU)
I have landed at Clark Atlanta, Martin Luther King’s Fief. We live in a residency facing a building in which the resistance to the oppression exerted on the black community was forged. It’s simple, under each stone of Atlanta resides the story of resilient men and women who didn’t just talk about changing the world, they made it happen. They went to coal, strong of their stubbornness and re-shaped the future of countless black and global communities worldwide.
I have even crossed Cheikh Anta Diop’s portrait in a church … Inspiring
To me, these are the people that set the tone decades ago.
It doesn’t take a lot of people to change the world, it’s not a matter of statistic it’s a combination of Faith, Will, Impulsion and T I MI N G.
(*Munya, bright YALI From Zimbabwe)
I, Selly Raby Kane believe this is the time to shake the lines and speak the voice of our continent in our own verbs, through our own narrative.
I want to impact the Creative industries of my continent by contributing to the rise of it’s underground art scenes.
I want to speak the voices of the ‘’OTHERS’’ from the continent and help us, making a living of our alternative creativity.
I am a woman of images. You will see more than you’ll read from me. It is time for me to be Quiet and to show you what my eyes have seen since june 19th!
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