AFRICOM-Philly Encourages African Immigrants to Share their Stories and Speak Up
Eric Edi is a native of Cote d'Ivoire. He received his primary and secondary education in Catholic and public schools before attending the University of Cocody in Abidjan in 1992. Majoring in English and African Studies, Dr. Edi obtained his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in 1994 and 1996 and his Post-graduate diploma in 1997.
In July 1999, USAID granted him the prestigious Fulbright scholarship to study at Temple University in the department of African-American Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. there in December 2004. Dr. Edi’s graduate work focused on the origins, evolution, and dimensions of Black/African/Caribbean people's social and political thoughts.
Dr. Edi held various teaching positions at Temple University and then at Knox College as Assistant Professor of International Studies and Black Studies. He then became an affiliate professor at Loyola University in Maryland.
Dr. Edi also has certificates in conflict resolution and conflict analysis from the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., and from the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians in Philadelphia.
Since coming to Philadelphia, Dr. Edi has worked closely with African and Caribbean communities. Passionate for social justice issues, he served for ten years as the chairman of the Cote d'Ivoire Association of the Delaware Valley. He is a founding member and Executive Director of the Coalition of African Communities in Philadelphia (AFRICOM-Philly).
Dr. Edi has also been a member of the Philadelphia Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrants' Affairs, and he served as an advisory board member for Project Tamaa. From September 2011 to September 2012, he also served as an advisory board member for the Penn Museum’s exhibition on Africa.
Through his work with AFRICOM, Dr. Edi has made education advocacy a priority. In January, he was a panelist for the FACE Office’s Diversity and Inclusion Community Forum.
“In terms of education, we help promote the Head Start program,” he said. “More directly, we can assist some of the multilingual families when they go to the school, or when they have an issue and need to speak to the teacher.”
AFRICOM has also compiled a resource guide for newcomers to help them navigate Philadelphia as recent immigrants, and they work with high schoolers to provide them internships. “In a nutshell, that gives you an idea of how we work and what we do,” Dr. Edi said.
Dr. Edi and his colleagues at AFRICOM work with Councilwoman-at-Large Helen Gym to address the needs of the African immigrant community. “In order for us to do this, of course, we do speak to some families,” he said. “Sometimes it is truly very difficult because families sometimes are very reluctant to share their experiences and the things that they need.”
“However,” he continued, “we are able sometimes to get the information that we need and relay that either to the School District or to others.” He said that some of the reluctance to share their stories or needs is due to the recent anti-immigrant sentiment promoted by the current presidential administration, but also, in Dr. Edi’s opinion, many African immigrants want to pretend, “Oh, it’s fine” even when they’re struggling.
Dr. Edi gave the example of how the Ebola crisis affected African immigrant students in Philadelphia. Although these students were clearly not infected with Ebola, they were sometimes stigmatized or bullied because of their African nationality.
“You have fear,” he explained. “Fear can sometimes be combined with the inability to speak English perfectly, and wanting to be quiet, just remaining invisible.”
A way that he tries to get people to share their struggles, he said, is to share his own story.
“It can be very difficult,” he said. “But we cannot help but to continuously encourage the parents to understand that they have to speak up. They have to speak out, and they have to be present.”
