158. African Perspectives: Ako Essan Emile Shares his Experience Growing up in Cote d’Ivoire

Ako Essan Emile is from Cote d’Ivoire and is currently based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a Senior Project Manager for Search For Common Ground.  Ako was a 2019 Obama Foundation Leader for Africa. He was also a 2019 Institute for Economics and Peace Ambassador, and a 2015 Young African Leaders Initiative Washington Fellow. I met Ako around the 2015 elections in Cote d’Ivoire to document Ako’s work around a community radio station promoting peaceful messages ahead of the country’s presidential election. That experience taught me a lot about the history of Cote d’Ivoire and I’m lucky to have become friends with Ako Essan Emile. You can see a video of his work here. In this conversation, we discuss: Growing up in Cote d’Ivoire and the influences that led him to peacebuilding; His experience during the violence following the 2010 election and his work peacebuilding around the 2015 elections; Policies that can improve the economic prosperity for the people of Cote d’Ivoire; His essay titled, What if Houphouët-Boigny was not the man of peace we were made to believe?; and What Americans should know about Africa. You can follow Ako’s work through the following links: seniorako.wordpress.com  https://twitter.com/seniorako  ABOUT EML Empathy Media Lab is produced by Evan Matthew Papp and we are a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity of the working class.  Website - https://www.empathymedialab.com/  All Links: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab    #Africa #CotedIvoire #HarmonyOfInterest #PoliticalEconomyMatters #LaborRadioPod #1U #UnionStrong