Africa On Fire!

Grace Kuto and Basko Kante are Africa On Fire! Elder Consultants. They lead Africa Roundtable editions of Africa On Fire! Roundtables generally air every other first Thursday.
GRACE KUTO was raised a Quaker in Chwele, Kenya. She is the co-founder of Portland’s Harambee Centre and the Society for Africans Resident in North America (SARNA). Grace has been a board member of the Multicultural Resource Center, American Friends Service Committee, the World Affairs Council of Oregon and president of the African Women Harambee Association. She has taught Kiswahili language and Kenyan cultural immersion at Lewis and Clark College. She attended Portland State University and is the author of “Harambee: African Family Circle Cookbook.” Grace has worked with numerous youth with her “Africa is Not a Country” curriculum.
BASKO KANTE first landed in Portland as a college exchange student in 1969 with the International Association of Business and Economic Students He become a leader at the University of Ghana, leading student protests in the early 1970s. Basko worked for the World Bank and was Deputy Minister for Fuel and Power. Imprisoned after a 1982 coup d’etat of his government, he was granted political asylum. Returning to Portland, he obtained a Master of Public Administration degree from Lewis and Clark College. Basko has been founder and president of Portland-area African organizations, including the Pan-African Community Organization.
MARIANNE FRY is the founder, executive producer and host of Africa On Fire!
In 2001, she founded the online magazine, Oregon Africa Village. Fry first traveled to Africa in 1990, taking leave of her journalism career at a large Midwestern daily newspaper to volunteer in northwestern Kenya She fled corporate media and has spent much time since impacting perceptions about the Continent. Fry won a 2007 International Association of Women in Radio and Television award for her interview with Africa’s first elected female president, Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She received a 2006 Telly award for an Africa-related video. A former nonprofit administrator, she holds a management degree.
2008 Africa On Fire! guests include
Florence Ayisi, Ayuko Babu, Keir Pearson, Anna Maria Gallone.
Local: Kenyan/West Linn students.
2007 Africa On Fire! guests include:
Terry Pheto, Nick Francis, Danny Glover, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Chinua Achebe, Thomas Mapfumo, Dominic Kanaventi, Chris Abani.
Local:  Joseph Smith Buani, Kwaku Mensah, Basko Kante, Katie-Jay Scott, Tom Miller, Mary Holmstrom, Nancy Yuill, Ann Easterly, Loveness Wesa, Joseph Yeaney, Joni Kabana, Lou Radja, Penda Diakite, African Gospel Acapella.
2006 Africa On Fire! guests include:
Wangari Maathai, Sara Rachad, Mohammed Yaya, Ruth Messinger, Raphael Corona, Lynn Fredriksson, Rachel Stohl.
Local: Sonya Damtew, Sam Dilla, Karifa Koroma, Michael Chowel, Elise Ekombele, “Tatiana,” Ethan Johnson, Andrea Cano, Caton Lyles, Kayse Jama, Obo Addy, Baba Wague Diakite, Karen Ettinger, Aya Yousef.
2005 Africa On Fire! guests include:
Souleymanne Cisse, Norman Maake.
Local: Kofi Agorasah, Kwaku Mensah, Sam Du Plessis, Joseph Smith Buani, Karifa Karoma, Aya Yousef, Susan Addy, Nancy Yuill, Lutomia Kuto, African Gospel Acapella, Basko Kante, Wintemi Kante, Wiley G. Barnett, Grace Kuto, Tina Harris, Lisa Shannon, Thompson Essein, Folake Akande, Maria Kosmetatos, Barry Childs, Amina & Penda Diakite, Evelyne Ello-Hart, Francoise Tambo, Rolia Mangongai-Jones.
CONTACT: africaonfire at gmail dot com
How are you connected to the great Continent of Light? Africa is On Fire!