Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “President Barack Obama”

Africa Dispatch: African Business Is Sweet on Obama!

By goodblacknews on October 7, 2010

By WILL CONNORS

[GHANA] Jane Hahn for The Wall Street JournalObama biscuits are wrapped at the United Biscuit factory in Ghana.

ACCRA, Ghana—The expansion of a small cookie factory on this city’s outskirts offers a glimpse of how Obamamania in Africa is developing from a fad into a lasting brand for local companies across the continent, even as the U.S. president’s popularity takes a hit at home.  Marc Skaf, a portly man of Lebanese-French stock, is the managing director of United Biscuit Ltd., maker of the “Obama biscuit.” Mr. Skaf is overseeing the expansion of the company’s main factory, which during peak production churns out 2.8 million biscuits a day. The Obama biscuit accounts for about 60% of current production. The round cookie stamped with the company’s logo comes in regular, ginger flavor and the latest, ChocObama. Its package bears an image of Mr. Obama, and can be found in small roadside shops across Ghana.

Obama Cookies Find Sweet Spot in Ghana

Many in Africa consider Mr. Obama, whose father was Kenyan, one of their own. During his visit to Ghana in July 2009, thousands of spectators wearing T-shirts or traditional fabric bearing the president’s image lined the streets to catch a glimpse of his motorcade.  That popularity inspired African entrepreneurs. In the months surrounding Mr. Obama’s Ghana visit, hundreds of shops, bars, restaurants and hotels across the continent adopted the Obama name. Dozens of companies put Obama on their products, including bottled water, bubble gum and beer.  A year later, many of these products are still selling well, highlighting an African consumer trend that could be termed “brand Obama.”  This summer, Mr. Skaf noticed that a Chinese company had begun exporting Obama crackers to Ghana from China. Mr. Skaf says he has plans to release his own Obama cracker soon.  Requests to the White House to comment on the proliferation of Obama products in Africa went unanswered.

GHANA_2

Obama biscuits are packaged to be sent out to stores.
KenAfric Industries Ltd., one of the biggest confectionery makers in Kenya, sells Magic Obama Bubblegum (strawberry and orange flavored). In Zambia you can buy Obama-branded whiskey and brandy. And in several countries, including semi-autonomous Somaliland, you can eat at the Obama Restaurant or the Obama Cafe.  “There was a definite increase in sales around the time Obama announced his candidature,” says John Mwongera, head of sales at KenAfric Industries. Now, however, Mr. Mwongera says, sales of the Obama candies are “purely driven by the usual market forces and branding activities.”

The Obama brand may be most developed in Ghana. In Accra, the capital, there is the Obama Hotel, where a portrait of the president hangs in the busy lobby; guests can stay in the Joe Biden room. On the road to the United Biscuit factory, travelers pass roadside artists; one is selling portraits of boxer Mike Tyson, an unidentified woman in a green bikini, and Mr. Obama, depicted in traditional Ghanaian dress.  For five months after Mr. Obama’s Ghana visit, the United Biscuit factory produced only Obama biscuits. Demand eventually tapered off, and Obama biscuits now account for just 60% of the factory’s production.
Mr. Skaf, who has lived in West Africa for more than 20 years, still faces obstacles to further growth. The price of flour—which makes up more than two-thirds of each biscuit—went up 80% recently, without explanation from flour importers.  But Mr. Skaf has big plans for the Obama biscuit. Expansion work on his factory is now almost complete. The company has hired additional staff to supplement the 250 he now employs. In August, he rolled out the newest flavor: ChocObama. He is planning another big push for the biscuits in November, as the holiday season rolls around, including an ad campaign—the company’s first.
“It’s the best idea I’ve ever had,” says Mr. Skaf. “In America he is not popular right now. The war, the economy, the oil spill. But here he’s still popular, and I don’t think that will be changing anytime soon.”  While an August Gallup poll reported that a majority of Americans, 51%, disapproved of Mr. Obama’s performance as president, in Africa his name continues to be a good way for businesses to attract attention and customers.  “Regardless of the status of President Obama’s popularity in the U.S., he continues to be enormously popular in Africa and his name and image are co-opted for many uses,” says David Easterbrook, curator of the Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University, which has been collecting publications and objects from Africa that use Mr. Obama’s name and image.
Despite the challenges, the Obama Biscuits brand is well-established in Ghana. Mr. Skaf introduces himself around town as the “guy who makes Obama biscuits.” His factory manager also has been given a nickname.  “Every day on my drive to work people point and yell at me, ‘Obama!’ ” says United Biscuits manager Elie Abou Jaoude. “They don’t know my real name, so they call me Obama.”
—Each week, Africa Dispatch takes a snapshot of a different African place, offering a ground-level view of change on the continent.

via online.wsj.com

Twenty-One Communities to Plan 'Promise Neighborhoods'!

By goodblacknews on September 23, 2010

Featured_story_100923-150x150
Organizers in distressed communities from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., will soon begin plans to create what the Department of Education envisions as “Promise Neighborhoods,” where children and families receive support services that boost a student’s chance of being successful in school.  Twenty-one applicants for the program to transform communities and student outcomes were named on Tuesday. They will receive planning grants of up to $500,000.  “Communities across the country recognize that education is the one true path out of poverty,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “These Promise Neighborhoods applicants are committed to putting schools at the center of their work to provide comprehensive services for young children and students.”
The program is modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone, which provides comprehensive support for families from pregnancy through birth, education through college and career. Children in the program’s charter schools have made impressive gains on standardized tests and in closing the achievement gap.
More than 300 communities applied to become Promise Neighborhoods.  Applicants hope they can reproduce the results of the Harlem Children’s Zone, even if they can’t create charter schools and will have a fraction of the organization’s $84 million budget.  “If we want to address the challenges of student achievement and success, you have to work in the traditional public school system,” said Sheena Wright, president and CEO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation in Harlem, one of the organizations that was awarded a Promise Neighborhoods grant.  The local public high school Wright’s group works with has attained strong results, including a graduation rate of more than 90 percent for African American men, she said.
Dreama Gentry, director for external affairs at Berea College, which will work with three communities in rural Kentucky, said a smaller budget wasn’t a barrier to improving student outcomes. The key will be engaging the community, particularly those who have lost faith in the value of education, she said.  “That’s what it takes to create the change, not necessarily the big budget,” Gentry said.  The Promise Neighborhoods were part of President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign platform, and he has requested $210 million in the 2011 budget to implement the program and plan for more Promise Neighborhoods. Duncan said Tuesday that if less is granted, “a lot of children will lose out.”  The idea is this: Students don’t learn in isolation, and if they come to school with an empty stomach, or don’t feel safe at home, they’ll have a harder time learning in the classroom.
“We’re hoping we can bring families back together,” said Geri Small, chief professional officer for the Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, one of the organizations that won the grant.  Duncan visited the Montana reservation last year, which has been plagued by high dropout rates and unemployment. The community has been challenged by drug and alcohol abuse, and the breakdown of the family structure, with many children in single family households, or with a parent in jail, Small said.  “The whole community, all the different organizations came together,” she said.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Twenty-One Communities to Plan ‘Promise Neighborhoods’!

By goodblacknews on September 23, 2010

Featured_story_100923-150x150

Organizers in distressed communities from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., will soon begin plans to create what the Department of Education envisions as “Promise Neighborhoods,” where children and families receive support services that boost a student’s chance of being successful in school.  Twenty-one applicants for the program to transform communities and student outcomes were named on Tuesday. They will receive planning grants of up to $500,000.  “Communities across the country recognize that education is the one true path out of poverty,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “These Promise Neighborhoods applicants are committed to putting schools at the center of their work to provide comprehensive services for young children and students.”

The program is modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone, which provides comprehensive support for families from pregnancy through birth, education through college and career. Children in the program’s charter schools have made impressive gains on standardized tests and in closing the achievement gap.

More than 300 communities applied to become Promise Neighborhoods.  Applicants hope they can reproduce the results of the Harlem Children’s Zone, even if they can’t create charter schools and will have a fraction of the organization’s $84 million budget.  “If we want to address the challenges of student achievement and success, you have to work in the traditional public school system,” said Sheena Wright, president and CEO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation in Harlem, one of the organizations that was awarded a Promise Neighborhoods grant.  The local public high school Wright’s group works with has attained strong results, including a graduation rate of more than 90 percent for African American men, she said.

Dreama Gentry, director for external affairs at Berea College, which will work with three communities in rural Kentucky, said a smaller budget wasn’t a barrier to improving student outcomes. The key will be engaging the community, particularly those who have lost faith in the value of education, she said.  “That’s what it takes to create the change, not necessarily the big budget,” Gentry said.  The Promise Neighborhoods were part of President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign platform, and he has requested $210 million in the 2011 budget to implement the program and plan for more Promise Neighborhoods. Duncan said Tuesday that if less is granted, “a lot of children will lose out.”  The idea is this: Students don’t learn in isolation, and if they come to school with an empty stomach, or don’t feel safe at home, they’ll have a harder time learning in the classroom.

“We’re hoping we can bring families back together,” said Geri Small, chief professional officer for the Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, one of the organizations that won the grant.  Duncan visited the Montana reservation last year, which has been plagued by high dropout rates and unemployment. The community has been challenged by drug and alcohol abuse, and the breakdown of the family structure, with many children in single family households, or with a parent in jail, Small said.  “The whole community, all the different organizations came together,” she said.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

President Barack Obama To Publish Children's Book

By goodblacknews on September 15, 2010
Media_httpwwwgoogleco_iijpj
via google.com
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, a publishing phenomenon even before he won the White House, has a new book about to hit the shelves — profiling inspirational historic Americans for children.

“Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters” is a 40-page picture book and will have an initial print run of half a million copies when it is released on November 16 — not coincidentally two weeks after congressional elections.
Obama penned the book before he was elected and proceeds from its sale will go to a scholarship fund for the children of US soldiers killed or disabled in wars abroad. The president’s publisher, Random House, praised the work as an “inspiring marriage of words and images, history and story.” “‘Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters’ celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans — the potential to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths,” the company said in a press release.
The book celebrates figures including the first president George Washington, and Jackie Robinson, who broke down barriers by becoming the first African American baseball player in the major leagues. The title is taken from the lyrics of “My Country, ‘Tis of thee” an early American patriotic song. Obama’s previous books, the autobiographical “Dreams from My Father” published in 1995, and the political manifesto “The Audacity of Hope” which came out in 2006, have been huge international bestsellers. They have also secured Obama’s financial future. The president and his wife Michelle declared a joint gross income of 5.5 million dollars for 2009 alone — almost all of it based on royalties from his books.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

President Barack Obama To Publish Children’s Book

By goodblacknews on September 15, 2010
Media_httpwwwgoogleco_iijpj
via google.com
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, a publishing phenomenon even before he won the White House, has a new book about to hit the shelves — profiling inspirational historic Americans for children.

“Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters” is a 40-page picture book and will have an initial print run of half a million copies when it is released on November 16 — not coincidentally two weeks after congressional elections.
Obama penned the book before he was elected and proceeds from its sale will go to a scholarship fund for the children of US soldiers killed or disabled in wars abroad. The president’s publisher, Random House, praised the work as an “inspiring marriage of words and images, history and story.” “‘Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters’ celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans — the potential to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths,” the company said in a press release.

The book celebrates figures including the first president George Washington, and Jackie Robinson, who broke down barriers by becoming the first African American baseball player in the major leagues. The title is taken from the lyrics of “My Country, ‘Tis of thee” an early American patriotic song. Obama’s previous books, the autobiographical “Dreams from My Father” published in 1995, and the political manifesto “The Audacity of Hope” which came out in 2006, have been huge international bestsellers. They have also secured Obama’s financial future. The president and his wife Michelle declared a joint gross income of 5.5 million dollars for 2009 alone — almost all of it based on royalties from his books.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Mary J. Blige, NASA Pair Up to Get Girls Into Science

By goodblacknews on September 11, 2010

Mary J. Blige is collaborating with NASA to encourage girls to pursue STEM education. (Photo Source: The Thurgood Marshall College Fund)
Mary J. Blige is partnering with NASA to encourage girls and young women to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). NASA released two public service announcements featuring Blige and space shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin this week on NASA TV online. In addition, Blige, who cofounded the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now in 2008, has made several television appearances in the last week to talk about the program.
The goal of the collaboration is to garner attention for NASA’s Summer of Innovation, a multiweek, intensive STEM program for middle school teachers and students during summer 2010. Coordinators hope the program, which is in support of President Barack Obama’s Educate to Innovate Campaign, will counter the “summer slide” (loss of academic skills over the summer) and other issues facing students who are underrepresented, underserved, and underperforming in STEM. SOI programs will take place in several states including Idaho, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Wyoming, and students will learn about and develop projects involving wind turbines, weather stations, engineering in suborbital space, robotics, astrophysics, and space exploration.

Marian Johnson-Thompson, professor emeritus at the University of the District of Columbia, says parents should find female role models in science for their girls.  For STEM Spotlight this week, BlackEnterprise.com spoke with Marian Johnson-Thompson, professor emerita at the University of the District of Columbia and an adjunct professor in the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She talked about five things parents can do to encourage their girls to pursue an interest in science.

Expose them to female role models. Find other women in science who can tell your daughters what they did in science when they were young girls, says Johnson-Thompson, the former director of education and biomedical research at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Use role models who can demonstrate that you can be attractive, wear nice clothes, have children, and get married–all while being successful in science. “That may sound a little bit sexist, but it turns out this is what little girls think about early on, and even the young girls I meet today in high school [think you can’t be involved in science and still be feminine],” she says. “If you can expose them to role models who have these characteristics, it is positive reinforcement for them.”
Relate science to activities that girls, in particular, will understand. Tell your daughters about the chemistry involved in cosmetology or the scientific processes involved in cooking, says Johnson-Thompson. There is an entire discipline of science devoted to food science. Show them that bread is made from yeast rising, that pickles are made as a result of the fermentation process, and explain to them the role of microorganisms in yogurt and cheeses. “Explain science so that children can see how it is used in their everyday experiences. Then it will help them to be more engaged,” she says.
Build their math skills early. “Make sure they have a good foundation in math because math is fundamental to science,” says Johnson-Thompson. “If you have a good background in math, science will come easy.”

via blackenterprise.com