Yearly Archives: 2009

ATLANTA - Kenyans banks have reason to fear as M-Pesa, the money transfer service offered by Safaricom primarily targeting the unbanked Kenyan populace grows in popularity, the company’s CEO Michael Joseph said during an address at the 2nd Kenya Diaspora International Conference and Investment Forum in Atlanta. "It costs you Ksh. 300 to withdraw your money from your bank account," he said.

Kenyans in the Diaspora are gathered in Atlanta for the 2nd Kenya Diaspora International Conference and Investment Forum. The Mshale team is reporting live from the conference via video, web reports and twitter.

Editor’s note:  The Mshale team is reporting live from the conference site of the 2^nd Kenya Diaspora International  Conference and Investment Forum. Periodic postings are appearing on the special conference section of Mshale under Conventions. Click on the Kenya Diaspora ’09 tab. And also on Twitter.

ATLANTA - Universities can be a mechanism for tapping and aligning the Kenyan Diaspora with Kenya's economic goals and innovation, a MIT scholar, Mr. Martin Mbaya has said. He was speaking at the ongoing Kenya Diaspora International Conference and Investment forum going on here this weekend.

ATLANTA - The foreign aid mentality prevailing in Africa has held back development, Kenya's permanent secretary for information Dr. Bitange Ndemo said today during a keynote address in Atlanta at the 2nd Kenya Diaspora International conference and Investment forum.

Corporate leaders, civil sevice leaders and investors will convene on August 20 in Atlanta for the second Kenyan diaspora international conference and investment forum. Kennesaw State university will again be the conference's host for the second time.

Dr. Kefa Otiso becomes Third Kenyan in the Diaspora to Receive Award

The President of the Kenya Scholars and Students Association (KESSA) and Bowling Green State University (BGSU) professor, Dr. Kefa Otiso is among four recipients of the Elder of Order of the Burning Spear (EBS) service award bestowed by Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, on December 12, 2008. Dr. Otiso is Associate Professor of Geography at Bowling Green University.

The words we speak are powerful tools for achieving our goals and dreams in life.  Claiming dominion over situations through the statements we make will keep our mind focused on solutions versus problems.

The immigration laws provide two ways for religious workers (ministers & non-ministers) to legally work in the United States, either as a non-immigrant temporary worker under the R-1 category or as a special immigrant (Form I-360).

Tickets go on sale this Saturday for a benefit concert featuring Daystar University's African gospel style musical group, Afrizo, on their first concert in the United States this year. The concert will be held at the Miracle Empowerment Center in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on Saturday August 29.

The group which sings music from South, Central, and East Africa, drawing on rich African traditions will visit eleven states with Minnesota being their first stop. The university draws students from all over Africa and as far as Asia and North America.

Organizers of this year’s Somali Independence Day soccer tournament barred a section of Twin Cities mainstream media from reporting on the scene accusing them of a continuous “negative publicity and profiling of the community in a bad light”. The tournament’s spokesperson Abdirizack Ismail Said Maashal, told Mshale of his doubts regarding mainstream media’s sincerity in their renewed interest in the community after ignoring pleas from organizers in the last six years to cover the tournament.

During his visit to Ghana, President Barack Obama laid out a U.S. policy that wasn’t any different from that of his predecessors. But because Obama’s father hailed from my home country of Kenya, and because blood – African blood, especially - is thicker than water, Africans exempted their son’s plan for the continent from the tough questions it warranted.