For the first time, African Languages Week was hosted by and for the Global African Diaspora — affirming Africa’s Sixth Region as an active participant in the African Union’s Decade of African Languages (2022–2032).
Convened from February 21–28, 2026, the week interpreted the African Union’s 2026 Theme of the Year on water, sanitation, and environmental resilience through a Diaspora-centered lens — recognizing that conversations about water are also conversations about memory, migration, and survival.
Guided by the subtheme, “Talk Dirty: African Languages Cleaning Up Water and Diasporic Memory,” the convening explored how language shapes dialogue around access, dignity, and environmental justice across the Global African Diaspora.
Framed within the AU’s commitment to Agenda 2063, particularly Aspiration 5, promoting a strong cultural identity, common heritage, shared values and ethics through language, and Aspiration 1’s focus on inclusive growth and sustainable development, including water security and environmental resilience.
Hosted by the Teaching Artist Institute in partnership with the National African Language Resource Center and the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) of Trinidad and Tobago, the week brought together scholars, public officials, traditional authorities, artists, and community leaders from across Africa and the Global African Diaspora.
The convening also marked an important milestone in the transition of leadership within the African Union African Academy of Languages (ACALAN).
Dr. Lang Fafa Dampha, the immediate past Executive Secretary of ACALAN, who made support for the Global African Diaspora’s establishment of African Languages Week his first priority in retirement — fulfilling what he described as “unfinished business — ensuring that the Decade of African Languages lives beyond the continent.”
In this spirit, Dr. Dampha affirmed the appointment of Kim Poole as Diaspora Representative for African Languages Week within the ACALAN framework before his retirement at the end of May 2025.
Under Poole’s curatorial leadership, the week unfolded across seven thematic days engaging the African Union’s priorities through Diaspora realities — migration, creolization, governance, environmental justice, and insftitutional autonomy.
The week featured contributions from leaders and scholars including Dr. Jama Musse; Palenquero language expert Kairen Margarita Gutiérrez Tejedor; Dr. Rahab Njeri of the University of Cologne in Germany, whose work promoting the Gĩkũyũ language in the Diaspora reflects the enduring Kikuyu linguistic heritage beyond the continent and upholds the intellectual legacy of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o; and Belize-based Garifuna language advocate Michael Flores, whose work in Central America affirms the continuity of African linguistic heritage across the Caribbean and mainland Americas.
These voices were joined by many additional scholars, cultural practitioners, traditional leaders, and community representatives from across Africa and the Global African Diaspora.
Speaking on behalf of the ACALAN Diaspora mandate, Poole emphasized:
“The Global African Diaspora is Africa’s Sixth Region. Our languages must live in policy institutions and structures that shape our future. Language in the Diaspora is Reparations.”
The convening therefore stands as a foundational step toward building infrastructure for language restitution in the Global African Diaspora.
The message of the week was clear:
“In whatever language we speak, let us speak with the same voice.”
