About Association of Africans in UK (AAUK)

Every year thousands of young people from the African background, who experiences learning difficulties or suffers from disabilities, have a negative experience of transitioning into adult services. The process can have devastating repercussions that last throughout their adulthood if not addressed early.

The aim of AAUK is to transform their experience so they become confident, motivated, empowered and less service dependent young people through a ‘self-involvement’ educational programme.

Activities and Services

In order to fulfil our aims and objectives, AAUK projects take a unique focus: it considers British values alongside diverse African cultures in the activities which it runs.
AAUK will hold classes, run by volunteers, on diverse African cultures, arts, food, histories, languages and literature. Within these classes AAUK will engage those participating by enabling them to create their own artwork, poetry, story, or any piece specific to the classes they are taking. We will auction some of their created work, which are selected and voted by young people using our services, at events hosted by the charity.
AAUK will run a regulated mail scheme where young people from Essex can exchange creative thoughts and ideas with students from our project partner schools and colleges in certain African countries. This includes Benin, Chad, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Young people from Essex will be able to share traditional British arts, food, histories, languages and literature and vice versa. This will be through regulated mails and packages sent from our charities address
Young people will take a lead role in using various forms of performance arts to express themselves in relation to any identity and cultural crisis. They will create their own artistic pieces in the form of dance, music, spoken word, and various other performances. Working with AAUK, they will organise a Cultural Diversity Showcase/ fundraiser, where they will perform their created pieces.
AAUK will also set up a “Have your Say” forum. This will include an online platform, on our website, where young people can blog about issues they feel are affecting their generation and age group. We will also work with young people in chairing debates on topics about law, social order/values, culture and identity in our local community. We will also invite speakers and adults to share their own views on topics raised by youths using our services charity.
AAUK plan to run several youth campaigns which will take the form of consented interviews videoed and uploaded to our website. For example, our current youth campaign is called, “Identity…What’s it all about?”. This involves a series of interviews with members of the local community, whom are third, second and first generation British citizens from a culture different to that of England. We plan to ask and listen to how they perceive their identity and culture, and shed some light on what may be similar or different between these generations.
AAUK will also support the education of young people by providing extra classes/ workshops for those struggling to prepare for exams, specifically, GCSE’S, A/AS LEVELS. This will be facilitated by volunteer tutors and peer-to-peer tutoring.
AAUK aim to be a youth-led organisation, thus young people will be given the opportunities to secure volunteering position within AAUK itself. They will be able to engage in administrative, IT, media, events and public relation roles.