223065609
Organization Details
Afrolink’s mission is to bring together African and African descendant professionals living in Portugal to share experiences, enhance skills, create alliances, publicize, and support businesses. This "embassy" of the Afro workforce aims to promote greater black representation in the labor market and to foster greater knowledge about the ethnic-racial diversity that exists in the country. The website and social media pages feature profiles of African and Afro-descendant professionals in Portugal, as well as articles on themes of interest for the daily life of the Black community in Portugal. Additionally, there are also in-person events to showcase Black-owned businesses. This exposure to black lives can be helpful to humanize – instead of criminalizing – them.
Impact Story
As a former journalist, I realized that traditional news selection processes often seem to omit topics that concern the black community, leaving them underrepresented in legacy media, or often presented in a way that exacerbates stereotypes.
To change this, I founded Afrolink, a digital platform that envisions enhancing the representation of Afro-descendants in several spheres in Portugal, such as in the media, academic or public debates, professional services, and so forth. We do so by featuring profiles, interviews, and articles of black people and by offering services such as professional advice on how institutions and events may have more diversity in terms of ethnicity.
My goal is to tackle identity and cultural heritage issues. For instance, Afrolink intends to address the following questions: Who are the black Portuguese? Or, in other words, who are the Afrodescendants residing in Portugal or the Portuguese of African origin? What qualifications do they have, and what professions do they have?
I am also the author of Força Africana (African Force), which is a series of children’s books that advances the social inclusion of African and Afrodescendant children growing up in Portugal by featuring characters that resemble them.
Diverse Social Enterprise
The TRANSFORM Support Hub is committed to accelerating diverse owned and led enterprises to build more equitable and resilient supply chains.
