Organization Activity
The Afro surge SHOW
On July 5th, 2019, the Audiofrica music platform streamed the organization’s first interview on the Afro Surge show! DJ’s JD and Yaki asked Arinze about how Udukoro came to be, how it carries out its mission, and future plans for the organization’s trajectory. After the interview, Arinze mentioned how he “felt extremely nervous to be going live on air for the first time. But I was glad that I went through with this because it put the organization on the map and grew an audience of people who also cared about giving back to their community”. He continues to say that “the best part about it all was that my grandmother was able to hear the whole interview from Nigeria. She sent me a Whatsapp message saying how proud she was, and I don’t think there’s any other feeling that beats that”. Many thanks to Audiofrica and the Afro Surge show for their support!
African Festival of boston
On August 10th, 2019, the organization attended the 9th annual African Festival of Boston at the Boston Common. Known as “The biggest African Festival of New England”, the event features over 15,000 guests and dozens of vendors, artists, and performers all representing the African diaspora. Udukoro participated in the event as a non-profit vendor, selling traditional children’s attire sew by Nigerian tailors in Afara. Along with promoting the organization and its mission to hundreds of Bostonians, Arinze, Dominica, and Nkechinyere raised around $200 to be used toward the annual Christmas benefit! This was also the event that started the signup for the Udukoro monthly; a lot of major accomplishments occurred on this day!
ACSU EXPO-LOSION
On November 9th, 2019, Amherst College’s African Caribbean Student Union hosted their annual cultural showcase and charity event, EXPO-losion. Along with some delicious Caribbean catered food, wonderful performances were put on by ACSU dance, The Young Picassos, and spoken word poets. Towards the middle of the event, Arinze presented a PowerPoint to the greater Amherst community explaining how Udukoro has benefited the Afara community for the past four years. The organization raised an incredible $572 to be used for the upcoming 2020 initiatives! Thank you to ACSU and everyone who came out to the Powerhouse to support the cause!
t-sHIRT FUNDRAISER
During July, about 250 people supported our Custom ink T-shirt fundraiser #Udukorototheworld in the span of two and a half weeks. This puts us at a total of $5,500 in total funds raised during the months of June and July. When reflecting on the fundraiser’s success, Arinze explains how “I started this fundraiser as a simple way to raise a few dollars and spread awareness. However, I never imagined that it would receive such an incredible reception from supporters all over the world”. Thank you to everyone who supported the fundraiser, and we hope that you all are enjoying your new Udukoro merchandise!
dIVERSIFI SPEAKER SERIES
On September 1st, Arinze was featured as a guest on the Diversifi Speaker Series in an interview with the president of Diversifi Ventures, Sebastian Isaacs. Diversifi Ventures is a non-profit focused on promoting diversity and inclusion in professional mediums such as entrepreneurship. During the interview, Arinze talked about my experience in academia, professional development, and navigating job recruitment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most importantly, Arinze highlighted the story of the Udukoro Empowerment Organization and how we have been operating over the past few months.We are very grateful to Sebastian and the Diversifi team for giving the organization a platform to share its journey!