Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

AFRICAN NEWS

Hotel with a view

Corinthia Atlantic Hotel, Gambia

Where is it? Corinthia Atlantic Hotel, Banjul, Gambia, tel. /6, www.corinthiahotels.com

What’s the view?
Situated on a stretch of unspoilt Atlantic coastline, the hotel enjoys stunning sea views.

What should you expect?
Rooms are decked out in cool neutral colours and pale wood. Many have interconnecting doors, so are perfect for families.

What do you need to know?
This year’s World Travel Awards named the Corinthia as Gambia’s leading hotel. There are five bars and three restaurants on site, offering a selection of international cuisine and traditional Gambian food.
There’s also a private beach, a gym and a fabulous pool.

Why go there?
There’s year-round sunshine and spectacular sandy beaches, which, despite Gambia’s growing popularity as a holiday destination, remain blissfully quiet.

What can you expect to pay?
Doubles from €65 in the low season and €134 in the high season.

Labour of love

In the last eight years, primary school enrolment in Morocco has risen from 72% to 86%, and if the trend continues, the country will fulfil its Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. This is due in no small part to establishments like the Fkih Mohamed Tahiri School and the Red Crescent centre in Fez. Catering for girls who have previously been forced into manual labour, sometimes from the age of five, the centres teach basic skills such as reading, writing and numeracy. They also offer counselling in an effort to instil confidence in their pupils and develop their ability to communicate. Queen Rania of Jordan, who was made UNICEF’s first Eminent Advocate for Children this January, visited the projects earlier this summer. She stressed the value of education, calling it a ‘social vaccine’ that immunised people against poverty and ill health. And it seems the Moroccan government would agree; they are now considering a blanket ban on the labour of girls under 15.

One to watch… Blitz the Ambassador

Like his Senegalese contemporary Akon, Blitz the Ambassador is one of the growing number of African MCs making a huge impact in America. Having racked up two critically acclaimed albums (2004’s ‘Soul Rebel’ and 2005’s ‘Double Consciousness’), he’s currently putting the finishing touches to his third, ‘Suicide Stereotype’, due out in September. Despite the fact that he moved from Ghana to Brooklyn eight years ago, Blitz’s music still has an unequivocally African sensibility. His songs are peppered with Swahili words, like ‘uhuru’ (freedom) – a clarion call for black liberation across the Diaspora – and his sound, which he calls ‘Afro-hop’, draws on influences from all over the continent. He himself sees this twin nationality as a huge advantage, saying: “It’s given me a unique opportunity to speak from a dual angle, where I’m able to talk about struggles that we as people of colour face across the world, be it in Africa or America.”

On a roll

2007 has been an eventful year for Ugandan film. Not only has Forest Whitaker been awarded an Oscar for his powerful performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, but the country’s own industry has also undergone a bit of a renaissance. The Ugandan film industry has only been established fairly recently – under Amin’s administration it was deemed too dangerous to even attempt to make films – but this year has seen the Amakula Film Festival held in Kampala and the release of two homegrown productions: Donald Mugisha’s Divisionz, and Battle of the Souls by Matt Bish. Battle of the Souls is based on the story of KFM presenter Roger Mugisha’s dramatic religious conversion. Divisionz, which charts the progress of four young people from rural Uganda as they attempt to make lives for themselves in the city, is yet to be screened. Watch this space…

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