The majority of students in Africa today have access to at least the most basic of ICT communications, e-mail. With the arrival of 3G phones and the rapid diffusion of mobile telephony on the continent, in the near future there will be few barriers to communication among students worldwide, other than language.

Students in Africa and the Diaspora are concerned about the future of the continent, of their communities and nations and the world at larg. Africa faces the greatest difficulties in moving forward on human development, in areas of health, status of women, education. We of the African continet and diaspora also know the deep well of strength that exists in the cultures and history of people of African descent. Students need to be prepared for the challenges they will face, in their preparation to be leaders in their communities. But students, their communities and nations face tremendous challenges today. Today is the time for students to act for change and to support one another. We have a million reasons to do so, and we have the communicative capacity to do so.

The Pan-African Student Network will start as a basic website and e-mail listserv. The objectives for change begin with the ability to communicate and refine what the problems are, what is at their root, and what will work to make life better for the people of Africa and the Diaspora. The link between the continent and the Diaspora can be strenghtened in terms of shared capacity and knowledge. By starting this global Pan-African network now, we prepare a platform for the future an open space, where you the student can have a voice, and can collaborate with others to apply efforts toward change. As students, we can also be a peer-to-peer (P2P) network for sharing resources, expertise, contacts and mentoring for learning and research, professional development, career opportunities, and projects.

The project should be developed with a skeletal outline for themes, enough to generate interest from people who have identified priority areas for development as change, to address agreed upon priorities with a common language, but open-ended enough to allow free communication and re-shaping of ideas. If it is agreed upon that change is needed, and hope is not enough, we hope that African and African descent students will build this network as a platform for action. As a platform for action, we will propose themes and allow the community to transform these as we go. As a platform for P2P sharing of resources and opportunities, we can propose topics as well under which people can reach out and respond to requests.

Themes for Action
1. Peace, Democracy and Governance - towards peace and good government on the African continent and Diaspora.
2. Environment, Economy and Society
3. Policy Action on Health, Education and Social Development
4. Knowledge, Culture, Philosophy and History - African ideas and leadership in knowledge development.
5. The University/College in Development

Student Issues
1. Tuition, funding, living conditions, healthcare for students.
2. Improving tertiary education
3. Solutions for brain drain and mobility
4. Jobs, jobs, jobs

P2P
1. Access to research and learning materials
2. Mentoring
3. Opportunities - jobs, scholarships
4. Networking
5. Project assistance

All of the above are examples of discussion, resources, and networking that can occur on the listserv. The suggestion of new projects, new organizations and the following development of these are possible. The development of campaigns and political declarations are possible. The development of an Organization based on this Network, with a democratic structure and funding is possible. For now, we need only the basic tools for communications, a skeletal outline for relevance, and your participation in the discussion.

The goals are to launch the listserv and website in basic form in Summer 2009. We can use facebook, twitter and other viral technologies to build the participation in the listserv. As it grows, we'll need volunteers to help adminstrate it. By Summer 2010, the goal would be to have 5000 members in the network and a diversity of regional participation. We should be able to provide listservs in each of the languages used in African university education, and by 2010 should have at least English and French. Listserv discussions should be transparent to the world and be duplicated as a web archive open to the public.

If you want to help in the start-up phase, please contact me, at arif@stratongina.net

I am setting up the listserv right now and looking into a domain.

Arif