dialogue
Alum Patrick G. Awuah of Ghana and current student Steven Tuti Mukum of Cameroon stand side by side at the Africa is Rising Symposium, which Mukum organized.
Laurence Kesterson
“Eventually, if you engage directly back in Africa, you can bring all of that network that you have built here and all the new ways of seeing, the new perspectives that you’ve encountered,” says Patrick G. Awuah Jr. ’89 H’04 (left) with Steven (Tuti )Mukum ’26.

studentwise: africa is rising

by Cara Anderson
IN CELEBRATION of the vibrancy of Africa’s future and the many pathways of collective action, Swarthmore hosted the “Africa Is Rising” symposium on Feb. 9 – 10. The symposium was organized by Steven (Tuti) Mukum ’26 and Nana Asante ’26. Mukum is a global studies and economics major and Eugene M. Lang Opportunity Scholar who is dedicated to humanitarian work. His upcoming Lang project, “Rising Above Water,” will enhance food and income security in Dangbo, Benin. He is also a Davis Project for Peace grantee, a youth panelist for SheDecides, and a 2023 Flywire Social Justice Scholar.

Before coming to Swarthmore, Mukum founded G3 For Peace, an organization that empowers women displaced by Cameroon’s sociopolitical crisis by helping them grow food, communities, and hope. He collaborated with peers to set up Let’s Help Cameroon,visiting orphanages and helping children cope with displacement and language barriers.

Mukum also worked with the Hope and Rehabilitation Organization, which assists internally displaced persons, as well as Open Dreams, which supports high-achieving, low-income students in Cameroon to make their dreams come true. Mukum lights up while explaining the work he’s done to spread hope and build community among displaced people.

For him, the issue of humanitarian crises in Africa is personal. When he was 11, Mukum was displaced from his home in Bamenda, Cameroon, and forced to move to the Francophone city of Yaoundé. He was displaced by the Anglophone Crisis, an ongoing conflict between armed groups and security forces in Cameroon that started in 2017 and has displaced more than a million people.

“I wasn’t interested in politics or international relations before being displaced,” says Mukum.

“After being displaced, I was asking, ‘Why aren’t people doing something about it?’ I felt like the world was disconnected. After doing research and meeting friends at Swarthmore who also had been displaced in Eritrea, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because of war and environmental issues, I realized the challenges we are facing are so interconnected. This symposium is to start the conversation at Swarthmore and for students to think about this.”

The symposium was Mukum’s first time organizing an event. He arranged for six prominent African speakers to fly in, including Patrick G. Awuah Jr. ’89 H’04. Awuah is founder and president of Ashesi University, a private, not-for-profit institution in Ghana.