A framework for worldwide information, communication, and collaboration on African affairs.

WHAT IS A STUDENT CHAPTER?

A student chapter is a campus based collegiate AV association. Its purpose is to facilitate students’ leadership and campus awareness. A Student Chapter consists of a group of student members who are headed by an executive board, and advised by a faculty member.

SPECIFICS ABOUT AV STUDENT CHAPTER

AV Student chapter is a unique association, and is geared towards understanding the African world in order to inform, enlighten, and promote esteemed intra-and– inter -cultural citizenship from college and university campuses around the world.

AV Student Chapters shall retain their charters at the discretion of the AV Board of Directors. A Student Chapter need not be limited to a single campus, a single institution, a single geographic location, or a minimum number of student members. Multiple Student Chapters may be chartered in any given area.

Student membership shall be available to any enrolled student, specifically at the university level. Anyone interested, knowledgeable, and respectful of African affairs can participate in AV activities. African Views Organization seeks to work with students from all scholastic disciplines. Members of Student Chapters should fill out the Member Questionnaire Form with their interests, specialties, major, and contact information to assist with the networking portion of the Chapter. Members should also create accounts with AV on their website.

PURPOSE OF THE AV STUDENT CHAPTERS

AV Student Chapters are intended to provide an organization through which student members of African Views may share their special concerns and run programs for students and other members of the community with an interest in inter-cultural relations and African Cultural Exchange Programs. Student Chapters should provide INDEPENDENT, NEUTRAL and OBJECTIVE coverage of all African related programs occurring on the campus and the community.
Student Chapter Participation is also intended to provide students with a value based learning opportunity, confidence building, as well as an opportunity to pursue unrestricted personal growth and professional career advancement. The goal of every AV Student Chapter is researching, reporting, and ‘collaborative network building.’ Through liaison with local AV groups, students may develop informal contacts and gain exposure to the professional environment.

The Student Chapter increases the student's sense of fellowship with society. Student Chapters should also promote the advancement of African Views within academic environment, and provide liaison between the academic community and local organizations, agencies, firms, or groups.

AV CHAPTER MISSION STATEMENT

Our mission is to MAP OUT COMMUNITY NEEDS, COORDINATE STRENGHTS, to encourage INTEGRITY, FAIR REPRESENTATION, and to create ACCOUNTABILITY systems in African related affairs worldwide.

To achieve this mission, the student chapters can help implement a range of initiatives that prioritize improvement in the lives of people in marginalized communities and assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and fundamental human rights.

Student chapters will help build alliances across cultural borders to strengthen the collaborative network between diverse communities and help coordinate relative objectives and human services. Student Chapters will also provide independent, neutral, and objective coverage of African related events both on campus and throughout the world.

HOW TO START AN AV STUDENT CHAPTER

AV student chapters are easy to form, especially if you have a group of students who are enthusiastic about improving societal standards on your campus. With everything that is going on nationally and globally this is a great time to form a chapter and get plugged into a network that allows you to make a true difference in socially responsible and societal development activities at an early point in your career.

If you share our vision at African Views, and wishes to start an AV Student Chapter in your school here is an outline of the four easy steps you can take to form a student chapter:

• Register with AV framework online located here: http://www.africanviews.org. Get properly informed about what we do. Download the student chapter registration form. Fill it out and send it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Call 646-226-0262 to confirm that you have sent and if we have indeed received your form. We will send you the AV chapter manual guide, which you will need to form your chapter and get it approved by your school.
• Gather a list of highly motivated undergraduate and/or graduate students who are innovators, idealists and aspiring leaders who want to learn to learn to articulate their thoughts and insights, and put them into action; positive, enthusiastic individuals who are committed to new and creative ways in solving socio-cultural and geo-political problems.
• All scholastic disciplines/ all majors are welcome.
• Find a Faculty Advisor who is willing to provide guidance.
• Obtain approval from your university or college to form an AV Student Chapter. Your faculty advisor can help with this. Usually, this involves approval at the department level, but each school has its own requirements. However, all the information you need to get approved is in the manual. Otherwise notify us to provide you with any information you need to get started.
• Once approved send us a copy of your approval along with other related document on the manual as well as your Bylaws. That’s it. You will become a branch of African Views Intelligence, researching all issues affecting human development in every country, cultural relationships, reporting relative African programs and providing opportunity by coordinating collaborative network in your school with other students and related programs worldwide. Full detail of your responsibility is available in the AV manual.

Where to find registration info: You will need a registration form and a chapter manual. Download AV chapter registration form here: http://www.africanviews.org/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=75&view=view.download&catid=110&cid=29
To request a start up packet, send an email to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

SUBMIT ALL DOCUMENTS BY EMAIL OR FAX:

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Telephone: (646) 226-0262

Fax: (888) 737-9853

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE

Anyone interested, insightful, knowledgeable, and willing to be respectful of human affairs can participate in the AV Organization's activities. Anyone from any cultural background, gender perspectives, or nationality willing and able to contribute can participate at any level. African Views Organization seeks to work with students and professionals from all disciplines, and in all countries.

African Views welcomes agents of change and talent that will continue to bring the new ideas, concepts and innovation we need. The ultimate goal is to combine intelligence and wisdom from various professional disciplines and scholastic departments in order to generate new ideas and stimulate a great deal of innovation that people need to attain a higher level of perspectives and performance.

The AV framework is free and open to everyone. Our organization is open to all who wishes to contribute ideas and resources in the various processes required to improve the quality of lives in developing communities worldwide. We invite scholars, seekers, travelers, entrepreneurs, investors and marketers to work with us as contributing partners or as volunteers.

Individuals, especially students, can contribute according to their specialty or various fields of studies, abilities or interests. African Views provides a unique opportunity for students, faculty and staff to harness the vitality and passion on their school campus to make a lasting difference by participating in this exciting movement of changing bias perspectives and stimulating innovation.

We also encourage direct participation in research assignments such as collecting facts and validating data. Students can create topics, surveys and open ended questions. Participants can also generate new content toward the scores and ranking and audience can review and rate contributed materials.

MOTIVES OF CREDIBILITY

Although information is submitted at large, the African Views framework allows for collating the information logically into meaningful cumulative repositories. Information materials submitted are subject to reviews by a worldwide audience, who can also rate the quality of the material according to its utilitarian value and the relevance to the specified indicator. More importantly, we let the products of our work speak for themselves.

WHO BENEFITS AND HOW

Contributors

African Views contributors will be rewarded with the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others and favored by what positive possibilities may come from their association with African Views in the future.

• People all over will benefit from African Views being a catalyst for contribution to growth and improvement of humanity and other opportunities that come with it.
• Contributors with socially benevolent projects will benefit from the amplitude of possibilities, and especially on where else they can contribute to improve lives and make real differences. African Views provides a new sense of responsibility and benefits everyone who is looking for an outlet of their creativity, talent and values.
• African Views bloggers will benefit by having a safe place to express themselves and share their views with the rest of the world on important issues.

Audience

African Views audience will benefit from the openness and exposure to a wealth of information and African related resources. Audiences, especially scholars will benefit from emphasis and clarity of human interest on specific issues displayed in the public domain.

• African Views’ interviews and profiles page brings a wealth of information and entertainment resources, such as archive of celebrity speeches, including country presidents and leaders and other prominent people. This will be of great benefit to a worldwide audience.
• Peoples of African origins and backgrounds, as well as their friends, families and supporters can benefit by using the African Views framework as a bridge between old and new cultures generating new wisdom and strength for developing new initiatives and new possibilities.

Academia

Scholars, teachers, individuals and institutions that are interested in development issues can find new exciting opportunities to improve their knowledge, contributions and outreach, especially in promotion and maintenance of healthy life, and the identification of causal factors and diagnostics of human-development analysis and improvement of governing policies.‎

• African Views will benefit those who are interested in vital statistics and comparative analysis of cultural strength and human development performance revealed in the indicator scores.
• Faculties of psychology, African studies, parallel philosophy along the time lines, and other Social, Art and Sciences can benefit by from coherent inter-disciplinary approaches in amplifying the designated curriculum through the connection of seemingly unrelated details but might fit together in a real live situations, as well as imperative to human and societal development.
• The African Views framework provides an inclusive business and learning opportunity environment that will benefit willing and able participants by linking individual project, knowledge and services with communities, government and other institutions.
• Spiral process of data gathering, evaluation effectiveness, focusing research plans can help identify required intervention and emphasize knowledge developed in specific problem solving approaches, duplicate efficiency and effectiveness of new initiatives for collaborators.
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• Students are ultimately privileged to participate in the various aspects of African Views initial innovation stages as well as the complete system cycle processes. They can grow by observing the result of their effort in lives of others as well build a future on real time learning and experiences accumulated towards their goals.
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• Student will benefit enormously from African Cultural Exchange programs. This program allows students to participate in exchange programs around the world. The ACE program includes friendship coordination as well as sharing practical knowledge and experience in farms, tourism, volunteer outpost, participating in technology design for specific utilitarian and environmental requirements, as well as collaborating with others in developing concepts for building African Cultural exchange institutes in different countries around the world.
• The AV Student Chapters provides a unique opportunity to acquire leadership qualities and skills. Students will also benefit immensely from AV programs, especially those that demand integrity, accountability and transparency -- for a more open and inclusive society. Communities and the society Communities, and societies, worldwide will benefit from the opportunity to see and be inspired about what others are doing, so they can choose to contribute or learn how they can collaborate to improve their communities.
• People who do not have access to African Views website can still benefit from its service by sharing their stories orally and stating their needs to those who can report it on African Views. In this ways, their voices will be heard and their needs will be echoed.
• Those who have pressing needs can use the framework to make their voices heard. A group of people, community or society with legitimate concerns that may not readily possess appropriate tools to reach out will benefit by using African Views services.
• African Views framework will benefit communities and societies with its disaster management collaborative networks, which can enable people to coordinate and collaborate as well as provide solutions to large-scale humanitarian problems or emergency response requirement.
• African Views will benefit the public by being a catalyst for thought leadership, best practices and information sharing relative to democratic government values guided by global performance standard and the image of its nation.

Travel and Tourism

Tourists and travelers will benefit by drilling down to places of interest on the AV framework in order to inquire or report in details about their interest and experiences. The African Cultural Exchange program will benefit students as well as it will benefit tourists. We also anticipate that the African Cultural Exchange Institute will become tourist and student destinations.

Governments
Governments of developed and developing nations can benefit from readily provided resources for experimental approach to social policy reform and beneficent activism. All levels of government can benefit by paying attention to the sentiments of their subjects on cultural and social affairs.

• Governments can develop new initiatives and programs designed to cure specific social problems, ask strategic questions using African Views framework barometer to learn whether or not these programs are effective enough to be retain, imitate, modify, or discard.
• All levels of government can benefit by seeing their whole performance on the aggregate based on the indicators scores and ratings.
• Some government agencies may benefit from data provided or be encouraged to improve their data collection processes to ensure accuracy and exhibit competitive standards. Some countries will benefit directly from the efforts of its subjects and be able to see the direct progress made in the investment it has made on its own citizens.

Institutions

African Views collaborative framework can help manage crises in remote areas by giving opportunity for people to use its framework to get the words out and collaborate on necessary steps and coordinates. The framework can also provide an account of how people contribute, receive, recognize, acknowledge and turn the information into value within and outside their own communities everywhere in the world, and this also could be of value to certain individuals and institutions everywhere.

• African Views will also benefit institutions looking for related surveys or those observing socio cultural activities and social analyses type of information.
• African Views provides a unique opportunity for human right groups and advocates.

Business and Commerce

The objectivity of our effort is in part to provide intelligible directories of resources and facilitate new opportunity through efficient collaborative networking services between relative programs stake-holders. We provide research information, due diligence, variance analyses and logistics for non profits, associations, private and public sectors, and individuals alike. African Views offers great opportunities to authors, publishers, seminar presenters, conference speakers, event organizers, cultural entertainers, trainers, teachers, tutors, etc. Our products include conference proceedings, books, reports, audio and video recordings. These products provide much opportunity for wider distribution and syndication. Our media outlet includes TV, Radio, Print media, and Internet.

• Entrepreneurs can browse the African Views website for resources. They can become contributors or partners in our innovative practices profiled, ask our staff to locate information to help business or field questions for the Question and Answer initiative.
• Researchers and students can benefit from African Views commercial options by asking reasonable fee to use the resources they contribute. They can also participate by becoming a contributor, show their profile in African Views talent pool (Ideagoras) thereby making qualification and capabilities available for companies or entrepreneurs to find, hire them, and retain them with money or perks.
• Companies and entrepreneurs will benefit by looking for talent in the African Views Ideagoras, whereby a uniquely prepared mind—someone with the right combination of expertise and experience is available at a nominal cost. Companies seeking solutions to seemingly insoluble problems can tap the insights of hundreds of thousands of enterprising scientists without having to employ everybody full-time.
• This shift is changing the way companies invent and develop products and services. The whole world will benefit from a new level of communication and advocacy of the need to attain a higher level of performance.