This week, nearly 300 Black Colombian and African American entrepreneurs gathered at Morehouse College for the U.S.-Colombia Bilateral Summit for Leaders of African Descent. This first meeting focused on fostering business relations between the two communities.
Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia's first black ambassador to the United States, said, “Although we may have different nationalities and languages, people of African descent in the Americas have similar cultures and unfortunately face similar obstacles and challenges.'' I have it,” he told the audience. He said black people in both countries face systematic discrimination and second-class treatment.
“By elevating the voices of African communities and promoting inclusive policies, we can move towards a future where opportunity and representation for all are the norm,” he said.
On Tuesday, government and business leaders from both countries met for a pre-summit workshop to foster connections between the two communities.
Approximately 30,000 metro Atlanta residents are of Colombian descent, according to U.S. Census data. The country is not a new trading partner for Georgia. In 2013, the state established a national trade bureau. According to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Georgia's total exports to Colombia in 2022 were $458.9 million, making it the state's 25th largest export destination.
Wednesday was a day of panel discussions and networking. The event was hosted by the Global Black Economic Forum, a US-based organization focused on promoting economic opportunity for marginalized communities, and was hosted by Atlanta-based Black-owned business consultant Whitley・Produced by an agency.
According to the summit's organizers, about 60% of the participants were Colombian and the rest were American. One of the entrepreneurs who traveled from Colombia was Heidi Parra. She is from Chocó, a department or state on Colombia's Pacific coast that is home to the largest population of African descent in the country.
She owns a cosmetics laboratory and produces products for other business owners as well as her own beauty line, Báttaua. She runs a business Afro-Colombians have different access to opportunities and higher rates of poverty, posing a “major challenge”.
she came She attended the Atlanta Summit because she wants to build relationships with African-American cosmetics brands that need low-cost manufacturers.
Alphonso David, President and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum, said the organization organized the summit to break down barriers and silos that exist among the African diaspora. He said he had decided.
“Unless we spend time investing in our communities, we will never achieve true economic freedom,” David told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. . “I also wanted to break down the barriers that exist in the minds of some people in this country about what it means to be black and how to define black people.”
He chose to hold the summit in Atlanta because of the city's special place in black American history as the birthplace of the civil rights movement. He hopes the summit will lead to new partnerships and collaborations among business leaders and inspire Americans to travel to Colombia and explore opportunities there.
Panel discussions covered a variety of topics, including how to empower black businesses in both countries and the state of affirmative action laws. Speakers went back and forth between Spanish and English.
Ties between Atlanta and Columbia's black business communities have been growing for some time. Last fall, a group of metro black entrepreneurs traveled to Colombia for the first trade mission of its kind.
Ricardo Bellis, an Atlanta business owner and chairman of the Atlanta Black Chambers Global Opportunities Committee, helped organize the previous trade mission and participated in Wednesday's summit.
“As long as there are people who are unaware of the relationships that exist between our diaspora communities, we need events like this to happen,” Bellis said.
Parra hopes to return to Colombia with the promise of a partnership.
“I feel like this is the beginning,” she said.
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