Agbani Darego & Millen Magese at Touch Foundation's Cocktails on the Terrace 2010

"The Touch Foundation is a not-for-profit organization working with local partners to address the severe shortage of doctors, nurses and other health workers in Tanzania. Ultimately, the Touch Foundation aims to make itself redundant overtime, leaving behind a fully functioning health worker training system that can be replicated across Africa."

via{afrikanspot}

New Pan African Reality Show "STYLOGENIC" hosted by Agbani Darego to launch in 2010

New style-focused Pan-African Reality TV Show hosted by former Miss World, Agbani Darego set to air this summer


“You better go and think of a real career!” That was the response that most African parents would give when their children suggested that they wanted to enter the world of fashion. Perhaps as a model, fashion stylist, fashion designer, photographer, makeup artist or even a fashion photographer.

Thanks to the success of fashion pioneers including Iman, Oluchi and Liya Kebede, things are changing. Fashion is being recognized as a worthy profession.

An exciting new Pan-African Reality TV show – STYLOGENIC is set to propel African fashion and those that aspire to join the industry to greater heights.

STYLOGENIC is a show like no other. Rather than being based on the search for a top model or designer or stylist, the show is based around the concept of a style team! So contestants are going to be grouped in teams consisting of the various ‘style elements’. That is a model, designer, stylist, makeup artist, photographer and model. They will compete as a team and will battle it out with fellow teams for the grand prize!
 

The show recently held a media presentation in Lagos which was attended by the host, one of the most famous women in Africa – Former Miss World, Agbani Darego. Agbani won the Miss World crown in 2001, making her the first and only black African to ever win the title. She went on to have a successful modeling career which included a stint as a L'Oreal International “Face” and Spokesperson, numerous commercial ad campaigns and features in US Vogue and Essence magazine.

Entries for the show will open soon and entries will be accepted from all eligible Africans based on the continent and in Diaspora. The show will begin airing in September 2010.

Agbani Darego

Representing Nigeria, Agbani Darego was crowned Miss World on November 16, 2001. She is the first black African to win the title.

Born in 1982, Darego hails from a town called Abonnema in the Rivers State area of southern Nigeria. Her full name is Ibiagbanidokibubo Asenite Darego, and she was the sixth of eight children in her family. Her father was a customs official, while her mother, Inaewo, had a rice-trading business which necessitated frequent travel; on her trips Inaewo bought clothing and sold it in a clothing boutique where Darego spent many hours as a little girl, paging through foreign fashion magazines.

But Darego was sent off to a boarding school when she was ten years old. Two years later, her mother died of breast cancer, and Darego later realized she had been sent away to shield her from her mother's condition. "I wasn't too happy at first, but it prepared me for my life now," she reflected about being away from home in an interview with Julia Llewellyn Smith of the Mail on Sunday. "I learned to be on my own. It makes you independent."

Continue reading here