Dine Diaspora Creates Meaningful and Authentic Connections Through African Food Culture

Nina Oduro and Maame Boakye have always been passionate about cultivating significant connections inside of their communities. So when they reconnected in Washington D.C., a long time following to start with meeting at a networking function in their native Ghana, they lamented the transactional nature of associations in the politically pushed capital.

“I consider the challenge that we were facing was [the difficulty in] forming deeper connections with people over and above qualified lifetime and ‘let’s grab lunch for an aim,’” says Oduro.

But D.C., in her words and phrases, is also a transient metropolis with a pretty diverse populace from the African diaspora and further than. There experienced to be a way to deliver people from these quite a few cultures collectively. 

“Food,” says Boakye, “was the solution.”

The two women of all ages developed Dine Diaspora, a Black-women of all ages owned and operated company based mostly in D.C., by means of which they have due to the fact made situations connecting men and women by means of African diaspora meals culture. The company introduced in 2014 with a Signature Dinner that includes Ghanaian-American Eric Adjepong, a finalist on year sixteen of Bravo’s Major Chef. Over a a few-course food of jollof rice paella with scallops and rooster, beef ribs and cornbread with honey butter confit, and bofrot with peanut butter ice product, brûlée banana, and strawberry paper, Adjepong took the compact gathering of 20 visitors by way of the backstory of every single dish served. That storytelling element was essential, Oduro suggests, as chefs are so typically tasked with executing an individual else’s vision when hired for non-public events—but in this structure, there was an intimate link amongst diners and anything on the desk. 

The original dinner sequence finished in 2018 but the pair have expanded to internet hosting occasions like Chop Bar, an once-a-year pop-up food stuff competition infusing art and music (hold an eye on their IG for the upcoming day), which usually takes its title from makeshift places to eat observed in Ghana. They have also teamed up with Fb to present Electronic Diasporas, a virtual sequence showcasing creatives from the African diaspora at the intersection of food, journey, and life style. Their Dish and Sip speaker series, which runs during the calendar year in New York and D.C., gives a system for foods industry leaders to examine problems and encounters like the absence of diversity and disparity in compensation. 

But as Oduro and Boakye have sourced chefs for their developing roster of occasions, they have seen a shortage of ladies in the expertise pool—an problem they have now included into their mission.

“We did not want to be reinforcing structures in which ladies have not been able to be centered, chosen, or positioned in areas to contend with anyone, notably Black ladies,” claims Oduro.

They addressed the imbalance with Black Ladies in Food items (BWIF), an initiative launched in 2018 that “identifies, amplifies, and supports Black women in the foodstuff and beverage market to progress their function and lead to a far more equitable and sustainable meals procedure,” in accordance to their site. Just about every March, BWIF honors above 30 girls globally as part of Women’s Historical past Month, across categories like match-changer, innovator, trailblazer, creator, culinarian, and amplifier. The chosen honorees are celebrated in the course of the thirty day period and beyond with networking and improvement prospects.

A person of this year’s honorees is Janique Edwards, the COO and Co-Founder of EatOkra, an app that connects food items fans to a lot more than 11,000 Black-owned eating places, eateries, bars, wineries, and food items vans throughout the U.S. Edwards admits that earning the award has served with the imposter syndrome she frequently combats as a girl in foodstuff and tech.