Message from winners

October 12, 2010

The 3rd annual Best African Achievement Awards Show 2010 was held Saturday the 25th of September 2010 at the Fabulous Radisson Blu Falconer Conference Centre in the heart of Copenhagen. The proceedings were hosted by the Beautiful Hostess Gabriella Roza Edelman and The Charming host Angelo.

For the first time ever, beside the 14 award winners, two honorary recipients received the most prestigious awards Dr Robert Yartey Mensa-Annan and Ms Hella Joof for their many achievements and dedications to Africans and Africa. See full list Award Winners.

The ravishing Maria Sten-Knudsen aka ‘Miss Scorpio’ was elected Best African Model 2010 by the Celebrate Africa polls. The ‘African Queen’, unfortunately, was unable to attend the extraordinary event. Impeding circumstances reduced her prospected stay from a fortnight to a measly five days. The beauty queen was compelled to return to New York, where she resides. In her letter to Celebrate Africa on November 10, 2010, Maria Sten shared her emotions on winning the award, writing “I am much honoured to have won Best Model 2010! I did not expect it at all, and I am very thankful and humbled by the recognition. My mother is [also] very proud, and she is really the testament to everything I do. I know my father would be proud too, if he knew about it […] in his years of living in Denmark […] his efforts to unite the Danish and the African people have been great”.
About Celebrate Africa’s concept Miss Scorpio wrote “for me to know that people are actually doing something to promote creativity and acknowledge efforts and ambition of multi-cultural people, growing up and/or living in a country so troubled and set back by its immigration laws and lack of acceptance of diversity, it only makes me want to work harder to be able to make a difference myself!
So, it means a lot to me to have been recognized by Celebrate Africa, and I am very supportive of the idea and manifest behind it!”

The undeniably gifted prominent artist and devoted charity entrepreneur Mr Moussa Diallo was elected African Creative Artist of 2010; His respond to winning, his motivations and future plans was “I don't really like the term winning, I am of course glad to know that some people appreciate what I am doing and that they can be inspired.

And I do like the fact that you celebrate Africa the way you do, it is positive and inspiring. (..) ”My motivation is: Strive to be good, to do well. Your children and family will benefit, the society will, the whole world too. But most of all you will live at peace with yourself and will have no shame when you meet God. […]”My plan for the future involves children and cultural activities around the world, but again my motto is: listen to the whisper of God and your path will be clear, at the end of the day He knows best, we can plan but only He makes it happen.

The two young highly driven and passionate bicycle enthusiastic Danish founders of Baisikeli (Mr Henrik Smedegaard Mortensen & Niels Bonefeld) were elected winners of African Charity and Community work 2010. This is what they wrote about what it meant for them to win and how it may have affected their lives today: “We are proud to have won the award. We see it as acknowledgement amongst the African community in Denmark. This means a lot to us.” […] ”We are passionate about bikes, Africa and entrepreneurship. I think that we in Baisikeli are mountaineers. We see a mountain and we must climb it. It's the challenge and the process of seeing progress.” […] ”We in the nearest future open a new shop in Copenhagen, and we will also open a new department in Mozambique.”

Here’s what the highly accomplished and multitalented 39 year old Kenyan Mr Charles M. M. Kinga wrote about his emotions on being elected African Male 2010;

“Winning the African Male of the Year 2010 has meant that I have to continuously improve and evaluate my standing as an achiever and a role model for Africans resident in Denmark. It was a surreal predicament to stand up and be counted; in receiving the statuette. This has had a rather inspiring effect on my work (in retrospect) since I have never attained any accomplishment by the mere drive of ‘winning’ a competition. The outpour of “congrats” and “you deserve it” that followed (especially on facebook) and the act of being nominated by peers was in itself the most rewarding and rarest achievement. Thus the challenge will remain the knowledge that there are people in quarters I had not imagined that keep an eye on my work, are aware of what I do and to whom I therefore owe excellence in whatsoever I may undertake, now and in the near future.” […]

About his inspiring motivation he wrote; “Motivation is a relative emotion. Mine comes not from the expectance of a ‘winner result’ but from the expectance of immersing myself in the process, of course after I identify and determine the good in a project. This formula is the least common denominator for all undertakings.” […]

And about his plans for the future he replied; “I am at the moment engaged as an academic employee (Research Assistant) at the Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen and freelance as a guest lecturer / cultural facilitator for the Development Education Centre (O3V. See below). I am still driven by assisting in perpetuating the understanding of democratization processes in Africa, which I hope to involve myself in the future, by way of collaborating with the Kenyan civil society and in writing a PhD (doctorate) – in the hope that this process will add value to the general public debate on democracy. Then there is music which is dear to my life, and will therefore be present also in the future.” […] “The immediate aftermath of the award has been a newspaper interview (u-landsnyt), lectures for primary school pupils (O3V.) and a lecture and collaboration with musician Poul Krebs on a project in Kenya (Globe Town).”

There were 70 respective nominees in the 14 categories and the following are the proud winners:

Nabiha (African Artist of the Year)

Dame N’Doye (African Sportsperson of the Year)

Ade Ojeniyi (Academic Achievement of the year)

Joy Kagande Okoye (African Female of the Year)

Charles Kinga (African man of the year)

The South African Bar (African business of the year)

W’afande (African upcoming artist of the year)

Dj Brown Veve (African DJ of the year)

Moussa Diallo (African creative artist of the year)

J&J INC (African promoter of the year)

Baisikeli (African charity of the year)