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., several years immediately after first conference at a networking function in their native Ghana, they lamented the transactional character of associations in the politically driven capital.

“I imagine the obstacle that we were being going through was [the difficulty in] forming further connections with persons further than skilled lifestyle and ‘let’s seize lunch for an goal,’” claims Oduro.

But D.C., in her phrases, is also a transient town with a incredibly various population from the African diaspora and beyond. There experienced to be a way to convey people today from these a lot of cultures collectively. 

“Food,” suggests Boakye, “was the remedy.”

The two ladies created Dine Diaspora, a Black-women of all ages owned and operated company dependent in D.C., by means of which they have considering the fact that developed situations connecting individuals by way of African diaspora food items lifestyle. The firm launched in 2014 with a Signature Supper featuring Ghanaian-American Eric Adjepong, a finalist on season sixteen of Bravo’s Top Chef. More than a 3-course meal of jollof rice paella with scallops and chicken, beef ribs and cornbread with honey butter confit, and bofrot with peanut butter ice product, brûlée banana, and strawberry paper, Adjepong took the small collecting of 20 company through the backstory of each dish served. That storytelling part was important, Oduro states, as chefs are so usually tasked with executing another person else’s vision when hired for non-public events—but in this structure, there was an personal link between diners and everything on the desk. 

The initial dinner sequence ended in 2018 but the pair have expanded to internet hosting gatherings like Chop Bar, an once-a-year pop-up foodstuff pageant infusing art and tunes (hold an eye on their IG for the up coming day), which normally takes its name from makeshift places to eat found in Ghana. They have also teamed up with Fb to existing Electronic Diasporas, a digital collection showcasing creatives from the African diaspora at the intersection of foods, journey, and life style. Their Dish and Sip speaker sequence, which operates all through the 12 months in New York and D.C., supplies a system for foodstuff industry leaders to discuss challenges and experiences like the absence of range and disparity in compensation. 

But as Oduro and Boakye have sourced cooks for their increasing roster of activities, they’ve discovered a scarcity of gals in the expertise pool—an situation they have now included into their mission.

“We did not want to be reinforcing buildings in which girls have not been ready to be centered, selected, or positioned in spaces to contend with any person, significantly Black females,” claims Oduro.

They tackled the imbalance with Black Females in Food (BWIF), an initiative released in 2018 that “identifies, amplifies, and supports Black girls in the food stuff and beverage field to advance their work and add to a more equitable and sustainable foods process,” according to their website. Each March, BWIF honors in excess of 30 gals globally as part of Women’s History Thirty day period, throughout groups like recreation-changer, innovator, trailblazer, creator, culinarian, and amplifier. The chosen honorees are celebrated through the thirty day period and outside of with networking and development chances.

One particular of this year’s honorees is Janique Edwards, the COO and Co-Founder of EatOkra, an application that connects meals fans to a lot more than 11,000 Black-owned places to eat, eateries, bars, wineries, and foodstuff vans throughout the U.S. Edwards admits that earning the award has aided with the imposter syndrome she routinely combats as a girl in food stuff and tech.