16BB AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE SUN SENTINEL FRIDAY , OCTOBER 14 , 2016
By : Zach Rinkins
Fabiola Fleuranvil
When Fabiola Fleuranvil le� South Florida , she was a 17-year-old student seeking a college educa�on and her piece of the America Dream . Upon returning nearly a decade later , the Miami-na�ve was armed with an MBA and experience in Tallahassee and Atlanta , but , says she felt an important element missing .
“ Like many others who return home , felt a disconnect and a lack of a social and cultural fit ,” recalls Fleuranvil , CEO of Blueprint Crea�ve Group , a marke�ng and branding agency . “ I wanted to make Miami
By : Audrey Jaynes
BlackPagesMiami . com aims to Strengthen South Florida ’ s Black Economy
Almost two and a half years have assed , and the majority of the 276 girls bducted from a school in Chibok , northern igeria , by the ISIS-allegiant terrorist roup , Boko Haram — spurring the bringbackourgirls hashtag and short-lived nterna�onal outrage — are s�ll missing .
“ Many people don ’ t know that ,” says mmanuel Ogebe , partner at the
Iwork , and I knew that if I wanted to be successful here both in my professional and personal life , there would have to be an effort to organize and connect other Black professionals and entrepreneurs .”
Fleuranvil and fellow FAMU alumnus Edwin Sylvain created the South Florida HBCU Alumni Alliance and launched the monthly 1st Wednesdays HBCU / Black Alumni Networking Social as a pla�orm to organize Black professionals from various local HBCU alumni chapters , Greek sorori�es and fraterni�es , and professional organiza�ons for purposeful networking and to increase visibility and influence . “ I ’ ve seen people meet their spouses through First Wednesdays . People have developed friendships , business rela�onships , and professional contacts ,” she says . " And , even if it is just once a month , Black professionals can come to get support and realize that there are other Black professionals in South Florida just like them ."
She coupled these efforts and leveraged technology to create BlackPagesMiami . com along with Miami-Dade Black Affairs Advisory Board ( BAAB ) and Miami-Dade Economic Advocacy Trust ( MDEAT ) in collabora�on with the South Florida HBCU Alumni Alliance , Miami-Dade Chamber of
US-Nigeria Law Group , a DC-based firm working to galvanize awareness and ul�mately create a roadmap for nego�a�ons for their return .
Many people also don ’ t know that , for every one of the 276 abducted Chibok girls , hundreds of other Nigerian women and children have been kidnapped with almost no media a�en�on . Or that , just 7 months a�er the Chibok abduc�on , more than 400 mostly elementary school-age children were taken from a school in Damasak . Hundreds were killed in the crossfire , but there was no press conference , no release of names , no interna�onal outrage or even acknowledgement from the Nigerian government .
Once kidnapped — the Wall Street Journal reports — children are taken to Boko Haram boot camps , where they learn to wield guns and machetes . They are o�en drugged before being sent in to kill the innocent . Girls are raped , their offspring indoctrinated with jihadist propaganda videos from birth . Toddlers are taught to play ‘ suicide bomber ,’ laughing and squealing as they rip open the bags of sand
Commerce , and the Young Professionals Network of Miami . The site emphasizes collec�ve empowerment and the importance of s�mula�ng the local Black economy .
" First you have to organize people , and then you can mobilize them to support Black-owned businesses ," she reveals . " In South Florida , we don ' t have many specially designated places for Black entrepreneurs and professionals . With this free pla�orm , we can organize beyond boundaries , geography , and diaspora ."
Flueranvil gave Legacy Magazine an exclusive interview to highlight the value of BlackPagesMiami . com LM : Why now ? FF : “ We ' ve needed this for a while , and this is nothing new since the BAAB has been prin�ng its Black World Guide for years . The tagline for BlackPagesMiami . com explains the guiding principle – ‘ Suppor�ng our own , expanding our wealth , and growing our community .’ Within the Black community , we need to support our businesses even more , as our businesses tend to be under-resourced and with significant dispari�es in contrac�ng opportuni�es . It ’ s up to us to s�mulate the Black economy so that we do more than survive , but to also thrive .”
strapped to their �ny bodies . Escape isn ’ t always a be�er op�on . A recent United Na�ons statement called the situa�on in the surrounding Lake Chad Basin “ the world ’ s most neglected humanitarian crisis .” An es�mated 20,000 have been killed since the violence began in 2009 , and a resul�ng 2.6 million have been displaced due to the total destruc�on of their villages and communi�es .
Many of those displaced are living in camps , where the only access to food , clean water and healthcare must come through humanitarian aid . Doctors without Borders es�mates that 500,000 Nigerians are in need of food , and the World Health Organiza�on places the rate of severe acute malnutri�on at 14 %. An es�mated 134 children in Borno state will die every day if the humanitarian response isn ’ t scaled up quickly .
A Google image search loads a photograph of a starving toddler , his skin taught over protruding bones ; another shows people scrambling , bowls raised , for a ladleful of food ; in another we see crowds of somber faces which seem to
LM : What ' s the best way to use this directory ?
FF : “ It ' s easy to use the directory to search for Black-owned businesses throughout the tri-county area - Miami-Dade , Broward , and Palm Beach - and also to search by keyword and category . As a community pla�orm , we ' re also crowdsourcing submissions from the public . Anyone can submit , at no cost , any Black business that you know of at www . BlackPagesMiami . com / submit . Each lis�ng provides business informa�on , social media page links , contact informa�on , and customer reviews .
LM : What ' s the process for becoming listed ?
FF : The owner or the public can submit businesses as long as at least one of the owners is a member of the Black Diaspora ( i . e . African-American , Hai�an , Jamaican , Bahamian , Trinidadian , African , Afro-La�n , etc .). This is about suppor�ng the cultural fabric of the Black community , and we want representa�on from the en�re Diaspora . You only need to register and create a login or submit by logging in via Facebook .
Discover more at www . BlackPagesMiami . com
Northeastern Nigeria : The World ’ s Most Neglected Humanitarian Crisis
suggest a painful truth : that no one knows when the nightmare will end .
But most of those affected by Boko Haram ’ s brutality remain faceless to us . There is an unfortunate discrepancy between the numbers — millions displaced ; thousands upon thousands killed , kidnapped , raped , or starving — and the media response . To put it in perspec�ve : last January , when the news outlets were full of reports of the 17 killed in a terrorist a�ack in Paris , 2,000 had also been killed by Boko Haram in Baga , Nigeria .
But there is also a danger hidden in these numbers — a danger of forge�ng the sacredness of just one life . We are reminded of that sacredness in a video of Esther , the mother of one of the kidnapped Chibok girls , which was recently released by Emmanuel Ogebe ’ s firm .
In a dim room , speaking to a photograph of her daughter , Esther doesn ’ t bother to wipe away her tears :
“ Maida , you are my life . Maida , I want to see you . You should never forget that even if you die or are alive , you will never come out of my heart .”