Dr. Charles Quist-Adade, a faculty member of Kwantlen university and prolific writer and journalist was last night elected president of the Ghana Canada Association of British Columbia at the Executive Plaza hotel in Burnaby. Charles is also the newly appointed Managing Editor of Afri-Can magazine, published from Burnaby, Canada, by Sierra Leonean journalist and writer Gibril Koroma.

Other members of the new executive are: Joseph Frimpong(Vice President),George Twumasi Kyei(Organizing Secretary), Patience Okantey(Secretary), Mary Stacey(Assistant Secretary),Akosua Asumadu(Youth Coordinator), Judith Lartey(Treasurer),Nancy Twum(Assistant Treasurer) and Kwaku Gaisie(PRO). According to its web site, the GCABC was formed in 1986 by a group of Ghanaians living in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a non governmental and a non profit organization.

GCABC cooperates with other humanitarian organizations and communities but has no political or religious affiliations. The aim of the association is to promote friendship, co-operation and cultural exchanges between the peoples of Canada and Ghana. The association aims at increasing the knowledge of Canadians about Ghana and developing countries in general. It aims at influencing the society’s thinking, the authorities and the individual’s sense of responsibility towards the problems of developing countries.

Charles Quist-Adade(pictured)was born in Ghana, where he obtained a Diploma in Journalism from the Ghana Institute of Journalism before earning an M.A. in Mass Communication from Leningrad State University and Ph.D. in Sociology from Petersburg State University, both in Russia. Prior to his arrival in Canada, Dr. Quist-Adade worked as a newspaper 2004 Black Community Leadership Award Recipient journalist and radio broadcaster for the Ghanaian Times and Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, as a press officer for the Hungarian Embassy in Accra, Ghana, and as a correspondent for the London (U.K.) - based syndicated Gemini News Service in Leningrad. He was a contributor to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) African Service and for London-based magazines, including New African, Africa Events, West Africa and African Concord, and published articles in newspapers around the world including the United States and Canada.

Dr. Quist-Adade arrived in Canada in 1992. For several years, he taught at the University of Windsor and at Wayne State University. He won many awards and accolades, including 1998 Ghanaian of the Year. Once he was named Most Popular Professor at the University of Windsor (1998 Maclean’s Magazine Annual Academic Edition) and more than once he appeared on published lists of the top ten professors at the university.

Besides teaching, Dr. Quist-Adade has taken a great interest in supporting Windsor’s Black community. He has for many years published Windsor’s Black community-oriented newsmagazine, Sankofa News, with the assistance of communication studies students from the University of Windsor. He has also acted as editor of the Multi-cultural News out of Toronto. Dr. Quist-Adade has to his credit more than 300 newspaper articles. His academic publications include the book Africa in the Shadows of the Kremlin and the Press: Africa’s Media Image During and After the Cold War (2001) and a chapter in the book Africa, the Kremlin and the Press by Lawrence Erlbaum Mahmah.

He is also the producer of The Ones They Left Behind: The Life and Plight of African Russians, a documentary film on the offspring of Black student fathers and Russian mothers and the experiences of these children in the (former) Soviet Union. From September 1992 until August 2003, Dr. Quist-Adade produced and hosted CJAM’s Safari Pan-Afrikana, a weekly radio program featuring news, music, and commentaries on issues concerning continental Africa and the African Diaspora. Through the radio program and the Sankofa News, he has lent support to many Black community causes, as well as promoting unity and co-operation among all segments of Windsor’s Black community.

Currently, Dr. Charles Quist-Adade teaches at Kwantlen University College in British Columbia. His passion remains the quest for Global African unity and co-operation. Dr. Quist-Adade and his beautiful and affable wife, Geralda, have three children, Maayaa, Christopher (Kwaku) and Malika.

On February 14th, 2004, while he was a faculty member at Central Michigan University and still commuting to the Windsor area on a monthly basis for a variety of volunteer commitments, the Windsor and District Black Coalition awarded the 2004 Black Community Leadership Award to this dedicated leader and volunteer whose many contributions to the Black community of Windsor and region will never be forgotten.