The African Association of Central Finland (AACF) is an organization of persons of African origin residing in and around Central Finland region. The AACF was created in 2004 in Jyväskylä by an annual meeting of its founding members. It started with 13 members but has grown to more than 50 members today. Membership is open to anyone interested in Africa and we now have a substantial amount of non-Africans as part of the association.

In the Central Finland region, AACF is a rallying point for all Africans. The main objectives of the AACF are, to get together as Africans in Central Finland, to provide a network of support to association members, to share our different cultural backgrounds, to help members easily adapt into the Finnish society, to act as a receiving body that orientates new Africans moving to central Finland, to provide an access point for information concerning Africa, to promote the African culture within Finland.

These objectives are achieved by participating in many socio-cultural activities on invitation from Finnish authorities, collaborating with different organizations within Finland as well as organizing our own activities such as, organizing meetings with personnel dealing with immigrants and different organizations similar to ours to inform them of our existence and attain relevant information from them, organize social events to promote the African culture and reduce the cultural gap with the Finnish society, hold seminars in collaboration with other association, implement the association’s web page.

With our limited resources, achieving the goals of the association has not been an easy task but we are determined to push forward in making ourselves known, embrace the Finnish culture, promote our own culture and let the society look onto us with much optimism.