Day two in the Black Enterprise Empowerment Zone at the African American Festival commenced with a live performance culinary treat by award-winning celebrity chef, Chef Huda. Â Huda created a quick, delicious, and healthy Summer Pasta dish for the Real Men Cook with Chef Huda session. Huda began the pasta dish by adding noodles, olive oil, a tiny bit of balsamic (adds a nice flavor), corn, yellow tomatoe, and roasted tomatoes.
[Related: African American Festival Day 2: The Party Continues]
In celebration of Father’s Day Chef Huda put an unsuspecting dad on the spot by inviting him up to join her cooking. She immediately put him to work on the chopping of green spinach, peppers, and spring onion to be added to the dish. “The more colorful, the better,” gushes Huda.
It wasn’t before long that Huda was done with the quick, saltless dish. Huda shared the dish with session attendees who all agreed that it was indeed flavorful and tasted of Summer. Before leaving, Huda shared a noodle tip: if you want your sauce to stay with the noodle choose a curvier pasta to better hold the sauce. For the full recipe for this pasta dish visit www.chefhuda.com.
The BE Empowerment Zone continued with the inspiring BE Modern Man Panel: Extraordinary Is Our Normal session with Porter Braswell, CEO/Strategic Partnerships, Jopwell, Nehemiah Davis, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist, Dondre Whitfield, award-winning actor and activist and moderator, Kelly Pierre-Louis, Director, Audience Development & Consumer Engagement, Black Enterprise. This session is the embodiment of the BE Modern Man campaign launched digitally by Black Enterprise in May 2015.
This session featured innovative and empowering black men all with the simultaneous goal of reclaiming and reframing the narrative of what it means to be an extraordinary black man in today’s society. “Being a Modern Man is about thinking outside the box and challenging assumptions,” says Porter Braswell, who raised over a million dollars after launching a diversity recruiting company, Jopwell. Braswell works diligently to break down existing barriers and prove that qualifying standards with black professionals not only exists, but are prominent.
Dondre Whitfield spoke passionately about the role and responsibilities of black men in the community adding, “being a man is a title that you earn….a boy is a man who looks to serve himself, a man looks to serve other people. We really have to stand up as a community to be the type of men we’re supposed to be.” Â Dondre Whitfield encourages everyone to text Manhood to 333444 to stay in touch with Whitfield and learn when his initiative will be in a city near you.
Nehemiah Davis stressed the importance of men
toring and helping one another on the road to empowerment and success. Davis makes weekly visits to schools showing kids how possible it is to strive and make an impact. “My goal is for students all over the world to believe that they can do it,” states Davis.For more information on BE Modern Man and making extraordinary the new normal visit www.blackenterprise.com/BEModernMan. For social media interaction follow #BEModernMan.
After a profound dialect with the men, it was only right for the BE Empowerment Zone to salute the women with the Prudential sponsored Ladies that Lead session featuring founder, chairwoman, and CEO of BJE, LLC, Beverly Johnson, NAACP Image Award Winning producer, Sidra Smith, multi-millionairess and networking marketing extraordinaire, Jewel Tankard, founder of BluePrint group, LLC, Tai Beauchamp, moderated by Cameka Smith, founder of The Boss Network. The ladies wasted no time sharing their strategies and journey to success and being their own bosses.
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To open the session, Tai Beauchamp redefined what success means to her stating, “success is a misnomer—I believe in ongoing improvement and process.” “I dont want a license to pretend. everything I own I want to own with the title,” says the spirited Jewel Tankard of multi-millionairess when speaking on her journey to millions and success. Sidra Smith shared that her journey to producing and being a boss primarily involved discipline, hard work, and consistency.
The esteemed Beverly Johnson shared her long and lucrative journey to success and attributed that her journey involved “doing something I thought I couldn’t do—building something for yourself that no one can fire you from is very empowering,” shared Johnson. “Keep in mind that failures are what happens on your way to success,” she continued.
In discussing fear, the ladies agreed that there are some great components to fear and that doing something you’re afraid of allows you to overcome and impress yourself. “However, don’t be afraid of not knowing,” shared Tai Beauchamp, “know your strengths and more importantly, know what you don’t know and surround yourself with people who do know.”
Of course on the road to success, there will be challenges. The ladies shared insight on what they do when faced with various challenges as they strive to grow personally and professionally. “When facing challenges I generally poll and get opinions from different perspectives. Along with perspective, I rely on my spirituality to guide me when challenged,” states Beverly Johnson. Jewel Tankard offered “I had to develop an emotional toughness without becoming bitter…you have to get tough enough not to run from challenges, but to work through them.”
The ladies wrapped up the session with advice for those looking to break out as entrepreneurs:
1. Do your research
2. Do your due diligence
3. Have a solid business plan.
To learn more about building your brain and to connect and network with like-minded people be sure to visit www.thebossnetwork.org.
The Black Enterprise Empowerment Zone at AAF closed out with financial knowledge, fun, and excitement with This is Financial Jeopardy! Test Your Financial IQ with host Sirita Wright, Social Media Manager, Black Enterprise. With categories such as Make Yourself at Home, Watch Out! It’s a Scam, Romance and Finance, Where to Put Your Money, Black Enterprise Cover Subjects, and Credit Where Credit is Due contestants tested their knowledge and learned that they ultimately knew less than they thought it terms of trends and personal finance. This, of course, was great for the audience who quickly jumped in to answer questions when contestants failed to do so.
The competition concluded with contestants and audience members knowing more a little about financial terminology and practices as a result of this fun rendition of jeopardy.
For more information on the BE Empowerment Zone at the African American Festival be sure to follow Black Enterprise @blackenterprise and AAF @BmoreAAF. For information about the African American Festival visit www.africanamericanfestival.net.
Here’s some of the fun and festivities from this year’s event at the Camden Yards Sports and Entertainment Complex in Baltimore: Black Enterprise on Instagram and #BEmoreAAF.