<![CDATA[Patricia Bebia Mawa, President of Planet Africa Group, Host and Producer of Planet Africa Television, a weekly series on OMNI TV and on syndication networks in Europe and Africa, has received the distinguished DreamKEEPERS Life Achievement Award at the Government Conference Centre in Ottawa. Honoured for being a leading communicator, she is also the Editorial Director of Planet Africa Magazine, which is available in Canada and other parts of the world.
Diane Sovereign, the U.S. Cultural Attaché, who represented the government of the United States at the event, said presenting the award to such a recipient was, “A great way of furthering the legacy of Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King.” Patricia and her husband Moses A. Mawa, operate Silvertrust Media, a robust publishing, television and film corporation that includes Planet Africa Group, which is dedicated to community building, the kind of goal that Dr. King, an American icon of global stature, advocated for.
Organised by The Canadian Martin Luther King Day Coalition, the event was sponsored by the Universal Peace Federation, which was represented by Franco Famularo, its Secretary General. The keynote address was by June Girvan, who spoke about Agnes Macdonald, the Jamaican-born wife of Sir John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. Agnes inspired her husband to persevere with his dream of a transcontinental railway.
Among her many achievements, Patricia was the production coordinator for “Routes of Freedom”, a documentary film produced for the Government of Ontario by Planet Africa Group to commemorate the 200th year of the Abolition of the British Slave trade Act. She is the producer of Arise on Vision TV and the biography series, “Luminaries” and “Visionaries”. She is the head of operations for the Diversity Awards, Planet Africa Awards, the Leadership and Development Summit, and is the Associate Publisher of Diversity Magazine.
“This is a huge honour for me and I feel challenged to do even more for humanity, following the footsteps of Dr. King,” says Patricia, who has also served as Executive Producer of “Harambee: Pulling Together”, a documentary film on how the African Canadian community in Ottawa created positive change as a result of the Kasonde tragedy. She has received the 2011 ReelWorld Visionary Award from the ReelWorld Film Festival for her work in creating opportunities for people of diverse backgrounds in the media. She is listed in Who’s Who in Black Canada and received the 2012 Leadership Award from the Black Women’s Civic Engagement Network.
Patricia holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from the University of Calabar and a Multimedia Diploma from Algonquin College of Science and Technology in Ottawa. She is a recipient of the Toronto Police Community Service Award. She was instrumental in the formation of the Crossover Mentorship Program, a life changing initiative run by Silvertrust Media and other partners.]]>
