“We want to be that hub that has enough resources to continue to provide support for community members, and also spread the education of African cultures,” Ama S. Ptak, the executive director of the African Center for Community Development, tells Madison365. “Plenty of people want to go to Africa, but sometimes it’s also good to take a step back and get to know your African neighbors who are in your neighborhood right here before going to the continent.”
The African Center for Community Development (ACCD) works to create a vibrant and inclusive community for African immigrants and refugees in Madison and Dane County. The non-profit organization, according to its mission, works to “foster an engaged and thriving African community by promoting cross-cultural understanding, social and economic integration, and civic participation, all while honoring the rich cultural heritage of Africa.”
“We want to let our Madison neighbors know that Africans are around, because you know, almost everyone knows an African, they have met an African, they have an African in their workplace,” Ptak says. “They are a silent community that people know is around, and we are contributing to the economy and culture.”
ACCD has been serving Madison-area families and individuals of African descent as a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization since 2019. They were first launched in 2014, Ptak says, as they saw a fast-growing African population in Dane County needed a variety of social and educational services
“As an organization, we emerged from two big organizations within the African community, the African Women’s Association and the African Association of Madison, and both those organizations were created in the ’90s,” Ptak says. “So the idea for our organization was to be the anchor for the social and economic development of our community while they also continued their community building and the cultural education they were doing.”
Ptak first got involved with the African Center for Community Development in 2020 as a volunteer and became the community outreach coordinator in 2022. Ptak became the organization’s first executive director in January of 2025.
(Photo supplied.)
The African community began to take root in Madison in the 1960’s and has grown over the years. Now, Ptak says, the African Center for Community Development has represented people from over 23 countries across Dane County.
“The biggest community here is the Gambian community. We have the Nigerians, Cameroonians, people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalis, Kenyans, Ghanaians, and Ethiopians. We have a growing number of Malians, as well, in the community,” she says. “We speak five major languages – French, Wolof, Somali, Swahili, and Arabic. Currently in the office, we speak French, Wolof, Mandinka, and we have someone who speaks Spanish, too.
“So there’s quite a huge diversity in our organization,” she continues. “Even with our board members, our board president is Kenyan Somali. We have a Rwandan, we have a Cameroonian, we have a Nigerian, a Ghanaian, and a Gambian there.”
Despite its successes, the African Center for Community Development has seen its own share of struggles under the current federal administration, Ptak says.
“Now we have over 30 African countries that are banned [losing direct access to U.S. visa-processing services under the Trump administration], and that is affecting African neighbors,” she says. “You have your families that can no longer visit, and they are struggling to get visas because of these bans. People are even scared to travel out of the country, because what if they travel and are not able to come back?
“There are some students whose funding has been cut by these decisions,” Ptak continues. “Coming in July, the food share eligibility has been revised and is going to affect a lot of refugees, so there’s a whole category of immigration statuses that will be affected. Immigrants are being affected in so many ways and people must know about these things that are going on.”
Despite all of the current struggles, ACCD has emerged as an anchor organization for the African community, building on the foundations of its elders – past and present – with many innovative programs.
“Currently, we have categorized all our programming into four areas, just to be able to serve our community and also serve the general public, because not all our programs are meant only for African immigrants and refugees,” Ptak says. “We also try to serve as a vehicle for African cultural education to Madison residents.”
Those four areas of programming include workforce development and support services; community health and wellness; culture and education and business development.
“Our work not only helps new immigrant and refugee families integrate into the Madison community, but also provides a platform for increased education on African cultures, diasporan life, cuisines, knowledge, etc., through several programs, including our monthly Africa Talks community lectures and our Baobab older adults social-cultural activities.”
The ACCD Bantaba Family Support Program creates safe spaces for dialogue and healing, leveraging local resources to provide holistic support. “Bantaba” is a Mandinka word meaning a gathering place for dialogue and collective empowerment. “This program is another community-building tool that brings communities together to talk about current issues in the community, violence prevention,” Ptak says. “Last month, for example, we had a talk about trauma-informed care in women’s health. Next month, we’re going to have a discussion about mental health and healthy masculinity, and we are bringing together the Nigerian, Cameroonian, and Ghanaian communities to talk about that.”
ACCD also has older adult and youth programs, women’s empowerment programs and health equity initiatives.
“Last year, we had the first edition of Back to Roots Youth Festival, where it was an opportunity to bring children, especially middle and high school students of African descent, to come together, learn about their cultural heritage and cultural identities, and also be able to enjoy the cultures of their parents and their peers,” Ptak says. “This year, we’re going to expand it into a full-blown summer youth program.”
Other programs at ACCD help with housing navigation, job search assistance and financial education workshops. “Africa Talks” is a monthly community lecture series organized in collaboration with the UW African Studies Program during the fall and spring semesters.
“We co-created the community lectures with the UW African Studies Program because we wanted to first bring the knowledge of the African students, the advanced graduate students, to the community, and also connect them with the community,” Ptak says. “We also want it to serve as a platform for the general Madison community to learn about Africa and African issues, research, and the science that goes on in the continent. This is all open to the general public.”
One of the major goals for the African Center for Community Development, currently operating out of the University of Wisconsin South Madison Partnership space on Madison’s South Side, is to obtain a permanent space for the community.
“We’ve been working with Mentoring Positives and Just Dane to see if we can get a joint project on the east side where we can all have space to serve the community, so it’s going to be like a community hub,” Ptak says. “That has been one of our major visions, so when our community members come, they have a physical place to be and to belong.”
