Hemley Boum at Berkeley

In partnership with the Ford Foundation,  Villa Albertine welcomes cultural professionals from the African continent for residencies in the United States each year. Hemley Boum, a multi-award-winning French-Cameroonian writer, will be in residence in San Francisco between September and November. 

The writer will organize writing workshops entitled “Writing Migration“. These workshops will enable participants’ work to resonate with the French-speaking communities of San Francisco and the Bay Area. They will highlight migratory paths and links with the French language, while benefiting from the guidance of an internationally-renowned writer. 

The workshops will also provide an opportunity to present the “French for All” program, which aims to make learning the French language accessible to as many people as possible in the United States, from kindergarten to higher education. A specific component of the program targets French-speaking students from Africa and the Caribbean who have recently arrived in the United States, called the “French Heritage Language Program“. 

The workshops will take place at Oakland’s Francophone Charter School and are open to all, free of charge.