Africans in Paris feel at home when they visit this African shop at the La Goutte D’or neighbourhood also known as little Africa which is bustling with activity.
The main market is is lined up with vendors selling fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as stores that sell Africa prints and salons that specialize in styling African hair.
The owner is Jacqueline Ngo Mpii a French entrepreneur of Cameroonian descent, who has built a website called littleafrica.fr and is now publishing a guide book for everything and anything African to be found in Paris.
“I actually found myself making itineraries for lots of people and finally when I would also present the online, digital guide, people’s first question was ‘where can we buy the guide? Because it’s great’. And I would tell them it’s only online, it’s just a website and at that point I said to myself that there was something to be done because it kept on coming up, ‘where can we buy your book?’ So the idea of creating and editing (a guide book) was born,“founder and CEO of Little Africa Jacqueline Ngo Mpii said.
After her studies in literature and tourism, Ngo Mpii travelled for some time and noticed African influences in other cultures and was inspired to see the same once she returned to France.
Earlier this year,she launched a crowdfunding project to raise money for a written guide book which was published in November.
“I definitely think it’s a good way for those who are interested in getting to know Africa in Paris, to have a lot of places to visit and all the information they need. So it’s kind of like an encyclopedia of African businesses in Paris so it’s great,” Paris resident, Adjim Danngar said.
Jacqueline hopes her guide book will be used used by tourism professionals and travel agencies in future as a reference to respond to the needs of African clients visiting the country.
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