This is Okama
Okama Ekpe Brook
Meet Okama, the Perfoming Artist
The Experience Africa Week 2026 has a special, highly distinguished and respected invited guest. You are surely going to meet her as she puts on different caps on different days of the event and simply showing us her love and passion for Africa with her highly infectious smile.
But who really is Okama?
Okama Ekpe Brook aka Okama BDQ is an international performing artist. Originally from Nigeria, she uses movements to interrogate the nuances of the music of Northern and Western Africa and its interpretation in the new world.
As a cultural ambassador who is proud of her vibrant African lineage, she uses her artistic, academic and social platforms to deconstruct long held cultural and heritage stereotypes about African Descent women. She is passionate about dance, fashion and theatre and inspires young girls and women to embrace and tell their stories through artistic pursuits.
Due to earlier commitments, Okama will be celebrating the Africa Day on 25th May in Canada and will unfortunately miss the opening event of the Experience Africa Week 2026 here on the island.
Meet the Intellectual Okama
Resident in Canada, Okama is the founder of Africa Caribbean Heritage Alliance. that supports, women, youth, Indigenous and people with disabilities. Through her leadership, she won grants from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, OXFAM and grants from Government of Canada, Province, and Edmonton City Centre. She organized Black History Month programs, mobilized communities and resources and delivered speeches at the Curacao Conference on Slavery 2025, Dubia Conference on Consciousness and Peace and recently at the University of Alberta Black Students Association annual gala.
As an advocate for Sustainable Development Goals and Decade on People of African Descent, she represented in December 2022 at the First Forum on People of African Descent organized by the Permanent Secretariat in Switzerland, issued a statement to support self-determination of St. Maarten. She has travelled to over 60 countries.
Okama is a development expert, businesswoman, cultural creative, speaker, author, researcher, community mobilizer and philanthropist. She has led the founding of Access Africa Inc., ACHA Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Siddha-Vetha Multiversity and served as president of Caribbean Studies Association and president of Rotary Club of St. Martin Sunrise. In Canada, she has worked with Combined Insurance Alberta, University of Alberta and CUSO. She is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador on gender justice and the Civil Society Organization Regional Director for the Americas & the Caribbean, African Union 6th Region Global and Alberta Representative, Economic Community of African 6th Region. She is a member of the Permanent Forum on people of African Descent, the International Civil Society Working Group and a Co-Lead of the Spirituality and African Sacred Sciences Subcommittee.
Okama called Canada home 30 years ago as a Permanent Resident through marriage and they have three children. She is a dancer, choreographer and dedicated mother and wife. She is a passionate volunteer, serving on the boards of Youth Empowerment Support Services, Ritchie Community League, Nigerian Canadian Association of Edmonton and African Diaspora History Library. She won the Rotary Club Builder, Best Attendance, Social Member and Rotarian of the Quarter. She is the United Nations Gender Champion Ambassadorial Awardee and Bronze medalist at Malaysia Dance Xplosion. She was the Red Deer College Students Association President and won the outstanding merit award and Houghton Mifflin Master Student Award. She is a current nominee of the prestigious Canadian Immigrant Award 2026.
During the period 2010 – 2012, Okama served as the UNDP Liaison Officer, based in Curacao responsible for the dismantling of the former Netherlands Antilles into autonomous countries.
