Azaka Ajanaku

Azaka Ajanaku produced Unity in Diversity: C'est la Vie on Chicago Access Network Television, a program that created a local media platform for Haitian and multicultural community representation on one of the country's largest urban public access systems. His work brought Haitian culture, language, and community life into the Chicago access channel at a time when those communities had little presence in either commercial or public media. In 2001 he received the ACM's Jewell Ryan-White Award for Cultural Diversity.

CAN TV's scale made his work visible across a major city, and the program demonstrated what a committed producer with access to a community channel could build: regular, locally produced programming that served a specific community's need to see itself represented in public media.

Azaka's work belongs to the producer tradition that public access was built around: a community member with something to say, a channel to say it on, and the skill and persistence to keep showing up.