The Mandela Washington Fellowship is a flagship program of the U.S. department of state to support young African leaders. The program includes Entrepreneurship, and Public Administration tracks, the Staley School hosts a Civic Leadership Institute.
The Fellows come from diverse backgrounds and are doing incredible work to impact lives and transform their communities. In this series, former Fellow and now Staley School graduate research assistant, Chibuzor Azubuike, reflects on 2022 Fellows that share common work in education – a critical area of focus for Sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), over one-fifth of African children between the ages of 6 and 11 are not in school, while nearly 60% of youth between the ages of 15 and 17 are not enrolled. (Kaledzi 2022) It is this challenge that Sustainable Development Goal 4 addresses, which is quality education.
Time out with youth development changemakers from Sub-Saharan Africa
The Mandela Washington Fellowship focuses on empowering young African leaders. Amongst the fellows hosted at Kansas State University Youth Development is a focus of their work. According to the United Nations, Africa has the youngest population in the world, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa under the age of 30. Such a high population of youth is an opportunity for the continent’s growth and development if and when the youth are empowered. (Mulikita 2021) Leadership development and civic engagement strategies focus on the importance of including youth in decision-making and building opportunities for youth to work and to innovate. Below we profile some of the work these 2022 Mandela Washington Fellows are doing in the area of Youth Development.
Kiala Pedro Vata from Angola founded an initiative called “Juventude em acção” that drives youth empowerment, civic engagement and youth participation in governance. His goal is to achieve a community where youth are empowered and play an active role in community life and in solving community challenges. His aim is to build a community where public policies are concerted to be more effective to the citizen’s needs and desires.
When asked some of the challenges he encounters in his work, he said, “The Angolan society is still not so open to embrace and encourage genuine initiatives such as our project, especially when it comes as a way of a movement involving young people. As a non-profit youth leader whose initiatives work on youth programs and addresses the needs of disadvantaged groups, it is always a challenge to achieve social acceptance and partnerships, sometimes we are often negatively labelled and the public policies or lack of efficient laws is the major obstacles.”
Kiala used his time in Manhattan to see how youth programming is making local impact. He was able to visit Junction City High School, meet with the Girls on the Run nonprofit, and learn about efforts focused on youth throughout the continent. Kiala shared, “The Mandela Washington Fellowship has been a great platform of exposure to new ideas and perspectives, not only about myself and others but also about the system using the USA as an example and helping me to understand the best approaches to address the issues that I am advocating for.”
Elizabeth Chunda is a teacher of Civic Education, English and literature from rural Zambia. She describes her work: “I voice out on civic affairs and promote the participation of youth in civic duty. I run projects that give youth a space to voice out such as clubs.”
For Elizabeth, the Mandela Washington Fellowship has helped her to discover her strengths, and then to build on them. She saw value in being tolerant and respectful to others. When asked about some of the challenges she faces in doing her work, she stated, “Inclusion of all groups in projects may be challenging, the community norms and aspirations are the choice of the community but can be a hindrance to some development projects. The community cooperates based on who is included in a group. A lack of inclusion projects can be such a drawback because ownership of projects won’t be whole.”
Macharia Gatundu from Kenya describes himself as an educator, a book lover and, devoted literacy advocate and social entrepreneur. Marcharia understands fully that his work will not be done in short order. He shared, “The ‘fruits’ for education take long to show (and often not in the glitter and glamour), despondency among university graduates, and the sense of failure due to lack of jobs makes a majority of young people fail to see the sense of urgency, and need to see the value of education.”
Macharia’s greatest takeaway from the fellowship is that Leadership is exercised. Leadership is not about success but also about navigating the low points of our work. He has also been encouraged to look past his failures and invent new ways of practicing leadership for change.
Ines Yimga Tchakounte from Cameroon is the executive director of Youth Alliance for Leadership and Development in Africa. In her home community youth are targeted by extremists groups for radicalization. This stems from a lack of opportunity for education, employment, and engagement in their communities. Ines focuses on reducing youth radicalization through strengthening youth leadership. The fellowship helped her to identify peoples’ strengths and learn from other fellows working on peace and conflict resolution. She can carry these lessons forward as she considers the peace and reconciliation process in her work in Cameroon.
Augustus Ngombe from Namibia, founder of Generational Focus Leadership Consultancy an innovative entrepreneurial and transformational leadership hub. He focuses on empowering young people to ensure that they engage in decision-making. When asked what his greatest takeaways from the fellowship, he said, “I realized that it is the interlinking of the systems that make things work not necessarily how good the idea is, and you always have to decide between intent vs impact.”
Ngombe’s long-term goal is to rebuild educational systems across the continent. He worked toward key partnerships that will allow him to advance progress on that aspiration.
Norentz Gojan from Benin Republic, is the founder of Mille Mots, where he focuses on youth capacity building through public speaking. Nortentz has identified the opportunity to get young people involved in debate competitions to develop their skills and build a community for them to work with. He develops educational programs for young people. He went on to state that the major challenge he is facing is lack of committed team members due to low pay. After learning about strengths, he has identified some new strategies he may use to innovate with his team, providing them with a health work environment and develop the sustainability of his initiative.
References
Mulikita, J . (2021) Young People’s Potential, the Key to Africa’s Sustainable Development
About the author
Chibuzor Mirian Azubuike is a Ph.D. candidate in leadership communication at Kansas State University. She is also a graduate teaching assistant at the Staley School of Leadership, where she teaches LEAD 350: Culture and Context of Leadership. She has experience in community development, facilitating leadership trainings and forced migration studies. Her interests include humanitarian interventions, civic leadership, youth development women and migration, and civic engagement.
