Nigeria's renowned youth leader; Amb. Sunday-Chibuzo Okereke
wins triple awards at the just concluded President Obama's Young African
Leaders Initiative (YALI), Regional Leadership Center-Accra. Amb. Okereke is
the Regional Representative (West Africa), African Union Chapter (AUC) a
continental youth body that is focused on implementing the African Union Agenda
2063. He is also the founder/Executive Director ProjectHopeAlive: A youth
initiative that have been leading change in the areas of inclusive quality
education, youth & leadership and wise governance/electoral integrity in
Nigeria. Covener-GreenThumbAfrica.
Amb. Okereke whose quality of representation, participation,
excellence, and delivery skills was described as excellent, resourceful and great
show of quality leadership by the organisers; received the award of : The YALI
SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP, MOST INTERACTIVE
PARTICIPANT and was conferred with the highest honour of YALI-RLC... THE
YALI AMBASSADOR.
The Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) was launched by
President of the United States Barack Obama as a signature effort to invest in
the next generation of African leaders; which began in 2014, with the mandate
to empower young people through academic coursework, leadership training, and
networking. The need to invest in grooming strong, results-oriented leaders
comes out of the statistics: nearly 1 in 3 Africans are between the ages of 10
and 24, and approximately 60% of Africa’s total population is below the age of
35. Who will empower and lead these young Africans? Who will shape the future
of business and entrepreneurship, civic leadership, and public policy management?
In order to answer these questions, YALI promotes three models designed to
identify and empower young leaders: the YALI Mandela Washington Fellowship, YALI
Network and now the
establishment of Regional Leadership Centers across Africa.
Supporting this progress, the Accra Regional Leadership Centre (RLC), a part of
President Obama’s Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI), offers an innovative and game changing
leadership training program in Africa. The program is hosted by Ghana Institute
of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), and with Administrative Staff College of
Nigeria (ASCON) as Nigeria's Campus.
The five weeks long
programme featured trainings in: Visioning & Motive for Leadership;
effective communication; emotional intelligence; leadership & resilience;
personal statement; culture & leadership; leading change & dynamics;
corruption, leadership & followership; Ethical Leadership; Ethics, morality
and legality; Public Finance, resource mobilization and management; Public
policy cycle and stakeholders management; urbanization and sustainable cities;
health and policy; Gender and diversity; Technology and urbanization; Business
Model Canvas; Innovation and Managing Change and new venture creation. Participants were grouped along key tracks
such as: Public Policy Management; Civic Leadership and Entrepreneurship and
animal energy groups which include the Elephants; Lions and Eagles for
effective participation and learning. Here, the participants solved leadership
case studies that highlight the importance of teamwork, collaboration,
tolerance, reasoning, courage, respect and time management. The young change
makers treated the case study of Corruption in La paz-city of Bolivia from the
J F Kennedy School of government and leadership simulation exercise to climb to
the summit of mount Everest from the Harvard Management school.
The YALI Nigeria Cohort one recorded 150 change makers/young
African leaders drawn from seven West African countries of: Nigeria(host),
Ghana, The Gambia, Cote d' Viore, Cameroon, Liberia and Sierra Leone who have
demonstrated leadership, innovation and community impact in their respective
countries. Amongst which are over 100 Nigerians.
The YALI Nigeria Cohort one was organized by YALI Regional
Leadership Centre-Accra in partnership with USAID, GIMPA, The MasterCard
Foundation, Africa 2.0, University of Notre Dame, Presidential Precinct, Howard
University, Lagos Business School,
Microsoft, Atlasmara, IBM and ASCON.
Addressing the press at
the closing ceremony held at the prestigious ASCON auditorium, the newly honoured YALI Ambassador/recipient
of the YALI spirit of leadership award:
Chibuzo Sunday Okereke commended President Obama for his thought towards
African youth in establishing the YALI program. He expressed deep gratitude to
USAID, U.S Embassy Nigeria and Ghana, Department of state, Africa 2.0,
YALI-RLC-Accra, GIMPA and ASCON for their commitment in putting up an excellent
organization of the YALI Nigeria Cohort one.
Ambassador Okereke assured the organisers of the YALI project
and partners that the participants will exemplify excellent conduct in their
daily lives and be a good Ambassador of the program. He said "We came into
this program five weeks ago as raw materials but now we have been processed
into quality finished product that are ready to be consumed in the educational
sector, public policy management, health, politics and governance, business
management and entrepreneurship, civic leadership and all other sectors of our
national and continental lives". Whilst presenting a take-home document
produced by a group of participants on the 150 problems and solutions already
been solved by the YALI Nigeria Cohort one participants; Amb. Okereke
emphasised that "We are the young Africans who have quit agonizing but
have started to organize, speak out and take positive actions on issues of
concern in our dear continent of Africa. Amb. Sunday Okereke went on to salute
his fellow participants for displaying excellence, enthusiasm, quality
participation, teamwork, tolerance in all tasks, assignments, debates, creative
works and networking throughout the training program.
Amb. Okereke called on young Africans who are leading change
in the areas of social development, community development,
innovation/technology, public management, health and advocacy, law/human rights
and all other areas of development works to take advantage of the unique
opportunities offered by the President Obama's Young African Leaders Initiative
(YALI) Regional Leadership Centres across Africa to build their leadership
capacities, expand their network and experience quality mentorship by visiting
www.yaliwestafrica.org for applications and other learning opportunities including
online courses.
Amb. Sunday Chibuzo Okereke also called on national governments, regional and
continental bodies, development organizations, the private sector,
multi-national organizations, foreign missions and well to do individuals to
emulate USAID and US Embassy who have continued to shoulder the burden of
building the capacities of Nigerians and Africans youth across time by keying
into the numerous partnership opportunities offered by theYoung African Leaders
Initiative, Regional Leadership Center.
