Chibuzo Okeereke wins triple awards @YALI West Africa

ITRealms:

Renowned Nigerian youth leader, Sunday-Chibuzo Okereke has emerged the winner of triple awards at the just concluded President Obama's Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), Regional Leadership Center-Accra, reports ITRealms.

Okereke, ITRealms gathered is the Regional Representative (West Africa), African Union Chapter (AUC) a continental youth body that is focused on implementing the African Union Agenda 2063, 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.

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 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.

Emily Otuk/GEE

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