21 Mar 2016

Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) programme has been applauded for giving youth leadership skills.  

A Maun youth, Mr Anthony Molosi, who represented Botswana at YALI SADC’s first regional training in South Africa recently, commended the programme for having instilled leadership qualities in him.

 “These skills have opened my eyes to new ways of tackling challenges as well as methods of bringing change and development in my community,” he said in an interview.

Mr Molosi expressed gratitude for having had an opportunity to be selected as one of the youth that represented the country in South Africa.

He said YALI focused more on empowering youth in leadership skills adding that during their training they were trained on being advocates of change as well as ways of addressing different issues such as women empowerment, gender equality and HIV/AIDS.

For instance, he said, they were taught that to face challenges and bring changes in their communities they could form civil societies and non-government organisations or join the already existing ones.

Furthermore, Mr Molosi said while they were at the training they got a chance to visit the Mandela Foundation where they were familiarised with its operations.

The 25 year old University of Botswana Bachelor of Education Science graduate said because of the this training, he was now in a better position to do community service activities and bring change into his community adding that the group that took part in the training has pledged to help in education sector in Botswana through career and choice mentorship as their way of giving back to the community.

“We intend to do career awareness to students starting at primary level so that they can have an idea of which careers they want to venture in at an early stage as well as the requirements of those careers,” he said.

Mr Molosi added that he was empowered to work with various NGOs such as Women in Technology Organisation which aims at empowering women through technology as well as Botswana Network for Mental Health which raises awareness on mental health issues.

 He said he was one of the eight youths who were selected to represent Botswana forming a total of 130 first cohort of YALI regional leadership Southern Africa’ leadership participants.

Furthermore Mr Molosi said they were trained on three different leadership courses which included public management and governance, business and entrepreneurship development and civic leadership.“During the graduation, executive director and chief executive officer of UNISA Graduate School of Business Leadership, Dr Renosi Mokate urged us to take the lead, as we go back to our respective countries, in finding solutions to the challenges in our societies” he said.

He further said YALI was launched in 2010 by President Barack Obama to support young African leaders as they spur growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa. 

He added that YALI also aims at addressing Sustainable Development Goals. “YALI is a signature effort to invest in the next generation of African leaders” he added. ENDS