By Francis Mendy
The Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) is a United States Government Initiative to invest in the next generation of African leaders. The American Government launched YALI in 2010 to support young African leaders as they spur growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa.
As part of this initiative, four Regional Leadership Centers (RLCs), have been created with one each in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa. These Centers serve as regional hubs across the continent to instill transformational learning and enhance leadership skills in young African leaders between the ages of 18 to 35 years for five weeks. The YALI Regional Leadership Center for West Africa is located at GIMPA in Accra, Ghana.
The Accra RLC has trained over 4,500 young West African youth from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana since April 2015.
Our training was in Ghana. It started from the 10th to 28 June. There were 127 participants from 9 African countries. 13 people represented Gambia. We brought two YALI awards which is the Yali spirit which is the most prestigious award which was awarded to Francis Mendy. The YALI business award which was awarded to Omar Cham