Yali ex-cohorts share experiences with departing colleagues |23 September 2017
Members of previous cohorts of the Young African Leaders Initiative organisation (Yali), which has formed an alumni, held an informal gathering Thursday evening at the Oceangate House board room to meet and share their experiences with their two colleagues leaving for a one-month course in South Africa tomorrow.
The two are Corrine Rose who will follow the public management & governance training and Saviona Isaac, civic leadership.
They briefed their colleagues on what to expect in South Africa an also what is expected of them; how they should take their studies seriously as the modules are very demanding but also on the relaxed part of the programme where they get to visit interesting places like Soweto and Mandela historic sites.
The whole course is sponsored by the Yali organisation which is based in the United States of America and was launched by former US President Barack Obama.
It gathers a group of young African people with the same goals, who are passionate about helping others and finding solutions to some of the social issues that are affecting their countries and Africa in general.
South Africa is one of the four Yali regional leadership centres in Africa and the three others are Ghana, Kenya and Senegal.
These centres serve as regional hubs across the continent to encourage transformational learning and enhancing leadership skills. And Seychelles forms part of the southern Africa hub. The Yali programme is divided into three groups, namely business and entrepreneurship, civic leadership and public management.
The Mandela Washington Fellowship, which began in 2014, brings young leaders to the United States for academic coursework and leadership training and creates unique opportunities in Africa for Fellows to put new skills to practical use in leading organisations, communities, and countries.
“We have three members who are taking part in the 10th and 11th cohort – two of them are leaving in September and the third one in October. All previous ones are from the first to ninth cohort. Experiences are varied as there are three different segments to follow,” said Vanessa Seth, a local Yali coordinator.
Yali, she said, is an application that one chooses to apply online and does not need to pass through a certain channel or person.
“It’s you who have to prove yourself through the documents forwarded and interviews held by Yali headquarters representatives in South Africa, so that you are selected,” she said.
As an alumni, Vanessa said they are there to receive members after their term in South Africa and also to meet those leaving so they can share their experiences and also on what to expect there.
“Bearing in mind they will be there for a month and will live with different nationalities – so the meeting is to prepare them and give them a preview of what to expect,” she said. Though they have not managed to meet all previous groups, Vanessa said they are now trying to make it more formal where we meet a cohort before their departure.
As to the Seychelles experience, all members shared the same views on how other Africans see Seychelles.
“They see us as a very advanced and developed country in many facets of life. They even ask themselves what is Seychelles doing there? They are just social or economic projects which we in Seychelles have already implemented or completed years ago,” they said. But they also said they have seen and learned how people appreciate things over there – simple things of life as they are a scarcity. And that they have seen real poverty over there. To the ex-cohorts, there is no poverty in Seychelles when you see one or more children in South Africa sharing one orange for example.
