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“I’ve learned that in life, networking is the key to success, and investing in people and knowledge pays off,” Desmond insists. Meeting new people is particularly helpful if you’d like to feature subject-matter experts in your session or want to hold a follow-up discussion on the topic. Networking at your session itself is important, too, if only to gauge how well the materials presented are resonating with participants.”
“Imagine a single child, one of eight, struggling to study,” Abel says. What will his future look like? As the one educated child in my family, I had to be strong, strong enough to face the realities of life. For me, a perfect day growing up was when we had enough food on the table for everyone,” Abel says. “And I would be the one to eat the leftovers.”It wasn’t until protests erupted in June that Abel saw an opportunity to advocate for a more egalitarian state.
“During my Mandela Washington Fellowship in the United States, I experienced firsthand how individuals are respected and given equal opportunities irrespective of their disabilities,” Sunday says. “I realized: it’s time to teach our youth about their rights and how to demand them.”Sunday encourages young adults to volunteer to better understand themselves and what good they can do in the world.
It wasn’t until her conversation with a group of secondary school students years ago, though, that she realized how she might educate the next generation in new ways. “I asked this group of students about the cause of the high temperatures we were experiencing, and none of them could give me an answer,” Njapen says. “They had no knowledge of climate change. I wanted to educate them not only about climate change as a concept but also about how we as humans are contributing to the problem.”
“I don’t just want to educate my peers about these goals, but I also want to help them create the innovations to achieve them,” Oluwayomi says.I hope my YALILearns session motivated participants to be innovative, to broaden their thinking and to better understand the problems in their society.For Oluwayomi, an inspiring leader is interested in building others up, in highlighting their strengths and in helping them to overcome their weaknesses.
“I learned over the course of my session, for instance, that a lot of the attendees had never come across a code of ethics in a business context. They also saw networking as collecting business cards, rather than developing personal relationships.”To address this, Javnyuy used his session to teach others about the value of writing a code of ethics and of building meaningful relationships with others, not just to expand their business network but also to create lifelong ties.
“I found that the topic sparked critical thinking and engagement among my participants,” Josaphat says. And though his was an in-person session, a virtual YALILearns webinar would work just as well, especially with stay-at-home orders in place.“My favorite part of the session was listening to the different businesses that these participants have and how they maintain them.I learned that any business can sustain you as long as you are passionate about what you do.”
Among Koffi’s primary concerns growing up was gender inequality and ensuring that his female peers had access to the same opportunities he had. In April, Koffi decided to organize a YALILearns session on the topic using the YALI Network Online Course Understanding the Rights of Women and Girls, a resource covering women’s rights from a business, social, and communal perspective.
Over the course of his session, Dickson was struck by the enthusiasm of his participants, who, in his estimation, seemed interested in learning not just about women’s rights, but also their role in upholding them.“The topic was, for me, a no-brainer,” Dickson says. “It was time to talk about the mistreatment of women and girls, what little is being done, and what we as young leaders can do to advocate for women’s rights.”
“In today’s world, we face complex problems,” Salissou says. “We need new leadership skills, we need community engagement, we need a new model to understand how interconnected we are and to address communal problems, together.”For him, leadership starts with personal reflection and growth. Only after these, Salissou explains, can individuals hope to educate and empower their peers.
