When I relaunched this blog a week ago, I intimated that something good has happened in my life recently and its only fair that I talk about it now.
In the past month or so, I was selected to be one of forty-six Kenyans and one of five hundred Africans who will be the inaugural Washington Fellows. The Washington Fellowship was founded by US President Barack Obama as part of his engagement with Africa through the Young African Leadership Initiative.
This is big news because these 46 young Kenyan leaders were selected out of an applicants pool of more than 5000. Over 50,000 Africans applied across the continent and after a vetting process, only 500 were selected.
This means that starting June 14th this year, I shall be in the US for 14 weeks – Initially at the Arizona State University, where I shall go through some rigorous academic learning about leadership and related subjects and then in Washington DC for 8 weeks, where I will attend an internship at OpentheGovernment.org, an organization that I have admired for a long time.
I applied for this opportunity as a long shot – not really expecting to get it – because I thought that it would help me to horn my skill and understanding of leadership, to enable me to take position as one of the many young people who will drive Africa to new levels. It is a fantastic segue from my having been selected two years ago by the African Leadership Network as a Young African Leader.
I want to be useful in my continent particularly in enabling people to have real access to their governments, to enable Africans to take control of their destiny so that they can sit on the global table as equals to other countries. It is important for me that we pull up the integrity of the continent so that we can have the foundation that we must build to become competitive globally.
As I go through the process, I shall update you of what I learn and experience.