Wagner College on Staten Island (SI), New York City (NYC), is a host institution for President Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). The Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) aims to empower young African leaders through academic coursework, leadership training, mentoring, networking, professional opportunities, and support for activities in their communities. From June 17 through July 31, Wagner is hosting 25 competitively selected young Africans who will participate in a six-week academic institute on Civic Leadership, part of the larger group of 1,000 Mandela Washington Fellows being hosted in 40 programs at 37 colleges and universities across the United States this summer.
First impressions
The first week of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders got off to a frenetic start! Of course this would be the case because idiomatically, New York is “the city that doesn’t sleep”, “the capital of the world” - right?
On my first day, the sun woke me up hard to realize we will have more than 15 hours of sun. At this time of the fellowship, many of us have had a harsh reality check about what we’re here to accomplish. Lesson learnt – if you want to stay awake and focused in class, take vitamins and other energy supplements, because early nights are out of the question!
The content of the first week of coursework has offered us much opportunity to learn about the best way to make first impressions. This was a time to get to know each other as fellows, and to introduce ourselves to the college and its partners – never before have I had to speak this much about myself! From Academic and support staff, to Staten Island African community members, to our coaches and our college football mentees, to the varying religious groups and even random people on the streets; everybody wants to know about us!
Of all the leadership development sessions of the week, my favorite was undoubtedly the one with Celeste Van Nice, Assistant Director of the center for Academic and Career Engagement. She helped to know more about ourselves with the Myers-Briggs personality test that gave us insights into how we interact with the world and process information.
Dr. Ruta Shah-Gordon (MWF coordinator and Vice President of Internationalization, Intercultural Affairs, and Campus Life at Wagner College) helped us articulate the moral imperative of each of our work, and challenged us to examine what transparency in the work place really means. The debate culminated in the understanding that being transparent is not about freely offering confidential organizational details, but it has more to do with one’s thoughts, feelings and motives being easily perceived by those who trust us to lead them. And this was the most powerful take away from the week. Other topics covered include “Public Private Partnerships and Urbanization”, “Ways to collaborate here and at home”, as well as a talk by the President of Wagner College, Dr. Richard Guarasci on “Building leadership from the community up”.
To wrap up the week’s formal leadership sessions, we completed a small group assignment on creating an elevator pitch– finding the right words to pitch yourself and your ideas in a way that gets people to listen. Although the group work process itself was frustratingly tedious, this powerful exercise demonstrated just how important it is to appeal to your audience’s emotions, show passion and have a conversation rather than make a presentation. In all stakeholder relations, we were encouraged to “first sell yourself, then the organization, followed lastly by the product/service”. This firmly reinforced what I’ve come to learn over the years – people must like you first before they give you money.
We also met with our HUB leaders – mine is Scott Warren, Executive Director of Generation Citizen, an organization that aims to close the civic education gap by promoting civic engagement among underrepresented youth.
On a personal note…
My time here has not been without socializing, probably a little too much for the first weeks, but a welcome break from the seriousness of the program and a great opportunity for cultural exchange with Americans and fellow Africans alike. The first experience was in Port Richmond, a working class, largely African American and Mexican neighborhood on Staten Island where Wagner College has built partnerships with local non-profits for civic engagement activities with their students. That evening, we enjoyed our first non-American meal at an acclaimed local Mexican restaurant.
We are in New York and it’s the summer; everyone is talking about the Summer Stage the largest FREE performing arts festival in New York City. Presenting artists and genres that reflect the diverse cultures and communities in neighborhood parks across the five boroughs, So far, I have attended two hip hop concerts, with performances by some of the legendary artists from the 80s and 90s. And if you’re like me, you’ll know that this was real hip hop! I have had the chance to meet Hip Hop legend such as Big Daddy Kane, Buckshot, Lil Fame, Smiff N Wessun, Rock (Heltah Skeltah), etc.
I have also met some of my friends from the City that never sleeps and they took me to several places in Brooklyn like the Brooklyn’ commodore Barry Park that I really appreciated for its diversity, Moshod an African shop in 689 Fulton St Brooklyn one of the first businesses in the street owned by a Nigerian and met with Muslim community. I also had the chance to taste some good Thai food and met amazing people.
This week was really one of the best of my life so far. Not only meeting one of my favorite rap groups but also learning a lot with my other fellows and become more open minded.
Mandela Washignton Fellow 2016
papenoble@gmail.com
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