Mandela Washington Fellowship Returns To Clark Atlanta

The Clark Atlanta University School of Business will partner with the U.S. Department of State for the fourth consecutive year for the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, welcoming 25 leaders between the ages of 25 to 35 from countries throughout Africa.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship program, which the school will host for its fourth year, is the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). The program, which is aimed at empowering young African leaders through a system of mentoring, training, coursework and networking, has already witnessed a number of positive changes inspired by fellows throughout their communities and countries. The fellowship concludes with a Summit in Washington D.C., with the opportunity for some individuals to have six additional weeks of training with both private and government-run organizations.

The 25 students that will join Clark Atlanta for the program—who represent 19 different countries in Africa—are part of a larger group of 1,000 fellows hosted at higher education institutions throughout the world. Host schools throughout the country will focus on different aspects of leadership, from business and entrepreneurship to civil leadership and public management. Clark Atlanta will be the only HBCU of 15 focused specifically on business and entrepreneurship.

“We are tremendously excited about the arrival of this year’s class,” said CAU President Ronald A. Johnson. “The relationships developed over the past three years advance the University’s ability to tap into a global, entrepreneurial mindset and constitutes an expanding brain trust of emerging global leaders.”

Now in its fourth year, the program has had an immense impact. In 2016, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield remarked on the work of a 2014 CAU Fellow, Temitayo Etomi. “[U]pon returning home from the fellowship [Etomi] has employed and trained more than 100 Nigerians with the aim of creating 1.2 million jobs for Nigerian Youth by 2020,” she said.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship program at Clark Atlanta was established by Professor Mesfin Bezuneh, Ph.D. Thanks to Dr. Bezuneh and his work with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Education Affairs, fellows will have the chance to study corporate and social responsibility, green entrepreneurship, human design thinking and more.

regions: Atlanta

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