“Do you know that as a politician you can use just 3 minutes to influence voters’ decisions for telling your touching story” Professor Jerry Austin, YPLS Africa Facilitator 2019.
Mariam Alhassan participated in the Young Political Leadership School Africa program, semester six in 2019, she used the knowledge and skills to effectively plan, organize, and implement her political campaign events. She told touching stories about herself, applied her campaign strategy and propagated her campaign message well and she won the district assembly election becoming the first female elected in the GbumGbum Electoral Area Assembly in Ghana after her first unsuccessful attempt in 2018.
“I owe a lot to the organizers of the YPLS Africa program and all the amazing fellows that helped me during my campaign period. I appreciate the encouragement and support from the organizers of the Young Political Leadership School Africa”. Mariam Alhassan
Other graduates are winning more elections after their participation in the program. Vickjune Wutoh, was elected as the Vice President of the Liberian National Students Union (LINSU), Isaac Muapoh, elected Secretary General of LINSU. Banica S. Elliott was elected Vice President of the Federation of Liberian Youth (FLY), Ernest Duku Jallah, was elected as Deputy Secretary for Programs, Ervin Daniels was elected Deputy Secretary for Finance all from FLY and Akoi Baysah was elected as Assistant Secretary of the Press Union of Liberia.
The YPLS Africa is the best and innovative way of grooming middle- level professionals into politics and helping them become transformational leaders. “The young political leaders are inspirations for the future hope of Liberia. If you get young people like these into leadership roles in five, ten to fifteen years, you will have a better country,” Jeff Fox, political communicator and lead facilitator of semester three, YPLS Africa.
505 YOUNG POLITICIANS AND ACTIVISTS HAVE BENEFITTED FROM THE PROGRAM FROM ACROSS FIVE COUNTRIES IN AFRICA,
Few graduates of the YPLS were appointed into the present government, they are Mallias Z. Sheriif, appointed as Assistant Minister of TVET, Emmanuel Johnson, Assistant Minister for Youth Development, Eddie Tarawali, Assistant Minister for Corrections, Abubakar Bah, Assistant Minister for Urban Affairs, Alvin C. Wesseh, Assistant Minister for Research and Extension, Sekou Kalasco Damaro, Special Aide to the President of Liberia and Mohammed M. Bamba Jr, Administrative Assistant, Office of the Monrovia City Mayor, etc.
Participants were trained in campaign planning and management, message development, public speaking, citizen engagement, fundraising, leadership style and qualities, participatory decision-making, and they participated in mock election campaign among other topics.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) https://www.ned.org/ contributed to funding the sixth semester and participants made little contribution. The recruitment for semester eight starts in February 2020. We are looking for support and if you can please email us on info@naymote.com. A big thank you Prof. Jerry Austin, Former Adjunct Professor and Director of the International Campaign Fellows Program, Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, University of Akron, United States of America our lead facilitator in 2019, your first contribution makes a big impact.
The overarching goal of Young Political Leadership School Africa is to contribute to the formation of a new generation of leaders that would work in the interest of the people specific objectives to increase the knowledge and skills among young people to plan, organize, and implement political events, increase in the number of young people stepping forward to seek political offices, to strategize the mobilization of other young people to support their peers during political campaign processes and give young African leaders the rudimentary skills to engage in transformational leadership of the continent.