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2014 Tutu Fellow Linda Kasonde has announced the formation of a new organization called Chapter One Foundation, which she says will be used to promote human rights, constitutionalism and the rule of law in Zambia. It will do so through litigation, advocacy and civic education.  Linda says the foundation was named after Chapter One of the Laws of Zambia, which enshrines the Constitution as the supreme law by which every Zambian, regardless of status, is bound.

Chapter One is already petitioning the Constitutional Court on a matter of law in which it argues a bill limiting how the President can be removed from power is unconstitutional.

2017 Tutu Fellow Rori Tshabala made these moving remarks at the opening of SPARK Schools Rosslyn hub, north of Pretoria in August 2019.  SPARK Schools is the brainchild of another Class of 2017 Fellow, Stacey Brewer, who is a cofounder of the schools.  Stacey's vision was to create a sustainable financial model for low-fee private schools in South Africa offering high-quality education.  Since the first one opened in 2012, the network has expanded to serve more than 10 thousand students at 21 schools. These dry statistics are belied by Rori's comments at the opening of the school.  He said:

  My grandmother, at that time a widowed mother of six with pitifully little formal education, used to walk these very fields, through rain and shine, from farm to farm buying the fruit and vegetables that she would then walk many load-bearing miles more to go and sell on the side of the road in order to earn what little she could to feed her children.

2013 Tutu Fellow Monica Musonda is taking over as Board Chair of Zambian Breweries. To avoid any real or perceived conflict of interest, Monica chose to leave ZamSugar prior to accepting the position at Zambian Breweries. ZamSugar supplies ingredients to some of Zambia's most popular beverages.

Monica took over the position from Valentine Chitalu, who has been the board chair for the past decade. In taking over the chair, she becomes the first female board chair of Zambian Breweries. Monica, who is the founder and CEO of Java Foods and a lawyer, is having a year in which her capability is being called upon by multiple organisations.  

The following essay is by Ronak Gopaldas, a 2019 Tutu Fellow. The Tutu Fellowship Programme requires each participant to write an essay on leadership in Africa. The quality of submissions is very high as demonstrated by this piece by Ronak. He points out that by the year 2050, Africa will have the largest population and workforce in the world and will be too big to ignore. 

But its demographic bulge could either be a huge boon, or disastrous. Despite its size and scale, Africa is constantly referred to as having “vast potential,” whilst being excluded in global affairs.  With the right leadership in place, there is an opportunity to reshape this state of affairs.  His essay follows.

A group project is one of the requirements of the Tutu Leadership Programme.  Group Three of the Class of 2019 submitted and presented this scenario in which it looked at questions around trust and how it might impact development in Africa in future. The group, which comprised Emilia Siwingwa, Lesego Holzapfel, Angela Gichaga, Sangu Delle, Simba Mhuriro, Edwine Barasa, and Sampson Itodo, considered the factors that impact how truth affects areas of development like the environment, technology, health, culture, economics, and politics.  It considered policies Africa might enact to ensure that the social fabric of the continent isn't torn further by rising trends around deepfakes, troll farms pushing disinformation, malicious misinformation distributed for political gain, and other dislocations impacting shared, commonly understood sources of information. 

It presents a positive scenario for the continent in a decade and a half - in 2035 - and steps needed to obtain that outcome. It also presents a negative scenario and the implications for the continent. The presentation ends with six strategic agendas with policy suggestions for Africa to arrive at a positive outcome in 2035.

Two Tutu Fellows are on Avance Media's inaugural 100 Most influential African Women list. They are 2010 Tutu Fellow Jackie Chimhanzi, the CEO of the African Leadership Institute; and 2012 Fellow Julie Gichuru, an award-winning journalist and news anchor and executive in Kenya. The list is comprised of women from 35 African countries who are role models and whose accomplishments inspire the next generation of women.

Categories include Business Leadership, CSO & Philanthropy, Diplomacy, Education & Literature, Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Governance, Legal, Media, and Sports.

2016 Archbishop Desmond Tutu African Leadership Fellow André Ross has been made Executive Director, Head Global Corporate Banking, Sub-Saharan Africa for J.P. Morgan.  He has served J.P. Morgan as Executive Director, South Africa since June of 2017 and was Head of Financial Institutions Africa with Barclays Africa Corporate and Investment Bank.

André is passionate about empowering youth through sport. He co-Founded the Jala Peo foundation, which runs two academies - the Diepsloot Mountain Bike Academy and the Muldersdrift Academy.  The academies were started with the intention of helping children to use their time constructively and gives them a positive outlet for healthy activities.

The Governor of Kaduna State in Nigeria, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has appointed 2011 Tutu Fellow Muhammad Sani Dattijo as his new Chief of Staff. Previously, he served as the Commissioner of Planning and Budget and was also the Director of Strategy for the Governor’s 2019 re-election campaign. In 2015, he joined the Kaduna State Excecutive Council as its youngest member. 

As budget czar, he was acknowledged as a champion of reform and was instrumental in moving Kaduna state to commence the implementation of  the Open Governance Partnership and presenting and delivering budgets ahead of time to the state legislature.

2013 Tutu Fellow Monica Musonda is joining the Ethics and Governance committee of the Confederation of African Football during a time of turmoil.  Monica was nominated to that position by the Football Association of Zambia delegation at the CAF congress and appointed by CAF to serve on the committee in July.  The Zambian lawyer and founder of Java Foods serves on a number of boards of prominent African companies, and chairs the board of Airtel Networks Zambia Plc. 

CAF is the administrative and controlling body for African football.  As such, it runs continental, national and club competitions and controls prize money, regulations and media rights to those competitions.

2009 Tutu Fellow Geci Karuri-Sebina PhD has been appointed to the Fourth Industrial Revolution - 4IR - Task Team by Naledi Pandor, the former South African Minister of Higher Education & Training. Geci had coordinated for South Africa an African Development Bank study on the 4th Industrial Revolution and the Future of Work in Africa. The appointment was one of Naledi's last acts as Minister before relinquishing the portfolio when President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed his new cabinet.  Geci forms part of an eight-member team with the task of providing advice on managing both the threats and the opportunities provided by the fourth industrial revolution.

4IR is a term that refers to the confluence of technologies that will impact how people live and work and includes artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other technologies.

2019 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow Simbarashe Mhuriro has recently been appointed to the Board of Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe as a Non-Executive Director. The Standard Bank Group, of which Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe is a member, is the largest African banking group. It has a presence in 20 different countries.  Mhuriro is the founder and managing director of Oxygen Africa, which is a Zimbabwean investment company with interests in precious metals, renewable energy, and agriculture. Sincee 2013, Oxygen Africa has been committed to developing utility scale power plants, industrial rooftop, and commercial solar photovoltaic projects. 

Simbarashe was appointed to the board in May of this year.

2017 Tutu Fellow Mitoha Ondo'o Ayekaba, has published his first novel, titled Claro de Luna, at an event of the Association of Spanish Writers and Artists, in Madrid, Spain. The presentation ceremony took place on June 13 and counted amongst the audience personalities from the Spanish cultural and political world. Guillermina Mekuy, a local writer and businesswoman, read from the novel together with Emilio Porta, the Deputy Secretary of the Association of Spanish Writers and Artists.  During the reading, the two gave voice to the characters in the novel.

2016 Tutu Fellow Peter Biar Ajak had his day in court today in Juba, South Sudan, after being detained for almost a year.  He was arrested on 28 July 2018, allegedly for treason.  However, the treason charges were thrown out by a court in April.

In court today, he was sentenced to two years for allegedly disturbing the peace and violence for giving interviews to foreign media that were critical of the government.  His lawyer is contesting the sentence as freedom of speech is constitutionally protected in South Sudan. His term was backdated to the day he was detained, so he still faces a year in prison for his peace activism.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa extended an invitation to 2013 Fellow and human rights activist Catherine Constantinides to attend the SADC Saharawi Summit in South Africa in March 2019. Catherine has for years worked on behalf of the Saharawi, who live in territory occupied illegally by Morocco. 

The SADC Solidarity Conference with the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic started with a call for unity to ensure the right to freedom and self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara. It was attended by several heads of state, who took a stand for the Saharawi and expressed their support for decolonisation of the region and self-determination for Western Sahara on the basis of the values and principles that have guided the quest for independence throughout Africa.

2006 Fellow Palesa Kadi has been appointed to chair the ICASA hearings on sport broadcasting rights. Palesa is a media activist, researcher and has worked as a regulator in the broadcasting and telecommunications space, where she serves as an ICASA councillor. ICASA is South Africa's broadcast regulator. 

The hearings - and issue - is politically sensitive, as big-draw sport is currently mainly broadcast on expensive pay channels, locking out many ordinary South Africans from being able to watch sport on free-to-air TV.