With the lifting of COVID travel restrictions, the Fellows have been busy at various high-level convenings including the Commonwealth Heads of Government forum (CHOGM) in Kigali, Africa Climate Week in Gabon, the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) Summit in Kigali, and the United National General Assembly (UNGA) and its various side events at General Assembly.
At such carefully-curated events of high-level policy influencers, the Tutu Fellows network is always disproportionately represented.
A 2009 Tutu Fellow’s Community project, Tswelopele Sisterhood and Girls Club in Alexandra, which was co-founded by Geci Karuri-Sebina PhD, recently got a boost from another Tutu Fellow. 2018 Fellow Edzai Zvobwo and his nonprofit, The Education Support Forum, have partnered with Tswelopele to facilitate the girls' skills development by donating 30 tablets to help expand virtual learning. The tablets will also help supplement tutoring and access to e-resources during this period as schools are disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In order to be awarded the Tutu Fellowship, participants are required to complete three assignments, one of which is a community project in keeping with the servant leadership tenet that underpins the programme.
In a TEDx Maitama talk, 2017 Tutu Fellow Jude Abaga shares with his audience some examples of how much dividing people can affect the outcome of their goals. Jude makes connections in the music business in which he focuses on the importance of collaboration and how other industries can learn from what record labels have been able to do in the music industry so far - as well as how much there is still left to be done.
Jude Abaga also known as M.I, is a Nigerian Hip Hop Artist, lyricist, producer, songwriter and instrumentalist. He’s won numerous awards, including the MTV Africa Music Awards 2009. Jude is the CEO of the record label Chocolate City Music. Moving beyond music, he makes it clear that only by working together as one can the African people continue to achieve more and progress.
Two Tutu Fellows are collaborating on a pioneering and ambitious agribusiness training programme. They hatched the idea last year, when 2015 Fellow Martin Mbaya and 2013 Fellow Nuradin Osman got chatting at the 10-year celebration of the Tutu Leadership Fellowship at Nirox Foundation Park. The new AGCO agribusiness qualification will develop skills, leadership and strategic expertise in youth to support the African agricultural sector at a time when farmers are being asked to do more with less.
Following the 10th anniversary celebration, it is encouraging to see how the sense of fellowship amongst the Fellows is developing and growing stronger. To give you a sense of this, we celebrate the fellowship through the obligatory WhatsApp pics that are always posted whenever two or more Fellows gather and ‘check-in’ with the broader community. It is only through greater networking and connectedness that we will harness the collective potential of the network.
