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2017 Tutu Fellow Mimi Kalinda recounts how the big story that revolved around Archbishop Desmond Tutu as she was growing up was courage, and really being fearless. And also timely leadership. Leadership is contextual and time-sensitive, she says. In this Tutu Talk, hear how Mimi dedicates herself to building a critical mass of African stories that need to be told.  Mimi is a communications professional and entrepreneur. 

TutuTalks are a series collaboration between the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and the African Leadership Institute, and it is a platform for African leaders who embody the values and ethics displayed by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu throughout his life of service.

In this TutuTalk in the series collaboration between the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and the African Leadership Institute, Hopewell Chin'ono, a 2008 Tutu Fellow and award-winning Zimbabwean journalist explains how he switched his goals from law to journalism and the ethical underpinning beneath that decision.

In his Tutu Talk titled "The Journalist's Calling - Exposing the truth in the face of oppression", Hopewell says journalists must be driven by a clear understanding of what is right and just to be able to report resolutely on the truth and endure the oppression that ensues.

The first Tutu Talk of 2022 - in partnership with the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation - features Aidan Eyakuze, a 2006 Tutu Fellow and Executive Director of TWAWEZA East Africa. Hear how this Tanzanian activist unpacks the essence of courageous leadership and the humility needed to do what is just.

Aidan says that “I took that courage of conviction and action from the Arch. It’s not about you. Humility isn’t about thinking less of yourself. It is about thinking of yourself, less. Understanding you have a deep worth as a human being, talents and skills. Humility is employing those skills for the greater good. From there comes a great strength.”

In a Tutu Talk in December 2021, 2013 Tutu Fellow Catherine Constantinides calls on young people to be active citizens and to commit to social change. 

TutuTalks is a platform for African leaders who embody the values and ethics displayed by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu throughout his life of service and is a partnership with the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and the African Leadership Institute.

The African Leadership Institute has partnered with the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation to produce a series of profiles on Tutu Fellows called Tutu Talks.  The foundation is responsible for preserving the example set by Archbishop Desmond Tutu for the future. 

The first of our 2021 Tutu Talks series features 2017 Tutu Fellow, Samantha Mkandhla, the head of philanthropy and partnerships for Médecins Sans Frontières Southern Africa. In it, she tells of the personal cost of servant leadership, and how she learned to overcome it and still work to make the world a better place. Her talk is called The Power of Duality: Success and Failure. In it, she spoke about how her failures led her to a clearer sense of what she had gained and how much more she had to give.

2010 Tutu Fellow Lerato Mataboge delivered a TEDx Lyttleton Women Talk on the necessity and urgency for African countries to trade among themselves as a way to address economic challenges and recover from the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Titled, Why Intra-Africa Trade Matters, she says that African countries not only need to trade among themselves as a way to address economic challenges and undo colonial patterns of consumption and distribution, they need to begin doing so with a sense of urgency.  This type of trade can play a key role in helping the continent recover from the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She begins her talk about vanilla, the bulk of which in the global market is grown in Madagascar.  Madagascar exports it and when it comes back to the continent, it costs so much more. Africa trading away its resources must change, she says, and the continent must begin adding value before exports occur so as to retain the value at home.

2007 Tutu Fellow 'Gbenga Sesan, who has been immersed in the tech sector for most of his career, has warned that technology alone isn't a solution to inequality.  Tech evangelists have waxed poetic about the ubiquitous nature of technology might be the rising tide that lifts those in poverty out of that state.  In a TED talk, Gbenga argues that centuries of inequality can't be solved with access to technology alone - as limited as that may be. Instead, improved access must be coupled to training and support too.

Sharing the work behind the Paradigm Initiative, a social enterprise in Nigeria that's empowering young people with digital resources and skills, Gbenga details his vision for creating life-changing opportunities for generations of people across Africa.

The Nwunelis - a power Tutu Leadership Programme couple - made history by becoming the first couple to deliver the keynote address to Harvard Business School graduates.  The two, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli and Mezuo Nwuneli, delivered the address to the 2020 graduating class in May this year via a videolink as a result of COVID-19. Ndidi attended the Class of 2006, and Mezuo became a Tutu Fellow the following year. Both are also Harvard Business School graduates, which is where they met.  They join a storied list of keynote speakers - last year's was delivered by Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP and former Mayor of New York.

In their speech to the 2020 graduates, they recognised the unprecedented challenges that the graduates were facing in the midst of a global pandemic and the health, social and economic impact it would have. 

2018 Tutu Fellow Omoni Oboli shot an informal video of the first Tutu Leadership Programme workshop at Mont Fleur and its surrounds.  She edited it together afterwards and it includes a candid stream of consciousness view of the workshop. The video shows some light-hearted moments that gently poke fun at the deep moments of introspection that took place among the attendees.

The video includes the group's visit to Robben Island where political prisoners were held during the Apartheid years, sessions in the workshop, and periods when candidates were given time to think in the beautiful surroundings.

The anti-corruption children's book, Gbagba, by 2010 Tutu Fellow Robtel Neajai Pailey has been adapted and turned into a stage play.  The play, which has an all-child cast, made its debut in September 2017 at Monrovia City Hall in Liberia. The children in the ensemble cast were trained for five months by premiere theatre company, Flomo Theatre.  Gbagba is a Bassa word which loosely translated, means 'trickery' or, 'corruption'.  In the book and its stage adaptation, children navigate the confusing ethical codes of the adults in their lives, in places as diverse as traffic jams, schools, churches and markets. The children express clearly and honestly the concrete ways in which gbagba hurts rather than heals society.

Candidates from the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme cohort were interviewed at Mont Fleur, outside Cape Town, about the first workshop in the programme. Rori Tshabalala says that an element of the programme is the self-reflection required to determine why we choose the paths we do.

Candidates from the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme cohort were interviewed at Mont Fleur, outside Cape Town, about the first workshop in the programme. Abayomi Awobokun mentioned that an area in which leaders often fail is in thinking sufficiently rigorously about the outcomes that a path of leadership might produce.

Candidates from the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme cohort were interviewed at Mont Fleur, outside Cape Town, about the first workshop in the programme.  Ahmed Zahran, who is from Egypt, spoke of how the group helped him gain a better understanding of sub-Saharan Africa, of which he had had limited exposure previously.

Candidates from the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme cohort were interviewed at Mont Fleur, outside Cape Town, about the first workshop in the programme. Hema Vallabh talks about how the Fellowship programme creates an environment in which speakers and fellow attendees provide insights that are discomfiting to taken-for-granted positions.

Candidates from the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme cohort were interviewed at Mont Fleur, outside Cape Town, about the first workshop in the programme.  Jude Abaga speaks of how the programme inspires authentic leadership.