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Archbishop Tutu Fellowship Certificates were awarded to the 2018 Tutu Fellows at an exuberant celebratory event kindly hosted by Lord Hacking at his home in London at the end of an intensive but very rewarding 10-day workshop at Oxford University and in London. Old favourites continued to be amongst the highlights of the week – conducting choristers in Exeter College chapel, Eddie Obeng’s aliens, good kings/queens, warriors and medicine women in Mythodrama’s Henry V, cooking lunch with Caryn and Ros, dining in the House of Lords after a personal conducted tour of the Houses of Parliament, and Andrew Feinstein’s amazing stories of corruption in the global arms trade.

The Archbishop Tutu Fellows are a strong network of exceptional young African leaders from 42 countries, with a shared commitment to help transform Africa, our continent. The Tutu Fellows are deeply concerned about the arbitrary arrest and detention of youth activist Dr Peter Biar Ajak and re-iterate their call for his immediate release.  Peter Biar Ajak, a 2016 Tutu Fellow, is an academic and peace and human rights activist. He is the coordinator of South Sudan Young Leaders Forum, Senior Adviser for the International Growth Centre and Founder of the Juba-based Centre for Strategic Analyses and Research. He was also instrumental to the development of South Sudan Vision 2040.

Several Tutu Fellows were involved in the CNBC Africa Celebrates Leading Women in Business series. The series interviewed leading women in business as part of International Women's Month, looking at how Africa’s leading women are redefining business and entrepreneurship across the continent, and more specifically in South Africa. The Fellows involved in the series included Stacey Brewer, Lynette Ntuli, Mandisa Maholwane, and Dr Theo Mothoa-Frendo. Subject matter discussed during the month-long series was wide-ranging.

2006 Tutu Fellow Aidan Eyakuze is warning Tanzanianians that the loss of open discourse in the country could lead to a breakdown of the country's ability to be fully democratic. Eyakuze, who heads the East African civic organisation Twaweza, begins his piece by ticking off positive campaign promises President John Magafuli kept on rolling back corruption in the country. He goes on to say in his piece in Civicus that the acclaim President Magafuli obtained early in his term when his approval rating soared to 96% obscures other decisions that are troubling.

Three months into his President Magafuli's rule, live radio and TV broadcasts were stopped. Magafuli's government has also banned political rallies and meetings.

The African Leadership Institute report, An Abundance of Young African Leaders but no Seat at the Table, will be launched at Strathmore University, Nairobi on August 28, 2018.  It is the result of funding from the Ford Foundation with AFLI as the grantee and Strathmore University as its partner.

For Africa to realise her full potential, leadership initiatives that focus on the targeted development and the continuous nurturing of young people’s leadership capacities are crucial. Whilst a plethora of leadership development offerings exist on the continent, there has not been, to date, a holistic view of what these initiatives are. This study, therefore, represents an important step towards filling gaps in extant knowledge.

2016 Tutu Fellow Peter Biar Ajak has been arrested in South Sudan by the South Sudan National Security Service. He has been held since 28 July 2018 without any charges being made public by the South Sudanese government. He is a Harvard and Cambridge graduate who has worked for peace in South Sudan and built bridges using a common passion in the country, wrestling. He recently formed the Center for Strategic Analyses and Research in Juba, South Sudan, a policy think tank that has at times been critical of the government. Peter has called for a grass roots movement to hold the government accountable on peace and has met with a broad range of groups to promote conversations amongst rivals as a means of establishing trust and a pathway to peace.

Later this month, Moroccan King Mohamed VI will travel to Nouakchott, Mauritania to participate in the 31st African Union Summit. It will be only the third summit that Morocco has attended since its re-admission to the African Union in early 2017.

Morocco withdrew itself from the African Union (the Organisation of African Unity; OAU) in 1984 to protest against the admission of Western Sahara as a full member of the organization. Morocco's relationship with Western Sahara is a complicated one. In 1975, Morocco invaded the territory following the withdrawal of the Spanish colonial administration.

By day, 2015 Tutu Fellow Wiebe Boer is an impact investor who works with partners to increase access to commercial energy products and services.  By night - or in his spare time - he is a Nigerian football historian. 

Dr Wiebe Boer's latest work on Nigerian football, a book titled The History of Football In Nigeria - A story of Heroes and Epics, is to launch in Lagos on 10 June 2018.  It's been favorably reviewed by no less than Aliko Dangote, the President and CEO of the Dangote Group. 

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.

2017 Tutu Fellow Stacey Brewer will be opening her 16th educational facility in 2019 in Witpoortjie, South Africa. Stacey is the co-founder of SPARK Schools, an independent school network that she started in 2012 with Ryan Harrison. They believed that an innovative approach could disrupt the crisis in South African education and dedicated themselves to creating a new model that would provide access to high quality education for all.  The network keeps school fees as low as possible. Despite this, the network has schools rated among the top 10 private schools in Johannesburg.

2017 Tutu Fellow Natalie Jabangwe has been selected by the World Economic Forum as a 2018 Young Global Leader.  She joins one hundred of the world’s most promising artists, business leaders, public servants, technologists and social entrepreneurs in their community of Young Global Leaders. The honour goes beyond just being selected for a list.  Natalie joins both a community in a five-year programme that will challenge them to think beyond their scope of expertise and be more impactful leaders.

The Youth Advisory Board for the Ford Foundation funded Pan African leadership project will play a critical role in the governance of the project. The board has been intentionally constituted up front at the start of the grant project to provide strategic inputs and provide overall guidance of the project and its implementation.

Two ex officio members will sit on the board in addition to the eminent young Africans on the board. The first is a member of AFLI - which is the grant recipient.  The second is a member of the African Union Commission’s Youth Division.

In addition to the Board, the leadership project is assembling partners with which to work on an online platform to build a curated community of practice.  Various African youth initiatives will be set up for collaboration to be explored, and experiences and best practices documented and shared.  This will facilitate learningacross and between progammes. The curators will play a key role in steering these efforts and announcements will be made regarding this in coming weeks.  

The board for this project follows:

2016 Tutu Fellow Succès Masra, who until recently was the Principal Economist for the African Development Bank, has resigned his position to launch a political movement called The Transformers, with the aim of rebuilding his home country, Chad. 

The movement was launched on 29 April.  He has called on Chadians, both insiders and outsiders, to join him to create a new republic that is united, demanding of its leadership, and just.

South Africa's Public Enterprises Minister has appointed a new interim board to the country's state-owned defence company, Denel. On the new board is 2015 Tutu Fellow, Nonzukiso Siyotula.  No members of the previous board were retained. The cleanout of Denel’s board is the second major shake up at a state-owned enterprise in South Africa in recent months. The new President, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said that cleaning up state-owned enterprises with a track record of mismanagement and ethical lapses was a priority of his to get the economy back on track. 

2012 Tutu Fellow Dr Amy Jadesimi has been named Africa's Young CEO of the Year.  Amy is the Managing Director and CEO of LADOL, short for a half billion USD port development infrastructure project at Lagos, Nigeria.  The acronym stands for Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base and is an industrial free zone with a logistics base in the shipyard.  Amy's plans go beyond just infrastructure development, however.  She is working towards transforming the area into more than just an industrial area, rather, she wants it to be an economic zone that sustainably creates jobs and business opportunities in the area.