The Mandela Rhodes Foundation, Building exceptional leadership in Africa.
On 16th of July
2019, we had an interview in studio with Judy Sikuza, new CEO at The Mandela
Rhodes foundation, the late Nelson Mandela’s official legacy organisation for
leadership development.
The central
purpose of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation is to build exceptional leadership
capacity in Africa (whilst also seeking to foster better reconciliation and
entrepreneurship) through its various programmes and, to this end, aims to be
the leading protagonist in Africa for such endeavors. The Mandela Rhodes
programmes will develop leadership and vocational capacity across African
society, to help the continent achieve success and prosperity and full equal
participation in the global world.
Judy were born
and raised in the Eastern Cape, South Africa and she was a Mandela Rhodes
Scholar from the Class of 2007 and now she is the new CEO of the Mandela Rhodes
foundation.
During the show,
Judy focus on the organization, their main purpose and their programs.
They provide
post graduate funding to students from any African country who want to continue
their studies in south Africa and they really pay up with their leadership development
program; the importance of this is that the late Nelson Mandela saw education
to be very vital, “as knowledge is power”.
The foundation has
4 main principles reconciliation, education, entrepreneurship and leadership.
What they do is each module focus on the principle of the foundation and that’s
why they are able to provide the youth with the necessary skill sets.
According to
Judy, “the reconciliation looks like who am I, my identity getting clear on
that, and reconciliation look like in term of others how do I understand other,
how do I understand people different from me and learn from them. It’s about us
taking a dip understanding of the history of the context which we come from and
understanding the system”
According to
Judy, another important element for us is entrepreneurship. Thinking define as
innovation, creativity and how can you look at the problem and look at it in
different perspective because we can’t solve problems in the same way.
As opinion about
education, we have an opportunity now to read and find out what education looks
like, because South Africans spend a lot of money putting resources into the
education system and all this international test we come in last and second
last and that tells you that something is broken in the system and the big part
of the question is how do we empower people to really understand that their
voice matters on a community level they are able to convene together and come
together.
On 18th
of July, they invite people to spend 67 minutes of their time during that day
and doing something good for the community.
For more information, you can contact them on:
Website: www.mandelarhodes.org
Instagram and Twitter: @MRF_Africa
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