Welcome home YALI fellows! :: Mmegi Online

All of us at the United States Embassy warmly welcome home the 15 outstanding Batswana Mandela Washington Fellows! These talented young leaders, all representative of Botswana’s bright future, recently completed six weeks of intensive training at 20 top American universities, as part of President Barak Obama’s Young African Leadership Initiative.

They then travelled to Washington, DC to participate in a three-day Presidential Summit, where they had a “town hall” meeting with President Obama and met with leaders from across the US Government, the private sector, and civil society. Three members of Botswana’s delegation remain in the United States for eight week practical internships at private companies and NGOs.

We are extremely proud of this year’s Fellows, for their professional and volunteer experience, their talent, and strong leadership skills, and we hope Botswana is, too. Mostly, we are inspired by their commitment to finding innovative ways to make progress on issues critical to Botswana’s future including poverty eradication and rural development, private sector economic growth, environmental protection and conservation, combating gender-based violence and more. We are also delighted that President Obama intends to expand the YALI programme from 500 to 1,000 participants by 2016. That is good news for Africa and good news for Botswana.

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