MaameYaaAddae-Mensah is a 22-year-old Future Africa Leader from Ghana.
Tactile signing is a common means of communication used by people with both sight and hearing impairment. It is a tedious means of communication for the deaf-blind person as faster and easier communication devices are expensive and can’t be afforded by those in need of them in Ghana. Moved by the plight to support the deaf-blind in her society, Maame with a 4-member team of I.T professionals developed a communication device that is affordable and accessible. This newly developed device allows the deaf-blind in the society to communicate effectively without any external assistance; it’s a useful tool for teaching and learning amongst the deaf-blinds. She advocated for sponsorship from relevant bodies and state institutions to expand this idea at the School for the Deaf in Ghana.
She also created an online awareness platform for the deaf and blind communication to make the voice of the deaf-blind heard in the society, as well as to ease approaches in soliciting for sponsorship to support them. Through this initiative, she has reached over 200 individuals and relevant state bodies. In embarking on this project, she worked closely with the School for the Deaf.
Her first IT project for the deaf and blind led her to meet over 2,000 deaf and blind youth in schools, particularly at the School for the Blind and Deaf at Mampong-Akropong in Ghana. Her partnership and interaction with the administration caused teachers and some students to realize that the teaching and learning aids for the schools were inadequate and as a result, she embarked on a project aimed at translating educative textbooks into braille and audio formats to give the deaf-blind students the opportunity to learn more.
Maame also supported the need of the School for the Deaf by collaborating with the teachers to organize special leadership and potential building seminars. Through her awareness campaign, she was able to provide text books, Braille papers and other social amenities.
Chris Gains Iyama is a 24-year old young and passionate African leader committed to changing and reshaping the future of Africa through the catalytic agency of young people.
He is the Founder and Executive Director Centre for Youth Participation and Advocacy Africa (CYPA AFRICA). His organization has been in the fore -front of promoting youth participation in policy making as well as engaging critical stakeholders in the governance process. His organization is a strong advocate for credible elections, good governance, the rule of law, youth participation in governance process, justice, accountability as well as peace and conflict resolution.
He is a United Nation's Ambassador for world peace, a special recognition accorded him in 2015 by the United Nations Youth Federation. His organization has a special consultative status with the United Nations. He is also the Co- Chair for Global Forum For Youth Policy Experts in the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy on Youth. He is the Co-Convener of the most populous youth movement in Africa known as the #NotTooYoungToRun Campaign.
The Not-Too-Young-To-Run campaign is a constitutional amendment bill which sought for the reduction of age limit in the 1999 constitution to enable young people hold and contest elective political offices in Nigeria. In 2018, the campaign mobilized over 40 million young Nigerians to take their destiny in their own hands and to support the Not- Too- Young- To- Run bill. This attracted the attention of the federal law makers who officially passed the bill into law after the bill had secured the constitutionally required two-third majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Chris Iyama addressed several world press conferences, consultative young citizens and town hall meetings and mobilized over 10 million young Nigerians for a solidarity march across the nation as well as a 100,000-march to the Presidential Villa in Abuja calling for the immediate signing of the bill by the President. On the 30th of May 2018, Chris and his team were invited by the President to the villa for the signing of the bill into law.
His outstanding achievements include the following:
1. The implementation of a 6-month project in Benue State aimed at preventing mass atrocity amongst Benue Youths ahead of the 2019 general elections, with support from Nexus in the US.
Dahaba Daniel Sakho is a 22-year-old innovative young entrepreneur who creates useful startups for the young and unemployed in his community.
A rising computer science engineer and significant contributor to economic growth, Dahaba’s ingenuity has both solved problems and improved the standard of living for his community.
He created several apps through which online content can be translated and is leveraged upon by the Francophone West African countries.
He created a transportation app for his community to geo-localize and determine accurate arrival time of their means of transportation, thereby saving commuters waiting time; studies show that at least 40 university students have become punctual to school and other destinations as a result of the app.
The app was launched in the University of Dakar. It earned a nomination by “mYouth 2.0” as the best app of the year 2017 in West Africa and he was invited to participate in a technology fair in Paris by the Minister of Transportation for France.
To aid medical care for the poor in his community, Dahaba created a multipurpose medical app that generates crowd-funding, enables people in need of drugs and medical supplies to make requests to the public, collates the proceeds from the requests and directs the beneficiary to the appropriate pharmacy for pickup of the items. This project won the first prize of the Hackathon Orange and has been adopted in the city today, giving many access to drugs they require for their medical care.
He also organized several youth prison visits, where he provided essential materials and sanitary items for inmates, and held mind management seminars to help them become better citizens.
He also organized a youth program in commemoration of the International Youth Day, where over 160 youths were inspired to give back to their community. For the International Day of the Street Child, Dahaba distributed goods and clothes to over 100 street children in one of the most populated cities in Dakar, celebrating with them and putting a smile on their faces.
Indeed, Dahaba is a Future Africa Leader, passionate about improving the livelihood of the people in his community and country at large.
23-year-old Deliwe Makata is a young lady from Malawi who is passionate about the growth and development of young Africans and their contribution to nation building. She is the founding leader of an empowerment organization called Women Inspire, which has initiated several training programs for the growth and development for young people at local and international levels, and building capacity of the female gender in vulnerable communities by encouraging education, leadership and skill development.
Her organization currently exists in three African countries: Malawi, Kenya, and Ghana, and has reached over 6,000 young women, empowering and building their leadership capacity through several programs, such as Leadership and Personal Development (LDP). The twelve LDP training programs held in 2018 enabled Deliwe to instill a new mindset of leadership in young girls. The beneficiaries are now implementing exceptional leadership measures and proffering solutions to the challenges faced in their communities.
Big Sister Project is another initiative by Deliwe, aimed at addressing Human Rights Advocacy, Career Building, Skill Development and Leadership for Adolescents. This project is currently running in 5 secondary schools, reaching over 1,000 girls in Blantyre Urban. The initiation of this project birthed the implementation of the Big Sister Working Toolkit, which has been adopted and used by other partner organizations and networks across the country.
Under Deliwe’s leadership, the organization has also led community outreaches and empowerment programs in Kenya and Ghana, reaching over 500 parents and community leaders.
At age 22, Deliwe created a Human Development Center company called Cleaners “N” More, a cleaning service company. Established to address the problem of unemployment in the country, the company has created employment opportunities for over 500 low-income earners within one year.
Her ongoing and prospective projects include an inspiring literary masterpiece for youth on success and the pursuit of purpose, titled “Go for Gold”, and an Educational Expo and Career Fair in Malawi, in partnership with Telecom Networks Malawi – the biggest telecommunications company in the country.
20-year-old Godwin Egba, an undergraduate student of food science and technology at the University of Calabar in Nigeria, is an advocate for sustainable and quality education. He initiated the ‘Defining True Leadership’ (DTL) when he was 17 years old. DTL is a non-profit organization that engages and equips young people with tools to be academically excellent. DTL leads study groups, and holds educational seminars and workshops as well as mentorship programs. The award programs Godwin organized for the students motivate them to work harder. Over 12,000 Nigerian studentshave been impacted with Godwin’s programs and campaigns.
Godwin has inspired and mobilized over 1,807 youth to take up community development projects. Truly, he is an exceptional youth leader to watch.
Godwin started a campaign to improve study conditions in schools, and this led to the donation of textbooks and the setup of 8 libraries in secondary schools across 5 communities. The DTL has facilitated the donation of an estimated 15,000 books, enabling learning in after-school centers, prisons, orphanages and religious centers. The books donated cut across various fields and subjects, ranging from spiritual to academics and entrepreneurial. This initiative established active reading clubs in 20 educational institutions, which include primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. He has also partnered with individuals to start up book outreaches in Senegal, Kenya and Ghana.
To help more people gain access to tertiary institutions, Godwin collaborated with ICT experts to develop a software that gives secondary school students access to educational resources and study materials to prepare for standardized tests. His software currently runs in various schools, and has recorded a 50% improvement in users’ performance. In line with this objective.
Furthermore, he organized a three-day DTL School Tour to his village, which entailed a 250km drive from the city of Calabar. During the tour, over 350 students were impacted, and they were given more than 1,500 study texts and Christian educational materials. He also successfully persuaded several teachers to organize coaching classes for dropouts.
Isaiah Deng is a 20-year-old youth leader from South Sudan, who is very keen on empowering the young people in his country to be self-reliant and equipped for a future beyond the civil war that has caused so much unpleasantness in their nation. He spearheaded several youth development programs, seminars and worked with the Global Youth Leaders Forum to organize highly impactful conferences all of which were aimed at restoring peace and hope in the hearts of the youth in his country.
Notable among the conferences he organized this year is a Youth Conference held in Commemoration of the International Youth Day. Upon receiving approval from the Ministry of Education, he organized conferences that inspired over 3,000 students and teachers from 20 schools on Nation building.
He organized a training program titled "Acquire Skills For Your Future" in 2 phases where he trained 20 young people on computer optimization at Texas School of Computing and Mimshack Designs in South Sudan for a period of one month and an additional 20 youth on Solar and Electrical Installation in partnership with State Ministry of Education and Green Power Electric; a Solar Company in the nation of South Sudan. These training were aimed at creating employment opportunities for young people and equipping them for these opportunities.
He has also initiated a project called "Youth Donor", this is a group of young people who gives 40% of their income to the needs in their societies. With a project themed, "Stop Hunger in South Sudan" this year, Deng and his group of Youth Donors donated food items (Maize Flour, Cooking Oil, Beans, and Rice packs) including cartons of toileteries to 40 families in the IDPs Camp and also to the Poor Families in his country to alleviate the issue of hunger in his country.
He is devoted to and has raised many more who are also committed to community service in his nation. He worked with the Global Youth Leaders Forum to organize a community service in Don Bosco IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) camp Shirikat Juba, where he and his team cleaned the vicinity, boreholes, latrines; distributed clothes and also brought a mobile saloon for those who are unable to afford commercial saloons to shave due to their state of living.
Lantante Barthelemy DOUMONGUE is 22 years old, and an inspiring leader from Niger Republic, who is involved in various community building projects. After identifying the needs in his community, he decided to embark on several projects to inspire and empower the youth in Niger. With dynamic enthusiasm and energy, Lantante has inspired over 1,010 young people to embark on several projects this year.
Barthelemy has organized several success motivation programs such as, “I AM EDUCATED”, where he visited 7 high schools and impacting over 10,000 students. He also created a club in his university called the Ambitious Generation, and organized conferences on success and becoming gainfully self-employed. Thus impacting over 700 students and teachers.
Barthelemy also organized a conference in his university titled “LEADERSHIP AND I”. The program was attended by men of GOD, teachers, and students, with over 900 students attend this conference. With his unyielding attitude, he organized another conference titled “YOUTH AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP”, with an attendance of over 600 students.
In finding accessible and flexible solutions for the protection of his environment, Barthelemy is a fourth-year student in Civil Engineering. He recently invented a project concerned with converting waste plastics to pave stones for road construction. This product is now in use, with over 1000 consumers. The success and innovativeness of his project earned him a grant to study in Morocco, and many young people in Niger are beneficiaries of his handiwork. Also as civil engineer in training, he organized a program called "BUILDING THE NEXT BUILDERS" where he trained 70 students free of charge on the use of architectural software.
Being concerned about community development, he reached out to nursing mothers and orphans by providing them with food, soap, ointments, and other useful items. Also, in February 2018, he subscribed to an orphanage of 86 children to whom he rendered free Mathematics and Physics lectures till the end of the academic year.
Through his national TV program named, "CROSSROADS OF THE LEARNER" he has presented 32 episodes and over 7 000 000 youth who follow this program weekly have been impacted. Furthermore, in 2018, he organized a campaign in a maternity hospital where he gave out mosquito nets to 50 mothers.
23-year-old Ngassa Merlin is a courageous and dynamic youth leader whose transformational leadership has changed the course of thousands of youth in his nation and countries beyond.
In his quest to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Ngassa Merlin mobilized and inspired hundreds of young people to carry out acts of humanitarian service.
Passionate about youth empowerment, he reached out to improve the lives of young refugees from the war-torn region of Amazonia in Cameroon as well as other at-risk youth. Specially disheartened by the plight of displaced youth fleeing the violence in the war-torn Amazonian region, he was determined to be an agent of hope and rehabilitation, sourcing for and partnering with international organizations to provide inflatable living camp shelters, bags of rice and other much- needed amenities to over 5,000 of these youth.
Undeterred by several threats from secessionist extremist soldiers in search of child soldier recruits, he embarked on an “ Education Cannot Wait Drive”, going on a media campaign on 8 Television and Radio stations in the country in a bid to reach parents who withdrew their children from school for fear of the violent conflict to encourage them to brave the odds and send their wards back to school. He educated them on the risks of letting them remain idle and becoming victims of the war. He worked with several individual and corporate partners to provide blackboards, books and the much- needed learning materials to over 2000 students and worked to fully sponsor over 300 displaced refugee students back to school.
He set up a leadership academy, organizing several seminars, workshops, leadership and capacity-building programs to educate thousands of youth, monitoring and inspiring a new generation of leaders and graduated over 1,700 youth leaders from the academy this year alone.
To further empower the youth and cause them to be economically-independent, he facilitated several entrepreneurial programs such as bead making, shoemaking, catering, soap production and other viable business skills and partnered with corporate bodies to sponsor the startup of 41 new businesses from amongst the graduates.
He also built a network of corporate sponsors who have committed themselves to empowering the youth in his nation and raising generation of leaders in Cameroun.
Taonga Ngoma is a 19-year-old passionate, vibrant and determined Zambian teenager with a passion for youth education and community development. Her programs are centered on the care of orphans and vulnerable children and educational improvement programs. She led her team to carry out various development projects which have impacted thousands of beneficiaries in various communities across her country.
Through her educational program, Taonga and her team adopted the Odevuca Community School where they renovated four blocks of classrooms and constructed a water cistern toilet in this inner-city school for over 300 students located in Chawama, Lusaka, Zambia, in partnership with PMRC (Policy Monitoring and Research Center) and NR Investments.
This project was televised on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC TV) and earned the commendation of the Zambian Ministry of Youths and Sports. She also organized a Girls' Seminar for orphans and vulnerable children in the same school addressing issues of early marriages, drug abuse,education, peer pressure, and unwanted pregnancies.
During the event, they donated sanitary pads, items of pesonal hygiene, clothes as well as Christian materials that led to the salvation of over 40 souls. Taonga launched a program tagged ‘Education Beyond Borders’ across the country through which she distributed school supplies including books, uniforms, and mathematical sets regularly to over 1,750 students in 4 communities; Lusaka,Chawama, Kanyama and Wusakile.
She also donated solar lamps to students in Kabuko village, many of whom had no access to electricity and were unable to study for their exams or complete their homework at night thus contributing to improvements in their education. She also got involved in numerous school building projects and donated 1000 blocks and a toilet to help improve access to education for over 1,300 students in Kabuko and in Kanyama Communities.
She has organized many outreaches that brought hundreds of teenagers together to be inspired. Worthy of mention among them is her International Youth Day Seminar; which had a representative from the First Lady of Zambia present and recorded over 500 students who gained the inspiration to improve their lives and to focus on their education.
Yusuph is a 21-year-old vibrant leader with a passion to create awareness for sickle cell. This yearning inside of him began the Sickle Cell Youth Foundation (SCYF), which is aimed at providing free screening tests for sickle cell patients, and so far, he has reached schools, companies and churches with over 55,000 people benefitting from the campaign.
Yusuph, through the SCYF campaign has been hosted on 12 broadcasting networks, reaching over 5 million people and he has acquired the broadcasting rights to one of the media firms.
In collaboration with other Sickle Cell Disease advocacy firms, he conducted 2 Blood Donation Drive campaigns in Dar es Salaam with over 200 blood donors. SCYF was able to acquire over 140 national insurance cards for children with sickle cell, and by December over 300 people would be beneficiaries of this laudable initiative.
He successfully opened two Sickle Cell Youth Foundation branches in Mwanza and Zanzibar, receiving sponsorship and support from government and private companies.
SCYF was part of the research program called SPARCO, which is held in 3 African countries: Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria, with the aim of diagnosing different behaviours of sickle cell patients.
He worked tirelessly with several institutions to accomplish this dream, namely: GEPF, Coastal Aviation, Cloudsplus, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, State University of Zanzibar, Tanzania Sickle Cell Disease Alliance, Ministry of Health, Development, Children and the Elderly, to mention a few.
He has inspired and mobilised over 1,200 young people to carry out and provide humanitarian services.
Indeed, Yusurf is an exceptional young leader, a force for change who is impacting the lives of many in his community.
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