Summit connects Africa’s youth
Creating opportunities for collaboration
WHEN Maguette Niang told someone that he was travelling to South Africa, the person responded with some cautionary advice: “Be careful. It’s dangerous.”
That impression, ironically, is exactly what Niang has come to South Africa to address.
He is one of 60 delegates invited from across the continent to be a part of the first Breaking Down Borders Africa Youth Summit, a six-day event aimed at promoting youth leadership and African unity.
“Sometimes we need to look beyond what social media gives us,” the 28-year-old doctor from Senegal said about what often informs those connotations.
The summit, which ended this weekend, featured youth leaders from African countries such as Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Lesotho and South Africa.
Although each delegate had a different story to share, their reasons for attending were all variations on the same theme: to bring young Africans together.
Award-winning dancer and philanthropist Paul Modjadji said he was inspired to create the summit after a 10-country tour across Africa last year, also titled Breaking Down Borders.
“We realised that there was just so much wealth of knowledge, intellect, culture and innovation that wasn’t being shared,” he said.
“We found that there were innovations and amazing things that were happening in Nigeria that when we go to Kenya, they didn’t know anything about.”
The goal of the summit, he said, was to connect young people across Africa and to create opportunities for collaboration, something that Africans are more likely to do with those outside the continent than those within.
The delegates have donated African literature to Gauteng schools, toured historical landmarks in Soweto and visited the Union Buildings to discuss the country’s National Development Plan.
Among other issues that were tackled at the summit were the Africanisation of curriculum and the creation of access for youth to the African economy.
Ilsa Sa, a 29-year-old from Guinea Bissau who has worked to increase youth civic engagement, said: “The summit aims to promote youth leadership in Africa. Its importance is to showcase that Africa has so much talent.
“The connection of our countries is an opportunity to develop our continent.”
Sa is one of a handful of delegates who were recipients of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, a programme of the Young African Leaders Initiative, launched by former US president Barack Obama in 2010.
However, she questioned why it took a non-African government to promote African youth.
That was another reason the summit was important, said Nigerian visual artist Kunle Adewale. The 36-year-old founded Tender Arts Nigeria, a non-profit organisation focused on arts education and therapy.
He recalled Modjadji coming to Nigeria and saying: “Let’s do a cross-border collaboration. Let’s come up with an initiative by Africans for Africans.
“When young people come together, they become gamechangers,” he said. “They are able to amass their resources, they’re able to synergise, they’re able to put ideas together to advance the course of Africa.”
By joining forces, young people would be able to elevate their platform to a level where the government would recognise the work they did. In turn, there would be more support and more funding for youth initiatives, he added.
Adewale singled out unemployment as a problem facing the continent, citing the link between youth unemployment and terrorism. Giving the youth a voice could help change that, he said.
“When the youth are empowered, they can create employment for other youth,” he said.
“Of course, we cannot combat terrorism. We can combat unemployment and create more jobs for youth wandering around the street.”
For Lady May, a 30-yearold award-winning Namibian recording artist, now is the moment for Africa to come together and show the world what it is capable of.
In terms of collaborating with others, she said it was important to first start at home before looking beyond Africa.
“Celebrate your own, and then you can celebrate outside,” she said. “It gets easier when we collaborate with one another, so we push one another as a group, as one Africa, one continent.”
Mpho Buntse, a 28-year-old South African LGBTI activist and social entrepreneur, emphasised the importance of young people rising up to hold public office.
In Africa, political leadership often conjures up images of old men in their 70s and 80s, reluctant to let go of their power.
For Modjadji, the summit will not end here. He said he hoped that it would continue in the years to come and find a home in other host countries.
“That’s my prayer and my hope, that it doesn’t stop here, and that it’s not just limited to South Africa, that it really becomes a movement that allows us to be exposed to each other,” he said.