The Young and Emerging Leaders Project (YELP) is an initiative of the LéO Africa Institute, designed to train and orient values of self-advancement, integrity, social responsibility, and socioeconomic transformation.
The YELP fellowship picks individuals who are clearly on the path to success and empowers them with knowledge and skills to navigate through the pitfalls of success and dangers of leading change. YELP Fellows were brought together by the LéO Africa Institute, trained and equipped with skills to achieve success, living high-impact and fulfilled lives.
Core Mission
To make a contribution in building a critical mass of individuals committed to personal development, advancement of career, and shaping a progressive future for their communities, respective countries and Africa.
Seminar Basis
The three seminars, Shaping Personal Leadership, Achieving & Managing& Achieving Success, and Living your Legacy, are designed on the basis of a “values based leadership model”, which in itself is centered on servant leadership ideals.
YELP NETWORK ACTIVITIES
The YELP Network carries out numerous activities all year round, detailed below
The seminars will feature a combination of text-based readings to facilitate inspiration, reference to critical thought, facilitate dialogue and debate on challenges and the promise of leadership for the fellowship’s alumni network that now spans 8 African countries.
The structure of the seminars includes materials in form of texts, visual or audio selected by LéO Africa Institute faculty, to suit the objective of each seminar by stimulating critical thought, challenging held beliefs, inspiring action and encouraging bravery and commitment.
Keeping Sight of the Thread:Managing Life Transitions
The seminar starts off with evaluation of a Fellow’s leadership journey since they graduated from the YELP Fellowship, and asks them to critically assess their individual roles in shaping their career growth path as well as that of their communities.
The seminar uses examples of different visionary leaders who have used power of the individual brand to build powerful companies, organizations and campaigns to cause change and build lasting legacies.
Shaping Personal Legacies: Guiding Leaders Towards Living a Life of Significance
This seminar combines different experiences from the traditional three seminars YELP fellows go through in their one year of training. The sessions include taking fellows through deep reflections on moving beyond the “self” in the journeys from success to living a life of significance.
Participants are exposed to practical lessons to learn from, on achieving and managing personal success, practicing self-care and living fulfilled lives, and in turn, moving on to making significant contributions in society.
From the seminar, Fellows are expected to reflect on the sort of legacy they want to leave, and how to navigate the pitfalls that come with bold leadership decisions, sacrifices, that each of these leaders has had to make at different points in time.
The Urgency of Harambee (“Pulling together”):Shaping Leadership for the Times
This seminar focuses on strengthening a collaborative leadership culture within the Institute network and beyond. The practice of collective response when confronting individual and collective challenges or in pursuit of innovating and building effective systems to transform society.
From this seminar, Fellows are expected to explore different opportunities for collaboration in their professional pursuits, and in building partnerships that offer opportunity and solutions to society.
With the effects from the COVID19 pandemic guaranteed to affect how we live and work, it has exacerbated the economic condition of many and recovery will depend on how quickly we collectively work together in addressing the structural and personal challenges in the process of rebuilding our economies and ensure inclusive social systems.
II. Expanding the Network:Join the YELP Community
In fulfilling our mandate to contribute to building a critical mass of values – based leaders, we invite emerging leaders to commit in undertaking the three YELP seminars, and upon graduation, join the network.
- Benefits of joining the YELP Community, include aces to a peer support network, an expanded network of successful, and high impact leaders within the LéO Africa Institute. Joining YELP network also gives members access to meetings, conferences, and other events within the larger network.
III. Annual YELP Summit
YELP fellows, and invited guests participate in the YELP Summit that takes place annually, on the sidelines of the Annual Leaders Gathering. The Summit brings together the YELP Network in reaffirming their commitment to the ideals and values in leadership. The Summit also acts as the general meeting of the network, considers leadership for the network, issues and program schedule for the following year.
EA Map
The membership of sixty-eight thought leaders, cuts across eight different African countries, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Somalia, Zambia, and Democratic Republic of Congo, drawn from various professional backgrounds including industry & business, media and journalism, social entrepreneurs, university students, artists and civil society. Upon induction, fellows commit to be living examples of practising values based leadership, and serve as examples to other young people looking to live successful, and significant lives.