Already a week since the adventure of
Washington Fellowship for Young Africans leaders 2014 has begun[1].
50,000 young people applied and 500 were
selected to participate in six weeks of training and exchanges in the United
States on the following topics:
Civic Leadership, Public Management and
Business and Entrepreneurship.
The program started June 14, 2014 in the 20
U.S. public universities that have been selected.
I am one of six Nigerien participants in this
2014 edition. I'm at the University of
California at Berkeley[2]
where I am receiving a training in civic leadership at the prestigious Goldman
School of Public Policy. We are 25 young people from 19 African countries at
Berkeley.
Our first week has been filled out and preached
the colors of the program.
A warm welcome was extended to us at the airport
then a pizza party for welcoming us at International House on campus.
At Goldman
School of Public Policy[3],
all lecturers (teachers and deans renowned researchers) that would take us
through the program met with us and wished us a good experience and a good
training[4].
First week summary:
• Introduction to American Government, to
enable us to better understand the context, institutions, democracy, federalism
and American governance.
• Introduction and analysis of public policy.
Also, we have the experience of sharing the classes with other students of the
University. Team work are formed and the module will continue every Tuesday and
Thursday.
• A session on violence against women including
videos and testimonials; we have learned about this phenomenon in the United
States and the control mechanisms used. We have related the session with our experiences
in Africa, where the topic is relevant.
• The session on strategic planning with
interactive exercises was an opportunity for us to use the tools of
results-based management that we know and especially pressing development
results. Inputs, activities and outcomes to better organize and manage our organizations
have been exchanged.
• The session on technical analysis of
stereotypes and biases, we plunged on the characters of discrimination
experienced in the United States because of the color of the skin and measures
taken to contain it. There are still stereotypes and that in all societies and
together we can win the fight.
Our community service this week took place in "Save
the Bay" [5]
where we helped to plant and discover the actions of this structure to save the
bay. With 6,000 volunteers who participated in activities to preserve the
environment and safeguard biodiversity.
The visit of the week took us to Palo Alto in
Silicon Valley with Google, a company that is no longer presented because we
use all its services. 45,000 employees, 24 free restaurants, gyms, buses for
transporting employees ... an innovative company. They have 7 offices in
Africa.
Finally we take the weekend to visit the Muir
Woods National Monument and the city of San Francisco.
Muir Woods National Monument is a unit of the
National Park Service on the Pacific coast of southwestern Marin County,
California, 12 miles (19 km) north of San Francisco and part of the Golden Gate
National Recreation Area. It Protects 554 acres (224 ha), [4] Of which 240
acres (97 ha) are old growth Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests, [5]
one of A Few Remaining Such stands in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Sany, Berkeley
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