A nine day training on Together for a New Africa bringing together over one hundred participants has just concluded here in Kenya with all participants comitting to bring ahead transformative leadership that promotes a culture of unity and fraternity.
During the last day all youth participants commited themselves to the following pact.
“We, young leaders from Eastern Africa – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda –, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), along with participants from other countries, our tutors, lecturers, students of Sophia University Institute, and program coordinators, held our Second Summer School of “Together for a New Africa” (T4NA) at the Mariapolis Piero in Nairobi from December 28 -January 5, 2020.
The theme of this school, which was “African Identity and Leadership for Unity”, and was approached from various perspectives, has helped us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves as individuals, as the people of Africa, and as human beings sharing a common identity with the entire humanity.
We came to the realization that Africa cannot exist in isolation and that our communal identity does not exclude the rest of humankind. On the contrary, our guiding philosophy of Ubuntu embraces not only our familiar circle of relatives, friends and acquaintances, but also widens our horizons, opening outwards to include all humanity regardless of color or race. Ubuntu logically points us to the reality of universal fraternity of all human beings.
As Africans, like all other people, we are first and foremost human beings. Although we belong to a particular family, to a clan, a tribe, a community or society that identifies itself as African, we are also citizens of the world sharing that identity with all other human beings.
With this understanding, the Culture of Unity, which is at the heart of our leadership training, is no longer a utopia but a realizable goal.
It follows that our undertaking to transform Africa is really an attempt to create a better world for all. A better Africa, an Africa governed in accordance with democracy and in which social justice and transparency are realized, can only translate into a better world. It is this transformation that we are all committed to achieve. In this connection, therefore, and inspired by our better understanding of who we are,
we again rededicate ourselves to the task of bringing about transformative leadership in our communities, our countries and our continent and by so doing, transform not only Africa but the whole world.
