Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph’s “Africave” announces 23 African Teenagers for Inaugural Fellowship

Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph, a 2018 Queen’s Young Leader has announced the inaugural cohort of Africave fellows. The 23 fellows hail from 7 countries across Africa and represent some of the continent’s most-ambitious people under the age of 20.

Africave’s inaugural fellows have built an electricity plant from scrap that powers seven
communities in Sierra Leone; are creating an affordable and all-natural solution to end
malaria in Ghana; are South Africa’s Under-12 Diving champion; have been invited to
the Nobel Prize award ceremony; have spoken at TEDx events; are one of the youngest
Chartered Accountants in Nigeria, and are on South Africa’s team at the 2019 World
Gymnaestrada Games.

The inaugural cohort of 23 fellows were carefully selected from 804 applications from 26 countries. For the rest of the year, the selected fellows will be each paired with Africave’s highly-accomplished mentors who will guide their growth.

According to Africave, all other applicants who were not selected have been invited to join a special community where Africave will continue to monitor their growth, provide them with courses for self-development and access to world-class speakers every month.

Africave seeks to connect Africa’s youths to global opportunities for self-development. Its flagship mentoring program connects highly-accomplished mentors to teenagers on the continent who guide their growth. It also advices global and local organisations looking to leverage Africa’s young people to drive impact.

Guided by the values of social impact, value-creation and integrity, Africave hopes to leverage the unique expertise of its partners to grow and deliver impact to its fellows.

The inaugural Africave Fellows are:

Aishah Ayomide Ojibara, 18 (Nigeria)

Aishah Ojibara is a third-year student of the University of Ilorin, currently studying Health Education. Alongside her schoolmates, she created the Mental Awareness Group (M. A. G), an organization which spreads awareness about mental illnesses to erase harmful stereotypes about mental health among students. Aishah interned with the Health Alive Foundation in Ilorin, where she specialized in tuberculosis awareness, school outreach programmes, HIV testing and prevention schemes, among others. Aishah is a writer and debater. When she’s not working on her collection of short stories or working in health, she is talking about sports.

Archibong Edem Bassey, 19 (Nigeria)

Archibong is a Child & Adolescent Advocate focusing on giving children and adolescents a voice in the society by ensuring promotion and adoption of healthy lifestyles, making informed decisions and prevention of an unplanned future. He cares about street children and adolescents, advocating for their rights and pushing for an end to witchcraft branding.

Arinola Omisore Kawthar, 18 (Nigeria)

Omisore Kawthar studies Law at the University of Ibadan. Her passion for global citizenship education led her to joining One African Child, a foundation for qualitative learning where she contributes to efforts to provide education to children. She is the General secretary for the Ibadan region. Kawthar is an ambassador of HundrED, a global network of young change makers who are passionate about changing the face of education in their communities and across the world.

Bridget Adams, 14 (South Africa)

Bridget currently studies at Meisies Hoërskool in Pretoria. As an active sports woman, she has participated in different South African championships representing the Gauteng team in Rhythmic gymnastics as well as Synchronized swimming. In July 2019, Bridget will join South Africa’s team to Austria for the World Gymnaestrada Games. Thereafter she will compete in Germany at the Gymnastica tournament. In the future Bridget wishes to continue her passion for sports, and one day be involved in a way to assist people in developing their full potential using sport as a means.

Chelsea Jordan Lewis, 19 (South Africa)

Chelsea Lewis is pursuing a Degree in International Business at the American College of Spain and is also a member of Code4CPT. Prior to moving to Spain, Chelsea worked for Code4CT in Cape Town. A program that assist young women to develop skills in technology and leadership.

Chelsea also volunteered at SA Deskbuddy Foundation, an organization providing educational tools to African children. Chelsea was born as the middle child with two siblings in Cape Town South Africa, she is passionate about the development of women in STEM and the advancement of technology and education in Africa.

David Mwafulango, 18 (Tanzania)

A student of Agricultural economics at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania, David has an ambition to modernize the agricultural landscape in East Africa by leveraging on technology to ensure that a large number of East African farmers are able to access the global agricultural market.

Dominica Amanfoo, 18 (Ghana)

Currently one of the few female Computer Engineering students at the University of Ghana, Dominica dreams of inventing apps and machines to help make the world become a better place. She has interned at Ghana’s leading fashion brand, Adjoa Yeboah, and is on the management team of The Lady.

Duke Ekezie-Joseph (Nigeria)

He’s a 400 level student of Policy and Administrative Studies at the University of Calabar. Startled by the number of young persons in his home country of Nigeria who were nonchalant about shaping the sociopolitical and cultural discourse, Duke decided to take action. He is the creator of Youspeak – a youth-led organization that aims to teach leadership and problem-solving skills to young people.

Elyse Mukundente, 18 (Rwanda)

Elyse studies at the prestigious African Leadership University. She is currently undergoing a leadership core which comprises Project management, Data and decision skills, strategic social change communication, and Entrepreneurial leadership skills. She aspires to pursue her studies in Global affairs, with a specialization in Governance and International Trade.

Emmanuel Segun Samuel, 18 (Nigeria)

Samuel is a student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and he is passionate about growing businesses to impact their environment. He currently runs Jofry with some colleagues: an enterprise tailored to provide job opportunities for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Kaduna state, Nigeria. Jofry will teach these young people digital skills and offer them digital jobs once their training is completed.

Faith Adesayo, 19 (Nigeria)

Faith is a final year student of Covenant University with internship experiences in Consulting (working for KPMG) and the Oil and Gas industry. She is the first Female Lead speaker of The A-Students Summit, a platform where she teaches students on how best to excel in life and not just academics. She has the goal of becoming the First Female Central Bank Governor of Nigeria to enable her drive economic change in Nigeria and increase economic opportunities for women. She currently serves as the Head of Research in a fast-growing Non-Profit organization called Nurturing God’s Treasures, which seeks to develop the skills and talents in the African child by teaching vocational skills using multiple intelligence.

Jordanella Maluka, 18 (DR Congo and Tanzania)

Jordanella is a young Tanzanian and Congolese, raised in Sweden. She has been a member of the Youth Council in her municipality, which allows youths to influence political decisions that concern them. In 2015, Jordanella co-created the social media campaign called #LåtbrödernaShabanistanna when 2 brothers at her school were forcefully deported.

Gerald Mukama, 18 (Tanzania)

Gerald was raised in Dar Es Salaam Tanzania by his mother. His passion for building solutions led him to learning how to code in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Python. He went on to receive a Certificate in Information and Technology.

Isaac Popoola, 18 (Nigeria)

Isaac is a student at the University of Lagos majoring in Petroleum and Gas Engineering. Isaac is passionate about developing Africa with major concerns on the Energy sector. He is the Cofounder/Strategy lead for the GoalKeepers Network, an SDGs awareness campaign aimed at reaching out to youths across West Africa about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Kehinde Totoola, 18 (Nigeria)

Kehinde is fascinated by technology. He’s always inquisitive hence his passion for learning how various tech works. His passion was discovered from his activities in taking coding classes as a beneficiary of the Teens Can Code program. That program is the ink to Kenny’s coding career. An internship outside his state of residence gave him the opportunity to step out of the comfort zone and meet new young people. His experience working with passionate young people from all over his country grounded his belief that African youths are the leaders of today.

Korede Bolarinwa, 19 (Nigeria)

Oluwakorede Bolarinwa was born in Lagos and is current undergraduate of Babcock University where she is studying Accounting. She is interested in the relationship between finance and technology thus is pursuing internships at leading Consulting firms. In the course of her academic pursuits, Korede has won many awards.

At 19, she has completed and qualified as a Chartered Accountant. She served as Executive Council for her university’s Accounting Students Association. She very recently joined Andela: Africa’s foremost technology firm for training software engineers.

Othandwayo Nobula, 17 (South Africa)

Othandwayo was born in the Eastern Cape, Queenstown, South Africa. After starting school at the age of 6, she took interest in various activities geared towards self-development including chess, singing, netball and reading books. She joined her high-school’s debate club and it afforded her the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life and build her cross-cultural competence. Since 2015, she has participated in the National Championships and has been selected as one of the best debaters in South Africa. Othandwayo currently heads her school’s Centre Of Science and Technology, will study computer science in the coming year, and in future aspires to become a software engineer: a field that many girls in her country do not have access to.

Prince Nyarko Mensah (Ghana)

Prince founded Youth Macho, to empower young Ghanaians with skills to be agents of change in their communities. Prince is an avid learner and reader always looking for opportunities to develop himself to take on challenges that confront Africa.
Prince is currently building an effective, all-natural mosquito repellant to prevent malaria in the world.

Samuel Moses Elba, 18 (Sierra Leone)

Samuel is a first-year student at Africa Leadership University pursuing a Bachelor’s honors in Global Challenge with a focus on Renewable and Environmental conservation. The zest to solve problems in his community through entrepreneurship informed his decision to choose innovation as his long-term commitment.

Stephen John Paul Adams, 13 (South Africa)

Stephen is currently South Africa’s under-12 Champion in Diving, and ended third 2 years ago in the SA Judo championships. At the age of 9, Stephen undertook a 7-week research trip by road from Pretoria to Nairobi. Meeting new people and learning the various ways in which people live has always interested him to learning about how he can make a difference.

Pascal Manor-Whiteman, 19 (Ghana)

Pascal is a Bachelor’s student from Ghana. He is a college junior currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Ghana. He earned his Secondary School Certificate from Ada Senior High School in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana.

He was recently selected and is serving as a volunteer for the Kids and Math Organization in Ghana, where he teaches Junior High School students at the Accra ChildTime High School, basic concepts and applications in Math using innovative teaching techniques.

Temple Izuchukwu Clifford, 18 (Nigeria)

Clifford is an 18 year old speaker, debater and content creator from Nigeria. He currently attends the Imo State University where he studies Law. Temple is very passionate about social change and is committed to serving as an agent of change.

In 2018 he started The Clifford Temple Story, a platform on YouTube and other social media platforms dedicated to sharing impactful stories with a seamless blend of spoken word poetry in order to draw attention to certain social situations and coming up with responses, thoughts and positive solutions directed towards leading a better life.

Toluwani Eyitayo Adebayo, 19 (Nigeria)

Toluwani is a medical doctor in training at Bowen University, Nigeria. For the past two years, Toluwani has worked to destigmatize mental health in her come country where people with mental health conditions are abused. She deploys measurable actions to change perspectives around mental health and provide care to mental health patients.

Read more about the fellows here.