Highlights From the Future African Leaders Awards 2021

The future African leaders awards was marred with an incredible selection of recipients and guests. Among the prestigious guests includes the former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan,

Former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olugbenga Obasanjo

And former African Union Ambassador and Founder/President ADDI, Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao.

Among the recipients of this award were the following incredible young leaders:

The 1^st winner was Anna Maneno Michael Milla,

This outstanding 20 year old from South Sudan is a dynamic and resolute human rights activist and a pioneer of various initiatives. Among her many achievements, Anna raised $10,000 for homeless and vulnerable families, her team distributed food and other essentials to over 2000 orphanages as well as small business owners whose livelihood was affected by lockdown period.

She organized farmers’ support programs—a campaign that raised $2500 to buy tools for 50 farmers. She also sourced for funds for a borehole project in the local community thus providing water for 1500+ residents. Anna’s continuous work in advocacy resulted in her nomination to attend workshops on drafting a new constitution for South Sudan. Additionally, in light of her contribution at the African Youth Summit in 2021 and at nation at large, she has been appointed by national parliament of South Sudan as a youth representative and will resume parliament sittings and be a part of major national decisions.

The 2^nd winner was Cesar Komi Aguidi.

Cesar is a 23 year old vibrant, self driven, inspiring, and passionate youth from Togo. He created and influenced and organization aimed at youth leadership development. He held conferences that have reached 5000+ youths in Togo and West Africa. He’s also organized success motivational projects in Ghana, and Togo, impacting thousands of students. He is an ambassador of peace and organized Peace for Togo conference were he taught over 200 young leaders about civic values and how to prevent chaos during elections.

On Africa day, he partnered with the Togolese television stations to broadcast a program motivating youths to solve challenges in their communities thereby reaching 15+ million people in Togo.

The 3^rd winner was Destiny Funstani.

Zulu is a 21 year old, visionary, young leader from Zambia and the founder of Light of the World organization. He has sponsored orphanages and helped orphans get back to school with scholarships and the provisional school supplies underscores his passion for lifting others up. He has helped over 100 orphans and secured up to tertiary level scholarships for 69 candidates. He had further raised funds to sponsor tuition for 500 pupils.

He has impacted over 10,000 young people with fashion design workshops for disabled youths, personal hygiene campaigns to help under privileged girls, tutorials and provisions of textbooks for literacy and remedial classes, drug abuse sensitization and rehabilitation campaigns, skills development courses for street kids, and many more.

The 4^th winner was Hilary Nakitare.

Hillary is a 23 year old passionate Kenyan who has partnered with global corporations to provide sanitary towels to school girls and has organized personal hygiene awareness programs in the slums of Kenya. In his activism for environmental conservation, he acquired a 2 acre land for planting tree seedlings to keep Kenya breathing in partnership with the ministry of land and forestry. Over 600,000 seedlings have been planted across Kenya. This project also provided employment for 5 families.

Working with the Ankara organization, he provided food, medical services and environmental sanitation to those displaced by heavy rains in Eastleigh, Nairobi impacting more than 1000 families.

The 5^th winner was Manzi Guevara.

Manzi is a self driven leader from Rwanda with a strong passion for impacting lives. He worked with community leaders to sponsor medical insurance for 1060 families and granted 3000+ beneficiaries free healthcare for a year. He created a digital healthcare service that helps hospitals manage blood donation processes and he also sources for donors.

Following his outstanding initiatives, Manzi is a role model to other young people. He inspires many through radio programs where he challenges them to act for the greater good. Manzi and his team organized 13 youth development programs on mind management and productive self-expression. Over 4800 youths benefited from the program and 3500 of them received free copies of Christian material. He led a team of 15 volunteers to meet over 300 students whom they mentor weekly.

The 6^th winner was Isaac Ingida.

Isaac is a 23 year old social activist from Nigeria who embarked on projects to alleviate the effects of the anguish caused by the insurrections in communities across Plateau State, Nigeria. He partnered with others to sensitize 200 leaders from 13 communities on peaceful co-existence following attacks by gunmen.

In the aftermath of the End SARS protests, Isaac’s team helped renovate a police station in his community. He also partnered with CYPA Africa and the Plateau state government in Nigeria to repair a community which was destroyed by insurgence. The project involved building a community library and tech hub for over 5000 youths. His team also built 4 new toilets for the community clinic.

The 6^th winner was Emmanuel Finnawah.

Emmanuel is a 23 year old young leader and technology enthusiast from Ghana. In January of 2021, he launched a back-to-school campaign that provided cleaning supplies for 100 schools in 5 districts in the Greater Accra region, impacting about 90,000 students.

He developed the science box which is a learning aid for practical studies with 50 experiments in physics, chemistry, and biology. He and his team also developed a mobile app that provides learning guides to students at all levels. Over 13,000 students were also reached via video CD versions of the lessons of the app in remote communities. He also organized success motivational conferences for over 300,000 high school students in 8 regions across Ghana to inspire them to the next level.

The 7^th winner was Nervis Tetsop.

Nevis is a 23 year old innovator and community builder from Cameroon who utilizes technology to inspire change and has impacted almost 3000 through workshops and seminars. He founded NervTek to create a tech ecosystem for innovation and to boost technological advancement. The NervTek community currently has 2000+ young leaders.

Following the insurgencies in South Western Cameroon, Nervis advocates for children to return to school and funds tuition for 100 displaced children with grants obtained from awards that he wins. He has also financed a food drive to feed 40 orphans and distribute free Christian materials.

The 8^th winner was Deo-Gratias Meyou.

Deo-Gratias is a human rights activist from the republic of Benin who is committed to the health, social welfare, growth and development of children and youth. He has carried out various youth empowerment programs in 6 high schools and 3 universities across 3 major cities in Benin and has impacted over 10,000 students with educational trainings and free Christian materials partnering with the National Program Against Malaria, Deo-Gratias organized Stop au PALU which means stop malaria, a campaign in a community with the highest case of Malaria and infant mortality and this benefited over 200 children.

He worked with RedCross to organize blood donation campaigns and raised awareness on preventive measures against high blood pressure. For sustainable food supply, Deo-Gratias launched the Young African Farmers Initiative where 500 students from 4 provinces in Benin were trained on modern technologies on agriculture, small and large scale food production, and environmental preservation and improvement.

Finally,10^th winner was Prisca Torboal.

Prisca is a 23 year old courageous and dynamic youth leader from the Republic of Chad who facilitated an entrepreneurship and skills acquisition program where 40 beneficiaries have started new businesses with investment from Philanthropic individuals.

She adopted a primary school which she renovated 2 classrooms, distributed Christian materials, and also volunteers as a teacher. She organized 2 Christian evangelical programs and organized a concert where she had 1100+ young attendees with 300 people converted to Christ. She regularly visits a local orphanage where she mentors children through weekly study sessions that instills the right mindset in the young ones. She went on a missionary trip in a region known for regularly kidnapping and killing pastors where she and her team reached 995 people, pioneered a church for teenagers with zero kidnappings recorded.

These were the main highlights of the glamorous 31 December, 2021 Future African Leaders Award ceremony.