The Ambassador of United Kingdom (UK), Neil Bradley, is urging the youths to continue to speak truth to power (governments) and challenge them to be better by demonstrating integrity and commitments to solve problems.
The British envoy further encouraged the young leaders to develop good moral values that will make them agents of transformation for positive change, shaping who they are and what they want to be.
Amb. Bradley spoke to COHORT 7 of the Young Political Leadership School Africa (YPLSA) organized by NAYMOTE and its partners which brought together many dignitaries and several young African leaders from across West Africa.
He emphasized that humility and respect are two important attributes that young people should cultivate as they seek leadership because good leaders live and lead by example and show respect to each other by sharing their expertise or knowledge to build each other up.
According to him, instead of letting or allowing their past mistakes retard their progress, young people should rather use those mistakes to their advantage by learning from them to improve their decisions and other aspects of their leadership or entire lives.
Amb. Bradley concluded by encouraging young people to be proud of what they do to help improve the lives of others in their communities and countries and always do the right things and stay true to who they are.
Additionally, the Charge’ d Affairs of the United Embassy, Alyson Grunder, also stressed humility as the hallmark for developing good leadership skills and achieving great things.
She urged the young people who have gathered for a week-long leadership training to listen to people with good leadership skills as well as their colleagues to sharpen their own leadership abilities.
Madam Grunder noted that instead competing for the already scare resources, young people should join hands and work together building networks to improve their communities and countries as large.
Also, former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf underscored the importance of youth empowerment and human resource or capacity development as the best means by which any country development can be sustained.
The former Liberian Chief Executive mentioned that the President Young Professionals Program and several initiatives developed under her watch; some of which are still functioning as some of the gains made by her government in promoting the interest of young people.
The goal or objective according to Madam Sirleaf was to train young Liberian from across the country and bring in others from around the world with the passion and dedication to serve their nation regardless of tribe, political or social background.
She encouraged young people to be focused and learn from every given opportunity to improve their skills as leaders for the benefit of their countries and applauded NAYMOTE and all others organizers for continuing to promote the interest of young people.
The Young Political Leadership School Africa (YPLS Africa) is a political organizing, leadership development and campaign training program for emerging young African leaders established in April 2016 by Naymote Partners for Democratic Development.
The overarching goal of the program is to contribute to the formation of a new generation of leaders that would transform Africa with the following objectives: increase the knowledge and skills among young people in planning, organizing, and implementing political events; Increase the number of young people stepping forward to seek political offices at different levels of the governance structures.
The program convenes young politicians and youth activists with a passion for supporting good governance, policy advocacy, fostering transparency in government, and mobilizing their communities to ensure that government officials are accountable to the people.
The YPLS Africa challenges, inspires, motivate and spark new insights for participants to become transformational and/or servant leaders in their generation.
The YPLS Africa is a great platform to democratically transform the African continent and improve democratic governance through well experienced, accountable, accessible and responsive young African leaders.
Since April 2016, 530 young politicians and activists have participated in the YPLS Africa program and completed six cohort, they are playing active roles in the political processes of their countries.