“The legacy of Nelson Mandela means following a structured way of leadership, leadership that is positive, selfless, and contributing to your society," according to Isaac Gyamfi Korang, a Mandela Washington Fellow at the University of Delaware. "I think that is what Mandela stood for, giving himself out to the service of people in South Africa and all of Africa.”

Each year on Mandela International Day, which is organized by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the United Nations, people from across the globe are called upon to devote 67 minutes to their communities in honor of the leader’s 67 years of service to humanity.

On July 18, Korang and 24 other UD Mandela Washington Fellows spent their morning with children at Wilmington’s Kuumba Academy and St. Michael’s School and Nursery, each teaching the students about their home communities in Africa.

“The approach that we took was to educate the learners here, elementary age and younger, about Africa and create awareness of this continent that is mistaken as a country,” said Nokuzola Songo, a Mandela Washington Fellow from South Africa. “That is what we have been doing today and it took form as songs, dance, jumping around and playing, chanting, and sort of creating excitement about and around Africa.”

“These children live in the city of Wilmington and I work with students who may not have ever been to Washington, D.C. These may be the first people from various countries in Africa that they have met,” said Atnre Alleyne, founder of TeenSHARP and education advocacy fellow with 50CAN. “For them, it expanded their world a little bit… I think it pushed them at the beginning level to challenge some of the assumptions they have about Africa.”

The fellows, who are in the midst of a six-week leadership program at UD, took in key information about the education systems of Delaware and the United States. Their hour of service was followed by a day of keynote speakers from around the state, including executive director of TeenSharp Tatiana Poladko Alleyne, a panel of TeenSharp students, former Delaware Secretary of Education Mark Murphy, CEO and founder of Summer Collaborative Catherine Lindroth, Thomas Edison Charter School teacher Nate Durant and founder of LYTE Scholars Ankur Arya.

For fellow Faith Masupa, founder and CEO of the Mother of Millions Foundation, the day’s service and focus on education was particularly relevant to her life at home. “My experience in the United States so far at the University of Delaware and today’s community service at St. Michael’s community school has just brought about a zeal to see my world differently. When I walked into the children’s class, I remember my own children back home in Zambia.”

Masupa continued by saying that her long-term celebration of Mandela’s legacy will be to use her experiences in the United States to improve the communities in her home country. “I am thankful that I am one of the Mandela Washington Fellows and I am here to take my great experience back to Zambia and Africa as a whole. I have been challenged and I look forward to becoming a better leader.”

About the Mandela Washington Fellowship at UD

The Mandela Washington Fellowship is the flagship program of President Barack Obama’s Young African Leader’s Initiative and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with support from IREX. Founded in 2014, the fellowship seeks to empower young leaders from sub-Saharan Africa to continue creating change and designing innovative solutions to the continent’s most pressing challenges.

UD’s six-week Civic Leadership Institute, administered by the Institute for Global Studies with the help of partners across campus, further prepares the 25 leaders by addressing six main themes: leadership, social media and information and communication technologies (ICT), good governance, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and organizational development. Fellows are also paired with a peer collaborator, leaders from local and regional non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies.

UD officials said the University is privileged to have hosted the Mandela Washington Fellowship since its inception and for three years in a row.

Follow along on Instagram and Twitter @UDGlobal as the 2016 UD Mandela Washington Fellows complete their journey in the United States and travel back to their home communities. Engage using the hashtags #UDMWF and #YALI2016.