For the past three summers, Michigan State University has become a crossroads of cultures and ideas, as it hosts a cohort of young leaders from across sub-Saharan Africa.
Participants in the Mandela Washington Fellowship, a program through the U.S. Department of State’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), spent six weeks in Michigan engaging in rigorous leadership seminars and community service in the Greater Lansing area.
Since the program's inception in 2014, educational institutions across 35 states have hosted fellows in three spheres of leadership – business, public management and, in MSU’s case, civic engagement.
Among the 25 fellows who graced Michigan State’s campus this summer, some were advocates for marginalized communities, holding multiple degrees in a variety of fields.
Irene David-Arinze, a multimedia journalist from Nigeria and founder of her own digital media organization, dedicates her career to promoting social justice and fact-checking across Africa.
“I am a fundamentally kind person,” said David-Arinze. “I say to people who want to listen, you shouldn’t be kind only when you think it’s convenient.”
Community engagement is at the heart of the Mandela Washington Fellowship experience at MSU. Over the course of the fellows’ stay, they partnered with local nonprofits like the Allen Neighborhood Center, the Justice League of Greater Lansing, the Women’s Center of Greater Lansing and Peckham.
WKAR joined David-Arinze and five other fellows at Peckham, which offers employment and skill development programs for individuals with disabilities, to focus on inclusion and empowerment.
"I come here embodying those people who may not be able to gain access to the level of exposure and education that I've gotten within these six weeks, and I have to take it back home."Irene David-Arinze
In an open dialogue with a group of fellows and Peckham staff, David-Arinze highlighted the common misconceptions many people in Nigeria have regarding people with disabilities, and the important role advocacy plays in dispelling myths.
“The community doesn’t see them as able to do anything or contribute,” David-Arinze said. “But Peckham has literally broken every glass ceiling that says that is not possible.”
Kristina Zwick is the coordinator of Peckham’s self-advocacy program, which aims to influence policies affecting people with disabilities through non-partisan advocacy and education.
Zwick said the synergy between Peckham’s mission and the fellows’ own aspirations highlights the universal nature of their efforts – breaking down barriers, fostering independence and creating lasting change.
“We were able to really structure the time that we had with the fellows to create as much engagement as possible with our self-advocates,” Zwick said. “It’s been just so exciting to see the back and forth and the ideas exchanged and the relationships that are built across cultures.”
Fellows toured the non-profit’s Lansing facilities not only as observers, but as active participants, engaging with workers and learning about the cutting-edge technologies that support accessibility in the workplace. The fellows, some with disabilities themselves, spoke with employees who shared their experiences working at Peckham and offered insights into how the organization integrates assistive technology.
Peckham’s work was personal to one fellow, Thuthula Sodumo, who advocates for disability rights in South Africa. As a power chair user herself, Sodumo reflected on her own experiences as a disabled woman and the accommodation she received during her tenure as a Mandela Washington fellow.
“I was anticipating all of these challenges and one of them was, will I be able to live my life independently? But the level of independence and the thoughtfulness,” Sodumo said. “Doors open for you, doors are kind here!”
Sodumo shared her thoughts on Ubuntu, an African philosophy rooted in the belief that our humanity is interconnected. She explained how Ubuntu emphasizes compassion and humanity, values that deeply resonate with the fellows’ respective work and Peckham’s goals.
“We come here and embody the spirit of Nelson Mandela, which is the spirit of Ubuntu,” Sodumo said. “We come here and break barriers, we come here and connect. We now know that we’re going to go back to our communities and take that intentionality that the U.S. has for people with disabilities.”
The Mandela Washington Fellowship celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, marking a decade of empowering almost 6,500 emerging African leaders to sharpen their expertise and contribute their perspectives to effect change in communities across the globe.
This year's fellows concluded their experiences in the program with a summit in Washington, D.C., where they joined nearly 700 young African leaders who participated at other institute partners.
Mandela Washington Fellowship directors like Salah Hassan say the fellows' journey, while reaching a milestone here in East Lansing, is far from over.
“Their impact will resonate far beyond their time at MSU,” Hassan said. “Influencing communities and shaping policies for years to come. We joke sometimes, that some of them will become presidents in their home country. But this is only a joke today, you don’t know where they’ll be tomorrow.”
