Today we start a special month-long campaign. What makes it different from our previous blogs and stories, is that we are turning the spotlight on the work, skills and passions of our colleagues, who work at inHive’s partner organisations.
These skilled project managers, team leaders and analysts from Pakistan, Rwanda and the UK are the hidden stars in our work. They are the doers, movers and shakers. They do it all: from the daily emails with alumni network leaders, to designing and delivering training, conducting surveys, and articulating the strategic vision of alumni networks. They are indispensable part of our mission to foster social change and improve the life chances of young people and their communities. Throughout November, we will publish stories we co-wrote with Elie, Unaza, and Pippa – young professionals with whom we have worked as part of our projects at the Mastercard Foundation, the CARE Foundation, and Police Now. We hope that the stories of their past experiences, career development and future ambitions will show what it means to partner with inHive in practical terms. If inHive’s texts can serve as a frame, then our partners’ blogs are the pictures: they depict some of the key challenges and issues in their sectors and countries. Together they should offer you a way to better understand what it means to build alumni networks for social change.
More opportunities to learn by doing is what young Rwandans need
By Ján Michalko and Elie Mandela, Analyst, the Mastercard Foundation, Rwanda
The Mastercard Foundation’s Alumni Network is one of the world’s largest global youth networks in the making. It will bring together alumni from the Foundation’s various programmes to generate a movement of engaged African youth and connect like-minded young people, activities, and opportunities to drive social and economic change across the continent.
The task of enabling it to happen might be quite daunting. But who would be a better choice to work alongside a national committee of young people, than a young leader like Elie?
Elie used to lead an alumni network in Rwanda and has a lot of experience in partnership management. He was in his new role at the Foundation for only a few weeks when our inHive team joined him and his colleagues in Kigali in December 2019. Together we ran a planning workshop outlining the first steps of launching the Mastercard Foundation Alumni Network chapters in Ghana, Uganda and Rwanda.
During the kick-off meeting we spent many hours sitting over colour post-its and flip-charts discussing how to make the committees inclusive and empowering for young leaders. Since then, Elie has paired up with my colleague Madeleine to provide training and guidance for the chapter’s committee in Rwanda. I’ve also had several opportunities to work with Elie, not least on our learning and evaluation framework. In every interaction I’ve had with him, it has been clear that he is an advocate for bringing young people to the decision-making table.
Giving young people voice and opportunities
Elie believes in giving young people opportunities to lead and learn by doing, which is why he writes about the importance of extra-curricular activities and employability. His views and learning preferences are embedded in his own experience as a student.
Elie started his career in public health and worked on community initiatives and projects, organising conferences or arranging logistics amongst other tasks. His previous role was with a large multi-national corporation, for which he set up research partnerships in Rwanda and which made him well prepared to support the alumni chapter.
Elie continues to develop and grow in his current role in our partnership. For example, he highlights to me his work on designing the online portal for alumni to apply for a role on the national committees that he put together as a Lego.
There are other tasks ahead of us to support the committees, such as brokering relationships with partners in the country and communicating the chapter’s vision to various audiences. Needless to say, with Elie’s problem-solving attitude, he will use these tasks as opportunities to perfect his abilities to deconstruct, analyse and put-together better and more efficient processes.
Elie writes…
I am an ardent advocate for extra-curricular activities because of the impact they have had on me. I am a first-generation university graduate in my family. Growing up in Rwanda, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. Though, when I think about it now, it was most probably an idea that was planted in my head by my family rather than my own. I envisioned myself as a Rwandan Ben Carson, one of the most famous black-American doctors and neurosurgeon that separated conjoined twins in his career on multiple occasions.
When I didn’t get into medical school, I ended up doing pharmacy, although my next choice would have been computer science. But, when I tried to change from pharmacy, I did not have support from my parents since pharmacy was a government sponsored course and my choice was in a private university. I am, nevertheless, glad I did not change my course, because it gave me the space to meet people that would help me find myself and what I truly wanted to do.
Finding myself
Deep inside I knew the course I was doing was not what I wanted to work in. So I kept looking for what else was interesting. But given that dropping out was out of question (for a good reason), I had to find other interesting things while in school. I went to a campus that had the most active and advanced student-led organizations among the multiple colleges at the University of Rwanda. I was at the right place. That is where I met student-led organizations.
My interest in computers and information technology led to my involvement in one of the organizations. They were having challenges with their website and wanted to build a new one. So, I volunteered to help them work on it. I had never done this before. All I had were a few hours of tutorials from a friend, and off I went with the project, working on it by myself.
In the process of building the website, I had to seek more information about the ongoing work of the organization to post on the website. The more I read about the work they were doing the more I got fascinated by what these students were able to do. I knew I wanted to be part of the organization. So, I stayed and actively got involved. In the process of learning and working on new things, I went through different stages when I developed multiple “passions”. When I look back, I think of them as interests rather than passions. At one point, I was sure I would be working in public health for the rest of my life, picturing myself at the World Health Organization. At another, it was non-communicable diseases or social entrepreneurship. I developed these passions or interests as I was interacting with the world outside of the classroom, exploring what careers were out there, and meeting interesting people who could guide me in my search. With the exposure, I had created options that I could choose from. This is what extra-curricular activities afforded me which I could not get from my school.
I am at a point in life where I think my life’s mission is to enable young people in Rwanda and Africa to thrive, through various initiatives and programs from the work we do. The Alumni network is such an initiative. The network allows Africa’s young leaders doing great work in their communities to connect and learn from each other, enabling them to scale their impact and grow as leaders in their fields.
Untapped opportunity
In many schools In Rwanda, there is little to no structure for career guidance or mentorship. For example, the schools I went to were poorly resourced, teachers were overstretched, and they mostly focused on your grades. Extra-curriculars were mostly student led, had little to no supervision from school staff, and were not well resourced. These challenges, however, provided students the space to become leaders, solve problems, and innovate. It was an opportunity to fail and learn from mistakes because no one was directing us and keeping an eye on everything we were doing.
Similarly extra curriculars at university allowed me to explore career options with little risk and enabled me to have an idea of what I was most interested in. This is an opportunity that is not available to most, because they do not get the chance to explore what their interests are, when the risks are low. It is more difficult to start exploring when they are already on the job market. Besides, extra-curricular activities provide the opportunity to develop skills needed for the job market. In the five years that I was at university, I learned to develop and implement projects, run events, fundraise, speak in public and most importantly, work in teams and manage people.
One day I hope to study (or get involved in studying) how to quantify the value and importance of extra-curricular activities in the Rwandan/African context. They can unleash the potential of Africa’s young people by enabling them to find themselves and develop the skills they need to thrive just like they did for me.
A big thank you to Elie for his contribution this week. Stay tuned for next week’s installment of the Spotlight Series!