Lead Where You Are

What comes into your mind when you here the word Leadership? For many, it’s a figure of someone in a top position privileges, capable of issuing commands and one who stands aloof from the common man. They imagine of a commander, and the ones being led as subjects. This, however, is not the case for youths in Nakuru county. Last week the 2^nd of May 2019, we had a great event at the Kenya National Library as our Art4Leadership Episode II of the year. If you are just reading this blog for the first time, this is musical concert in which we invite professional speakers from various spectra of life to inspire youths towards positive social change. In January, we tackled a topic on Education for peace where our guest speaker was Mr. Winnie Machila, the Head Teacher at Milimani Primary School. You can read about the event here: African Dream

Joseck Addressing Youths

The facilitators for the last week’s event were Mr. Joseck Olala a YALI Alumnus and ICT Officer at the Nakuru Knls and Dowe Music & Arts director, Mr. Douglas Ogutu. The eagerness in the faces of the youths and their timely attendance as well as their abundance is enough to tell you that young people long for a better Kenya, if not Africa at large. The event, themed “LEAD WHERE YOU ARE: The Africa We Want” was graced by Dowe Music Band with the main song being “The African Dream.” This song is not only easy to sing a long but thought provoking through it’s proactive message. Written in the first person, listening to or sing this tune especially the chorus challenges one to reflect on one’s actions and pledge to do what is right. Here are the words of the chorus in Swahili:

Nitatenda mema (I will do what is good)

Nitahesabika (I’ll stand to be counted)

Eh Mungu wangu (Oh My God)

Nisaidie (Help me out)

One can see from this words that the listener is being called to action. The call is for one to shift the paradigm from just delegating responsibility to those in positions of power but realize we all have a role.This tied in so well with the messages from the Speakers. Youths were taught on the effects of poor governance and shown the benefits of sound governance. It was made clear that our actions for or not voting directly affect our lives since governance holds all sectors of livelihoods be it health, economy, infrastructure, education etc. 

Youths participating in the discussion

Mr. Olala reminded the youths that the constitution gives them a right to public participation, questioning actions of the elected leaders as well as demanding that they deliver what they promised. He emphasized that we all must in one accord Say no to PoorLeadership in word and action.

 The second speaker, Mr. Ogutu talked about Servant Leadership. He enlisted qualities of a good leader as expressed in the image below from his presentation. Of the 7 characteristics, “Self-Awareness” came out as the most critical.

“When you get a position to lead, you give the people a chance to know you. They can relate with you easily if they have no difficulty understanding who you are. It becomes a tragedy when you don’t know yourself in the first place,” He said. From the discussions with the attendees, it became clear that poor leadership spearheaded by corruption in Africa is an enormous problem to even think of tackling it. However, they all agreed that it is not impossible. They pledged to be “bold enough to fight patiently even if we ourselves don’t live to see the fruits.”

One of them said, “We have to develop a long-term strategy, not limiting ourselves to election time periods.” It was Impressive seeing such a discourse led by youths themselves. Indeed, it is noble to fight for something that will outlive you. Thank you for taking time to read and hopefully this will spark hope and a desire for a greater Africa than we have now. To listen to the recorded version of the theme song of the day click this link.African Dream