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 2nd
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
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| 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