{{For the last 4 weeks, Vincent Kalimba of Kigali has been part of a group of 25 young African leaders from 19 sub-Saharan countries who have been studying community and nonprofit organizations at Wagner College, in the New York City borough of Staten Island. }} <\/p>\n
The Wagner College cohort is part of U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, which has placed 500 men and women in programs at 20 colleges and universities across America this summer.<\/p>\n
Vincent Kalimba is the senior business adviser for Technoserve Rwanda, a program that aims at the sustainable improvement of livelihoods for 15,000 rural youths and their households. <\/p>\n
As the person responsible for capacity building and community engagement, Vincent hopes to contribute to the implementation of the Action4Change Initiative, a program designed to empower Rwandan youths to build their capacity around leadership, entrepreneurship and management in order to enhance their readiness, competitiveness and preparedness to seize economic and leadership opportunities.<\/p>\n
Each Washington Fellowship institution focuses on one of three areas: public management, business and entrepreneurship, or civic leadership. <\/p>\n
Wagner College, the only small college selected for the Washington Fellowship, was chosen by the U.S. State Department for the civic leadership curriculum because of its groundbreaking Port Richmond Partnership, which links Wagner professors, classes and students with 20 different community agencies, schools and churches in a nearby Staten Island community.<\/p>\n
Wagner College President Richard Guarasci laid out the basic theory underlying the Port Richmond Partnership and everything else his school does to engage with the community in a constructive, collaborative way:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that true leadership has less to do with power, rank or authority and more to do with the ability to bring together diverse groups of people in a common purpose and a shared vision of a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have had a great experience at Wagner,\u201d said Mireille Muhigwa, who advocates for the rights of women and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo. \u201cFor me, Wagner is both a spring of knowledge about civic leadership and a family for me. <\/p>\n
I am surrounded by amazing people, happy and kind, who fully appreciate the beauty of the diversity of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wagner\u2019s Washington Fellows, as the 25 young leaders are called, spend equal parts of their day engaged in classroom lectures and discussions, and visiting many different kinds of community organizations in the field to see first-hand how they operate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe site visits and classroom discussions have been well planned and well thought out, and I feel that I have had great exposure to the way that systems work in the United States,\u201d said Araba Hammond, chief operations officer for Village of Hope, a major Ghanaian NGO, \u201cand the opportunity to fraternize with other young Africans and discuss the similarities and differences in our countries\u2019 problems has been priceless.<\/p>\n
I look forward to using the experiences gathered so far to improve my work and become a resource and a mentor to other young Africans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among Wagner College\u2019s many community partners, the Washington Fellows\u2019 field experiences have taken them to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation to learn about international development and philanthropy; the Mozilla Labs Hive learning network to study a variety of interactive, tech-based community endeavors; and Lifestyles for the Disabled, a Staten Island enterprise that occupies part of the former Willowbrook State School campus.<\/p>\n
The Lifestyles visit was emblematic of the Washington Fellows\u2019 field experiences while studying together at Wagner College.<\/p>\n
Shortly after World War II, Willowbrook was opened as a school for developmentally disabled children. Its capacity was 4,000 students, but at its peak it warehoused as many as 9,000 people, according to Richard Salinardi, a 1969 Wagner graduate who has worked on the site ever since earning his degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened here was \u2026 nothing,\u201d Salinardi said. \u201cIt was a place where people were kept, fed and existed \u2014 nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n
A series of investigations by politicians like Robert F. Kennedy and expos\u00e9s by journalists like Geraldo Rivera resulted in Willowbrook being closed down.<\/p>\n
It was replaced by a network of small, locally run organizations throughout the state that ministered to the needs of the disabled in their own communities. <\/p>\n
On Staten Island, that local organization is Lifestyles for the Disabled. Ironically, its home is the former Willowbrook campus, and its director is former Willowbrook employee Richard Salinardi.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we don\u2019t put the emphasis on the \u2018dis\u2019 in disability,\u201d Salinardi said as he led Wagner\u2019s Washington Fellows on a tour of the Lifestyles facility. \u201cWe focus on the \u2018ability\u2019 \u2014 on the many, many things that our participants are able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lifestyles campus includes a caf\u00e9, commercial greenhouses, a laundry, building maintenance shops, a woodworking shop and a radio station, all run by the program\u2019s participants with help from staff and community volunteers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a tremendous irony to being here, at the Willowbrook State School campus,\u201d said Wagner College education professor David Gordon, whose research specialty is education for the developmentally disabled. \u201cIf the buildings could talk, they would tell you some real horror stories about the way people with disabilities were once treated here. The irony is that today, with Lifestyles for the Disabled operating on the same campus, there are some really wonderful opportunities being created for those same people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Washington Fellows\u2019 experience at Lifestyles made a powerful impression.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one that I will never forget,\u201d said Samuel Duo of Liberia. \u201cSeeing people with intellectual disabilities preparing food, doing woodwork and gardening, hosting radio shows, and interacting with them for more than an hour, I was stunned! In Liberia, these are probably the least among the forgotten population. I learned a lot, and it has changed me forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the Washington Fellowship program at Wagner College still has a couple of weeks to go before its closing ceremony on July 25, the Fellows are already reflecting on the overall impact it has made on them, both personally and as community leaders in their home nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy participation in the Washington Fellowship has been very exciting,\u201d said Jestina Simba, an administration and logistics officer for Restless Development\u2013Sierra Leone. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it is the opportunity of a lifetime. \u2026 I will take what I have learned here and put it into practice back home in my organization, my community and my country at large.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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