Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders brings new class of fellows to FIU


The 25 Washington Mandela Fellowship for Young African Leaders participants at FIU with Provost and Executive Vice President Kenneth Furton.

The 25 Washington Mandela Fellowship for Young African Leaders participants at FIU with Provost and Executive Vice President Kenneth Furton.

In KwaZulu Natal, one of the smallest provinces in South Africa, children are often left to fend for themselves after their parents and other family members fall victim to AIDS. Growing up in KwaZulu Natal, Nolunthando “Noli” P. Duma witnessed this situation too often and dreamed of helping prevent these scenarios.

Today Duma, 29, lives in Johannesburg. There she works for the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, a research center. Duma is also the founder and managing director of Nal’uthando Rehabilitation Center, which provides psychological and emotional support to young people in child-headed homes, pregnant girls and unemployed youth by educating them on well-being issues including vaccinations, as well as helping them to find jobs.

She is one of 25 African scholars who spent the summer at FIU as part of President Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. In its second year at FIU, the Mandela Washington Fellowship brought a new group of sub-Saharan African scholars to live at the university, where they participated in a public management institute. Their work at FIU will ultimately help them advance the community-focused work they do through governmental offices, ministries and non-governmental organizations.

FIU was chosen to be one of the 20 Washington Fellowship host institutions and the only site in Florida. The Fellowship is a program of the U.S. government and supported in its implementation by the nonprofit IREX. For the first time this year the fellows were connected with peer collaborators — young leaders in Miami that have been identified through various sources, including a collaboration between FIU and The Miami Foundation. Following their time at FIU, the fellows will travel to Washington, D.C., for a summit with the President.

“One of my goals while at FIU was to forge partnerships with companies that may assist me in building this center,” Duma said. “The exposure and knowledge that I’ve gained at FIU and Miami will help me as I develop my center. Eventually, I’d like my center’s work to extend to all of South Africa and abroad.”

The Washington Fellowship is the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) whose goal is to empower young African leaders through academic coursework, leadership training, mentoring, networking, professional opportunities and support for activities in their communities.