Young Professionals Network

“I’m enjoying it, he says, some of my mentors are really good”. Among them, Togolani Mavura,  Private Secretary and Speech Writer for the former President of Tanzania H.E Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, and Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki himself, who has been taking time to mentor him personally. “Since I joined AUDA-NEPAD, my mentors have been like my guardian angels and makes it a growing journey for me”, he says. 

Born in Dar es Salaam, raised by a father who is still a prominent tailor, Seleman Kitenge’s family comes from the Kigoma region, close to the Tanganyika Lake in the western part of Tanzania. His love for his country and Africa is intertwined with his personal longings. “My dreams have never changed, he says, I’ve always wanted to be a leader in either politics or diplomacy, in order to foster the development of our continent”.

Where does it come from? “This is part of my personality, and my father kept on encouraging me to read newspapers, books, and follow Tanzanian politics”. He wanted his son to understand the vision of one of the most admired African leader, Julius Nyerere (1922-1999), the father of Tanzania’s Independence. Called “Mwalimu” – “school teacher” in Kiswahili - Nyerere had a socialist vision for his country’s development and left a strong legacy.

The first trip to Russia

Seleman Kitenge could have been a singer, as he was into rap and singing in his teenage years, or a soccer player – soccer being one of his hobbies. But his parents kept pushing him into politics and diplomacy. So much so that they decided to sell a piece of land to finance his first trip abroad in July 2013. He went to Russia to follow a training program in Tver Oblast known as International Youth Forum Seliger. “This trip will help you to get more trips for free and make many friends from different parts of the world”, his father told him, foreseeing exactly what would happen next.

The young man studied Public Sector Financial Management at Tanzania Public Service College, and is a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the Open University of Tanzania. He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management for Foreign Relations from the Center for Foreign Relations, and has also made his way through many international programs, in Azerbaijan, Japan, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Morocco, France, Crimea, and Australia to name a few.

Three were outstanding in his view. He was awarded in June 2016 an Honorary Diploma of New Leaders for Tomorrow by the Crans Montana Forum in Vienna, Austria. “One of my best experiences, as I was one of the 3 African citizens in a group of 11 young leaders selected and the first Tanzanian to receive the honor”, he recalls.

In 2018, he became one of the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders (ADEL) and came to Marrakech for a tailor-made networking and empowerment program before attending the high level international conference Atlantic Dialogues, organized by the Policy Center for the New South. There, he enjoyed the “unique blend” of the conference, “African with a taste of Europe and the Americas”, and the specific touch of the ADEL program: “We were trained as young leaders and also allowed to interact with senior leaders from AU, NATO, the UN, former Presidents and Prime ministers from all over the world”. One of the things he liked most: “Interacting with Havard and Cambridge students confidently, to engage and contribute as an equal expert on geopolitics, although my academic journey is just from local institutions”.

His third favorite program is the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), launched in 2010 by the State Department under the presidency of Barack Obama. A member of the first cohort of YALI’s East Africa Chapter in 2015, Seleman has listened to President Barack Obama in Nairobi (Kenya). He met “prestigious trainers coming from US Universities, former officials at the White House, the Department of State and even NASA”.

Dedicated to Africa’s future 

Among many other things, he has been certified by the Commonwealth Secretariat as a Trainer of Trainers on issues around Hate Speech, Human Rights, and Countering Violent Extremism as well as being named by the European Union Commission as a One Young World Peace Ambassador. As much as he may have traveled abroad, he never thought of leaving Tanzania or Africa. “There were tempting opportunities out there, but I always came back to serve my country and continent”.

His vision is the one of a whole generation : “To see Africa prosper and have an equal share at the table of global affairs. Most importantly, see Africa become fully integrated economically to create more opportunities for the youth who are the most marginalized by economic systems across the continent”.

Moreover, he hopes to see extreme poverty eradicated, in order to facilitate the continent's economic transformation. He envisions seeing youth given more opportunities at the front leadership row on social, political, and economic issues. “I believe the energy, vibrancy, and innovative nature of youth will significantly help to fast-track Africa’s development if properly utilized at the national and continental levels.”

Before AUDA-NEPAD, he worked as an Administrator and Spokesperson at the Honorary Consulate of Sierra Leone in Dar es Salaam, and as a Program Officer with the United Nations Association of Tanzania. This non-profit umbrella organization is working closely with the UN in Tanzania but is not a part of the UN system.

There, Seleman Kitenge took part in a project to accelerate youth political and economic participation across the country. “We reached over 20 000 young people in the mainland and Zanzibar, to encourage them to participate in local governments and get to know and use the grants our government is allocating to the youth, to start businesses”.

A keen reader of political essays and biographies, he mentions “The world as it is” among his favorite books, written by Ben Rhodes, the former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under President Barack Obama (2009-2017). A man he met twice, in Kenya and France, and who gave him his book as a present. Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, is one of his role models. Seleman Kitenge, an ambitious young man, would certainly like to walk in this path of greatness, “whether at the front stage or behind the scenes”.    

Jordan Kronen calls Washington home, as he moved there from a suburb outside Miami, Florida when he was 12. His father is a small business owner, recruiting for technology companies, and his mother a paralegal working in a law firm. But his main influence comes from his grandfather, “Poppie.” “He served in World War II in Germany and in the Pacific theater and even has a patent from his work as a member of a military commission that designed a suit to withstand both high and low temperatures for combat pilots and space travel,” explains Jordan Kronen, with beaming pride.

A Democrat grandfather 

“Poppie” was also the founder of the Democratic Party chapter in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. He conveyed to his grandson a strong sense of public service: “Vocation in government means serving the people; it is both honorable work and gives meaning and a sense of purpose that is much bigger than any one person.” Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Jordan also co-founded the College Democrats of Oregon, while studying Politics and Government at Pacific University. 

His absolute idol, however, is no other than the late John Lewis, the famous African American civil rights activist and congressman from the state of Georgia who passed away last July. Lewis was one of the “Big Six” leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington against legalized segregation, voting disenfranchisement, and racial discrimination. Jordan met the non-violent freedom rider twice in 2012, when he was an intern with the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C, and later that year while working at the DNC National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. “I’ll never forget his demeanor and grace. There are no words to express just how instrumental John Lewis was in changing the country in the face of overwhelming hatred, violence, and bigotry.”

Asian experiences, interest for Africa 

A thirst for exploring and learning more about the world was also mostly inspired by his grandfather’s travels throughout East Asia after World War II. Jordan made bold moves after graduating from college to gain experiences abroad. First, in 2015, he spent three months in Chiang Mai, Thailand interning for Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Community Legal Education Initiative. Working for this “non-profit with a long title,” Jordan aided their mission of advocating for legal ethics, strengthening the rule of law, and increasing access to justice and pro bono legal services. As a Fulbright Scholar, the following year in 2016, he taught English to schoolchildren in Bachok, a rural town in the state of Kelantan in Malaysia’s northwest peninsula. “It was the best experience of my life. Despite being forced to conceal my Jewish identity in a very conservative Islamic town, it felt most rewarding to start integrating myself in another culture and engaging in mutual understanding between our two countries.” 

Then, he decided to pursue an accelerated master’s course in 2017-18 to get an M.A. in Global Affairs as a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. “It’s a very new program as I was a part of the second cohort, but it is modeled after the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. The mission of the program is to strengthen U.S-China relations, and to ensure greater collaboration and prosperity for the world as China becomes a more prominent player on the international stage.” 

After discussing the opportunity with a Schwarzman Scholar from Nigeria, he applied for the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders (ADEL) Program, and came to Marrakech, Morocco in December 2019. “I applied because I became increasingly interested in the Global South and Africa, where various external actors are applying pressure on this mostly developing continent. I wrote my thesis on the China Belt and Road Initiative and how China flexes its muscles on countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and other regions within its orbit, often leading to ‘debt diplomacy’ and other undesirable outcomes. I was curious to see how African countries are responding to these pressures, and how best we can work with leaders on the African continent to be independent rather than relying on China or the U.S. With its growing young population and innovative, nascent industries, it’s really an exciting time for Africa. I met young African leaders in Marrakech, learned a great deal from them, and felt truly inspired by their example and drive.”

Focusing on climate change 

His current battle, now, is climate change, and how to mitigate its effects in an equitable way. He’s working on a proposal authored by Senator Liz Lovelett that is making the headlines in the United States. The Washington Sustainable, Transformative Recovery Opportunities for the Next Generation (STRONG) Act establishes an economy-wide price on carbon pollution to generate the bondable revenue needed to finance a resilient recovery and clean economy transition. The revenue generated would be invested in projects that deliver positive returns in the form of economic activity, greenhouse gas reduction, community resilience, and healthy, productive natural resource lands. The beneficiaries would be the communities most affected in Washington State, on the basis of a health disparities mapping tool created by the state’s Environmental Justice Task Force. This map shows, based on science and data, where these investments are needed the most to alleviate the burden on these frontline communities already experiencing the harmful effects of a changing climate. “This is a bold proposal that would provide a blueprint for other states and the Federal government to potentially implement,” he says. 

Some of his favorite books are The Green Collar Economy, by Van Jones, and the philosophical tale Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, which also embeds thematic threads of sustainability and climate change. An indelible memory of the book for Jordan is the describing of the world as a plane having run off a cliff and going downward toward its demise. Even though the vessel has all the inherent capabilities to fly and avert disaster, it continues descending on a rapidly expedient trajectory. Jordan hopes to wake up the pilot (humankind), start the engine (ingenuity and our problem-solving spirit) and begin to change course. “The sky, after all, is our only limit.” 

His next step? Pursuing a concurrent degree (a law degree and a master’s degree in public policy) to better equip himself with both a solid legal foundation and policy chops to continue pursuing his climate agenda. “My goal is to play a prominent role in fighting climate change in an equitable way. People representing diverse voices from various backgrounds, industries, and perspectives must be at an inclusive table when these decisions are being made to put forth the best solutions so we can ultimately succeed together.”

“I was just lucky enough to be able to listen to myself when I had to make a decision”, he recalls. His choice was to study at the only public architectural school in Rabat, l’Ecole nationale d’architecture (ENA). Getting admitted there was like “winning the jackpot”, he remembers, since only 60 students are selected each year among 3,000 applications. “It was the right place, and it turned out to be great”.

On his fourth year of a six years cursus, he got a DAAD scholarship for an exchange program at the University of Technology in Berlin, where he started what was going to be his new life in Germany. There, he took part in the large research project “Future Megacities – Energy- and Climate-Efficient Structures in Urban Growth Centres”, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. The project aimed at developing sustainable urban strategies in nine cities around the world, mainly located in the global South, each having a specific topic, such as water in Lima, mobility in Shanghai or urban agriculture in Casablanca.

Megacities of the Global South

He focused on Casablanca, “a vibrant and dense city of 4 million inhabitants with scarce green spaces, where urban agriculture could be introduced as a productive green infrastructure, offering a new nexus between energy, food security, and sustainable urban development”.

Vacant plots had to be spotted, among which some 20 hectares along train tracks. A discussion was engaged with the authorities and several pilot projects were implemented. The sustainable management of the scarce water resources was at the center of these projects. One of the solutions was to introduce on-site water treatment plants in informal settlements to recycle the used water of Hammams (public baths) for urban farming and the irrigation of green spaces.

After a year in Berlin, he spent 2012 in Shanghai, a megalopolis of 25 million dwellers, where everything takes place at another scale. “I was very excited to go to China, a vibrant place, transforming very fast, with very bold ideas and daring experiments in architecture and urbanism you might not find anywhere else in the world”. There, he learned the “do’s and don’t” of the Chinese model.

Back in Berlin, he became a staff member of the project on megacities, as a coordinator until 2014. He worked on the implementation phase, testing new ideas, such as developing organic food production in a small field in Casablanca, with a corporation of 25 farmers who were trained. “We organized the food baskets to connect the farmers to the inhabitants and markets, which led to a 200% to 300% increase of the farmers’ income”.

Out of the Eurocentric Box

He remembers the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program fondly, being selected in 2015 to what he describes as one of the “less Eurocentric” leadership programmes he has ever attended. “It brings you tremendous energy, space for inspiration, networking and learning. You meet all these brilliant minds and energetic people from the Global South, from all sectors, who take you out of your bubble”. The ADEL program was short in his view, “but the network was way stronger afterwards”.

Among his favorite readings, he mentions Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari, “a brief history of human kind with interesting perspectives, on digitalization and how human beings are using their transformative power to change nature”. He reflects on the impact of digitalization on urbanity, a big topic under the Covid-19 pandemic. The latter has uncovered huge spatial inequalities in cities, and calls for the rethinking of urbanity, public space, and above all encourages us to establish a more inclusive and environment-friendly urban model.

Besides these new lines of reflection, his dream is “to  be able to make a difference in terms of highlighting or recontextualizing urban planning in the Global South, putting the spotlight on culture of planning. City planning has unfortunately been a strong vehicle to impose a Eurocentric model and a one-sided understanding of modernity.  However, there is a lot that can be learnt from the flexibility and the resilience of cities in the Global South, and the way they cope with urban issues”.

Dubai, in his view, is the perfect example of how one should deconstruct the impact of the Eurocentric perspective on how a “modern city should look like”. “This view is rooted in New York, Tokyo, Singapour, but we have to redefine what sustainable progress is… It’s a bit superficial to think about the tallest skyscraper or the most transparent facade as sign of progress. The city is a space where culture matters, and I’m not sure that with replicating Dubai in Ghana, for instance, you don’t widen this gap between who we are and the kind of image that is forced on us. Every place has its context, its history and has to develop its own image and imagination. That model is not universal.” Sabine Cessou

In Brighton and London, she studied Film and TV, then creative writing, majoring in sociology and journalism. She realized during her first year at University that she could learn a lot out of experience, besides theorical knowledge in the classroom. « On the ground, I taught myself how to network », she says. At the time, she had two part-time jobs, working as a receptionist and at a gym. There, she discussed so much about styling with a fashion designer who came to exercise, that she got invited on a shoot.

While at University, she became a beauty queen, first as Miss Kenya in 2008 and then as Miss East Africa in 2009, insisting on wearing African inspired dresses she designed herself. She became an assistant stylist with Claire Watson, a freelance in demand, and kept on learning on the ground. « One time, Claire was overbooked and had to throw me to a deep end, a shooting for a tabloïd magazine. I had an idea of a set reminding ancient Greece, but the editor walked in and said : « No, we don’t do Greek gods here, take this out ». I learned that you have to listen to what the editors say and to think about the target audience ».

African style, education, opportunities

She was already convinced that the African style was not seen in fashion the way it should. During a Fashion week in London, she was looked upon as an UFO, because of her flashy African prints. But she wasn’t distracted. « People in Africa wear prints all the time ! I still think we are not penetrating further the industry, in terms of what African fashion means, culturally and socially. It has a lot do to with heritage and spirituality. Our ancestors wore certain colors to communicate their intentions. When I design my bag, for instance, I go back to traditional messages of baskets, hand woven and naturally dyed with tree bark ».

Her beauty queen status got her invited to many talks and platforms, such as the One Goal Campaign before the soccer World Cup in South Africa in 2010, or the Unleash Innovation Lab in Denmark in 2017, initiated by the United Nations to gather 1000 change-makers Milleniums. She fell in love with the concept of social entrepreurship and the topic of education. “I was sitting in rooms full of white men in suits, discussing the future of African youth. And I’m sorry, but Africa doesn’t need just aid or money, but opportunities. The African youth must be included and be part of the solution”.

To work from the ground in rural communities

She took action. In 2016, she launched the educational program Good Ambition, the basis of an App she is working on, named “Skilledit”. “The idea is to tackle opportunity for young people and women in all the areas who lack financial and social advance, to be able to see their own environment as a place to skill themselves”. She went to rural communities in Kenya, gathering them as sustainable manufacturers. The “Rural Retail” platform has gathered 350 young people so far, helping her producing bags for her brand, “Vicky Ngari”. 

As a young leader, she came to Marrakesh in 2017 to attend the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program, and was proud to “fit in an arena where you can actually bring your contribution in terms of creative thinking, and get support. Creative thinking, in my view, comes naturally and serves as lateral thinking to solution, like the little boy who says “deflate the tyres”, when a truck is stuck in a tunnel and experts struggle to get it out.” 

This young lady, who loves nature, herbs and plants, is also a keen reader of mythology. Her dream? “To work in cultural diplomacy to help build more aligned education systems for creative industries with Indigenous sustainable practises.  Growing a successful fashion brand and technology tool as my demonstration, ultimately starting my own schools in nature”. As she defines it, it just looks like the intertwined leads of her personal basket.