The Morafe Programme Enters Its Second Year
We are ecstatic to continue the second year of the Morafe* Leadership Development Programme (Morafe)!
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we needed to find a way to keep the connection between our South African youth and our American youth alive. As a result, the Morafe Leadership Programme was created. The Morafe Leadership Programme is a virtual, peer-to-peer initiative designed to bring together our youth from the Royal Bafokeng Nation (RBN) in South Africa and our youth from Prince George’s County, Maryland, USA. Together, the youth learn to build life skills, leadership abilities, and strong cross-cultural ties to support each other’s dreams and ambitions. Recent university graduates or fellows teach the virtual workshops to Ambassadors (participants). Our Ambassadors remain together for three years, as a cohort in our program, until graduating from secondary school. The three years culminate in a trip to meet in person and use the trust they have built with each other to broaden their worldviews and explore a new city together. The chosen city for this session of Morafe will be Cape Town, South Africa!
Morafe also provides wellbeing services to our participants and their families. Throughout the program and based on need, we provide individual counseling/ therapeutic services and community support, and referral assistance to youth participants and their families.
IAWA Ambassador Sibongile shared what she learned in the first year of the Morafe programme.
“The Morafe Leadership Programme had a huge impact in our lives. It has shown great leadership skills by coordinating our team, Incorporating suggestions from others and delegating work tasks in our tribes. It has shown incredible leadership skills and I loved being part of it and developed some skills. Morafe aided in making everyone understand where our priorities should be going forward. We certainly hope to see more great initiatives from you in future. Everyone had the opportunity to express their ideas, Morafe's constant enthusiastic presence breathed life into this. I learned a lot from the Youth Facilitators and fellow ambassadors.
Alumni Ambassador Milisi also spoke fondly about her experience in our inaugural and pilot programme.
“For me personally IAWA taught me independence and taught me that if you put your mind in something you want and put in hard work, nothing is impossible. My journey with IAWA has been a really good, amazing, challenging, awesome and an inspirational journey. I have grown so much and traveled a lot through it and learnt about different leaders from South Africa and the world. Truly IAWA will forever be in my heart.”
We are excited to transition back to face-to-face programming. From July 2022 to June of next year, our Ambassadors in South Africa and the US will participate in workshops and camps that will build their leadership and entrepreneurial skills through experiential activities. They will have the opportunity to apply what they learn by developing fundraisers to travel to Cape Town in June of 2023. The trip will commence with a career conference in Phokeng, the capital of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, and then take them to Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Cape Town where they will visit universities, sightsee and meet with professionals. We will also train Youth Facilitators on how to implement and /or support the program.
*Morafe means community in Setswana
Check out the photos below for highlight from our 2021 Morafe Leadership Development Programme. For more information about this and other programming, visit our website today!
