The Drupal Association is pleased to announce that it has been selected to host Denaya Dennis, a Fellow from South Sudan in the 2023 Alumni Professional Development Experience (PDE) component of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders from January 23 to March 3, 2023, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
The Mandela Washington Fellowship, the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), empowers young African leaders through academic coursework, leadership training, mentoring, networking, professional opportunities, and local community engagement. YALI was created in 2010 and supports young Africans as they spur economic growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa. Since 2014, nearly 5,800 young leaders from every country in Sub-Saharan Africa have participated in the Mandela Washington Fellowship.
New for 2023, 30 Fellowship Alumni have been competitively selected to take part in the 2023 Alumni PDEs – six-week virtual professional placements with U.S. non-governmental organizations, private companies, and government agencies. PDEs allow Fellows to learn and grow as young professionals while providing enriching opportunities for U.S. organizations to participate in collaborative exchanges.
Denaya Dennis Manoah Nigo is an ICT practitioner and a monitoring and evaluation specialist who founded his own organization, Koneta Hub, that provides programming to young people in digital literacy, incubation, and mentorship. He previously volunteered for four years as a teaching assistant at the University of Juba, with a focus on business-related courses, and hopes to continue working with university students in that capacity as early as next year. During the PDE, he wants to further develop his skills in organizational leadership, fundraising and multicultural engagements. Denaya successfully completed the Mandela Washington Fellowship in 2019, studying Leadership in Business at the University of Notre Dame.
The Drupal Association serves the global Drupal community and is honored to cultivate professional development opportunities in collaboration with Denaya through community engagement strategy, local needs assessments, site-building skills, and high impact networking opportunities.
The Mandela Washington Fellowship is a program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and administered by IREX. For more information about the Mandela Washington Fellowship, visit mandelawashingtonfellowship.org, follow the Fellowship on Twitter at @WashFellowship, and join the conversation at #MandelaFellows.
Press inquiries should be directed to ECA-Press@state.gov.
