The African Leadership Academy is an organisation which many people, including Tunde Folawiyo, are now familiar with. It opened its doors just six years ago, welcoming the continent’s brightest young minds into its classrooms, and offering them the chance to learn all that there is to know about entrepreneurialism and effective leadership. Kenza Bouhaj was one of its students; she joined the ALA in 2010, completed her studies two years later, and is now studying at one of the USA’s most prestigious universities, Yale.
Like all of the ALA’s students, Kenza demonstrated an interest in helping others from a very young age. Growing up in the Moroccan town of Fes, she was acutely aware of the divide between the rich and the poor, and was eager to do her part to narrow the gap between the two. At 14 years of age, she came to the realisation that education was the key to empowering people, and so she established ‘Ahly’, an organisation devoted to providing children from disadvantaged backgrounds with basic literacy classes and shelter. Ahly was such a success, that teenagers from other parts of Morocco were inspired to set up similar groups in their local areas.
After joining the ALA two years later, Kenza learned more not only about her own country’s most pressing issues, but also about the problems which the continent as a whole is facing. For her community project – a task which all students of the academy are required to complete – she chose to set up ‘Refilwe’, which focuses on providing children from poor families in Johannesburg with tutors who can help them with their studies.
Recognising Kenza’s ambition, talent and compassion for others, the staff at the ALA helped her to apply to Yale. After she was accepted, Kenza joined both the African Students Association, and YIRA (the Yale International Relations Association). The latter is an organisation which aims to raise awareness of global issues, and foster debate regarding the world’s most serious problems. As an international businessperson, Tunde Folawiyo will more than likely understand the importance of YIRA.
Within the organisation, Kenza works as the director of a programme called Hemispheres, which offers afterschool lessons to teenagers on foreign affairs, particularly those related to the non-proliferation treaty, the unrest in Middle Eastern countries, and human rights violations across the African continent. It was originally established during the nineties, but as there were so few people interested in it, and no-one to run it, Hemispheres was shut down. But with Kenza’s knowledge and support, the programme is now up and running again, and has proven to be very popular with teens in the local area.