Together for a New Africa: it takes courage to be a leader

Together for a New Africa (T4NA) is a training course conceived and implemented by young people from several African countries. It aims to teach responsible and participatory government and to equip students to face the key challenges of their continent by promoting and developing a culture of unity. Adelard Kananira told us about this experience of training, tutoring and networking and gave some examples of the results so far.

Playing an active role in society and making choices that contribute to the common good of all, right there, where people live. This is the dream of Together for a New Africa, which, involving many young people, intends to rethink a new African leadership, capable of dealing with the multiple challenges of each individual country. Adelard Kananira, a young Burundian, who has lived in Italy for five years and is one of the organizers of the various T4NA Summer Schools, told us about it. After graduating from Sophia University, he works for the Secretariat of the Political Movement for Unity.

Adelard, how did T4NA start?
Together for a new Africa is a project that was born at Sophia university. And it came from Sophia university African students who thought from the experience they were having, what can they give back to their continent in the light of the culture of unity.

They sat together, then they thought they put ideas together and they come up with this project and the first summer school was in 2018 in one of the little towns of the Focolare Movement, Mariapolis Piero which is in Nairobi (Kenya) and is where subsequent meetings also took place.

What is the core of this project?
Together for a new Africa is a project that was born at Sophia university. And it came from Sophia university African students who thought from the experience they were having, what can they give back to their continent.

Initially we did not have a lot of resources and since Africa is very big and presents thousands of faces, we started with some countries of the Eastern Africa, hoping to eventually reach everyone. I remember that during the first Summer Schools, some participants didn’t even want to talk to each other. There were difficulties that led to saying: “We don’t know each other, how can we go ahead?” But surprisingly after spending time together we noticed how, little by little, all the barriers between cultures and tribes disappeared. We have actually witnessed this personal growth, as a group and as one immense continent.

What are the results of this project?
We can really testify that after three years of summer schools and training courses, there are a lot of results. We have seen some participants go into politics, become activists and leaders and do a lot of things for their communities. They have received many awards and in some countries they have joined hands with other associations to respond to the many emergencies. This not only gives us hope, but shows that the project is growing. And we are proud of it.

What are the next steps?
Today we concluded our first cycle of 3 years of training course which was amazing. And now we are going to the second cycle, which is going to start at the end of this year. And it will move from seven countries to 14 countries. It’s a challenge. We recognize that, but our dream was and is the whole of Africa. This step ahead is showing us that we can succeed because the young people have taken it on board as their own project and together we can go ahead.

Maria Grazia Berretta