The Mandela Washington Fellowship gives you a platform where you stand above everyone else. It gives you opportunity because of the relationships you build with all of the fellows and the people you meet.
Obianuju Iloanya’s brother was killed by police in Nigeria when he was just 20 years old. Now, Iloanya is turning her loss into action.
She is fighting for a better tomorrow free from the class-based discrimination and police brutality that is pervasive in her home country. And she sees participation in a public management institute at Bridgewater State as a key step.
“I wanted to learn how to make my impact through a different channel,” said Iloanya, a nonprofit program director who often expresses her anger and passion through protests. “I needed to learn how to influence the change I want from the inside.”
Iloanya is one of 23 leaders from sub-Saharan Africa who spent six weeks at BSU this summer through the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. This marked the eighth time since 2016 that Bridgewater was a host institution for the fellowship, which is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and implemented by IREX.
This year, fellows met mayors, lawmakers and criminal justice leaders; sewed dresses for girls in Africa; participated in Bridgewater’s Juneteenth celebration and Independence Day parade; and attended classroom sessions taught by BSU criminal justice, communication, education and political science faculty.
Fellow Beth Z. Zarweah-Munford enjoyed hearing from President Frederick W. Clark Jr., '83, who the fellows noticed was as comfortable taking selfies as he was lecturing.
“In leadership, you have to be patient, you have to be earnest, you have to have a goal,” Dr. Zarweah-Munford, a medical doctor from Liberia, said of takeaways from his presentation.
That perspective will be important as Zarweah-Munford aspires to improve care for children and pregnant women. Her country of 5.2 million people has less than 40 pediatricians.
“The Mandela Washington Fellowship gives you a platform where you stand above everyone else,” she said. “It gives you opportunity because of the relationships you build with all of the fellows and the people you meet.”
A professor with six years of experience in peace and security studies, Tagel Wondimu Shanko appreciated visiting Brockton’s restorative justice court, where he noticed the humanizing approach the judge took with defendants. The court aims to rehabilitate people and use alternatives to incarceration.
Shanko hopes to use ideas gained at BSU to help end conflicts in his native Ethiopia. He learned how everyone can be an ambassador by being welcoming and open to interaction, just like those he met during the fellowship.
“It’s a sign for me to go back home and do the same thing,” he said.
The fellows left Bridgewater impressed by the generosity and kindness of everyone they met.
“They have opened their doors to us,” Iloanya said. “This has made me so happy to be here. I am far away from home, but I do not feel like I am without family here.”
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