ALFI FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

To help create young leaders committed to meeting the challenges of the 21st century, organizers need the skills to turn a desire to change the status quo into meaningful civic action. ALFI Fellowship Program Training is designed to train the next generation of progressive change-makers.

ALFI offers a series of learning experiences for fellows to gain basic, intermediate, and advanced organizing skills from top experts in the progressive world. Fellowship topics include community engagement strategies, digital organizing development, social entrepreneurship, business management, civic leadership, personal story reflection, and issue advocacy tactics.

Whether you’re looking to learn introductory-level organizing skills or to build on your professional experience, ALFI Fellowship Program Training can help you take your skills to the next level.

WE BUILD MORE THAN LEADERS

The ALFI Fellowship Program Training is built to help new leaders, social entrepreneurs, activists, changemakers develop their skills while providing a meaningful experience for people looking to address the root challenges facing their community. ALFI Fellows also called ALFI Delegates come from varied backgrounds and skill levels, but the fellowship serves as an entry point for those looking to take action and make a difference. This fellowship will provide the tools and training to make real progress and to ensure that voices as diverse as our communities have a place in this movement.

As an ALFI Fellow, you’ll identify challenges affecting your community, then develop an advocacy campaign to make measurable progress on that issue. We know that you likely want to make a big change in your communities—and by developing an advocacy campaign, you are developing a long-term approach. Ultimately, we are in this for the long haul: to create a more accessible and participatory democracy at all levels of government.

WHY THE ALFI FELLOWSHIP

63% of the Senegalese population under the age of 25 with a strong need for access to qualification, employment, and lifelong education. This challenge is today exacerbated by the current context of economic and social crisis linked to the COVID-19 pandemic which, for more than a year, has complicated the social situation in general and that of young people, one of whom among the socio-demographic includes: adolescents, young women, young people with disabilities, young refugees or living in rural areas who are among the most vulnerable groups. Prospects for training, integration, supervision, and retraining in the world of work are less offered to these young people who remain very discouraged.

Consequently, the high-risk school dropout rate increases drastically for some, and the adoption of crime and the use of violence for others. On these urgent occasions, all these deep concerns, in addition to the slowing demographic dividend, and the high unemployment rate, can favor the flow of internal migration and that of the Sahel also in the years to come.

In response to this situation, African Leaders Factory Initiative (ALFI), in the implementation of its project to support the employability of young people and women known as the ALFI Fellowship Program, has taken the initiative to put implementation actions aimed at strengthening the future prospects of young people between the ages of 18 and 25. Through the transfer of knowledge, interpersonal skills, and know-how, ALFI and its partners wish to develop life skills and an entrepreneurial spirit. With the ambition to strengthen the employability and self-esteem of young people through practical education, the project provides face-to-face and online qualifying training to get young people on board in their first productive work. The program takes into account the gender dimension and people with reduced mobility.