In October 2017, the Møller Institute team delivered a five-day leadership and policy development programme for the British Council’s Future Leaders Connect initiative to 50 exceptional emerging policy leaders, aged 18-35, from India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tunisia, UK and USA. One of the Alumni of the programme, Blessing Omakwu-Soremekun, from Nigeria contacted us in May 2018 to share how she’d used the learning to have a practical impact in Nigeria.
Blessing, reported back to us, “I thought to reach out and share a little about how my 2017 Future Leaders Connect program helped me at work recently. I work at an international NGO as the Policy & Advocacy Manager for Nigeria. I began this job a few weeks after the Future Leaders Training, so the deep dive policy learning through this program couldn’t have come at a better time!
A few weeks ago, I was asked to design a training program for my NGO to benefit youth advocates/policy influencers from various communities across Nigeria. Similar to the Future Leaders Connect Program, the program is a way for future leaders to meet other future leaders, learn about policy and advocacy, and have their work amplified. This year we selected 50 participants representing every state in Nigeria from over 2,000 applicants. We hosted a training program in Abuja for the selected participants two weekends ago.
To design the training program for the 2018, I picked up my training schedule from the Future Leader’s Program and mapped out a two-day training schedule. Many sessions were replications of sessions from the FLC program. Two examples: there was a session on the intersection of Media and Policy Influencing which was facilitated by BBC Media Action Nigeria– this was of course inspired by my FLC day at the BBC HQ in London!
There was also a session on using Data for Policy Influencing/Making facilitated by a Senior Public Sector Advisor for Nigeria from McKinsey. This session was influenced by the data sessions we had at the Møller Institute, Cambridge last year. There were also small group sessions similar to the sessions we had at the Møller Institute, Cambridge. (We had a day planned at National Assembly as well-similar to our day at parliament-but this one unfortunately fell through at the last minute!).”
Our Country Director mentioned to me this is the best training we’ve had so far for our youth advocates in Nigeria.
And so, I am writing to say THANK YOU to the Møller Institute team! Because of the experience I had through the Future Leaders Connect program, 50 young future leaders in Nigeria are equipped to be better policy makers and influencers in different states and communities in Nigeria.
With much gratitude,
Blessing.”