VCU news

By Mike Porter and V. Renee Russell

Virginia Commonwealth University, in collaboration with the African Community Network of Greater Richmond and Cammepa Productions, will host a celebration honoring participants in the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders to commemorate Nelson Mandela International Day.

Reporters are invited to attend the event on Saturday, July 18, at 7 p.m. in the Commonwealth Ballroom of VCU’s University Student Commons, 907 Floyd Ave. Mandela Washington Fellows will be available to discuss their experience at VCU.  Media must be escorted on university property, and those planning to attend should RSVP to vrrussell@vcu.edu by noon on July 17.   

The Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders is President Barack Obama’s signature effort to invest in the next generation of global leaders on the African continent. Twenty-five of Africa’s brightest emerging leaders in the area of public management are participating in this academic and leadership institute co-sponsored by the VCU Global Education Office and L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.

The fellows at VCU are among 500 being hosted across the United States this summer. They were selected from a competitive field of more than 30,000 applicants. Following the program in Richmond, the VCU participants will join other fellows in Washington, D.C., for a summit with President Obama.

The fellows at VCU represent a diverse cross-section of the African continent hailing from Benin, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, the Republic of Congo, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritius, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda and Zambia.