Founded in 2007 to tranform the leadership culture at the university level in east and central africa

Africa Youth Leadership Forum(AYLF) is a collaborative initiative that brings together University Student leaders, students, and young professionals across the country from both public and private Universities, for mentor- ship, training, networking and capacity building. Our core focus being nurturing new breed of leaders in Africa, AYLF was formed in 2007. It is now present in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, DR Congo, and South Sudan.

Our aim is to nurture a new breed of leaders who will transform the leadership culture in the communities they live in.

OBJECTIVES

• To foster reconciliation, friendship and unity among
Young leaders in Africa across all the existing racial,
religious and tribal divides.
• To promote and support a servant leadership model for leaders in Africa.
• To further the principles and emulate the Leadership qualities of Jesus of Nazareth.
• To highlight and emulate
successful leaders in Africa and in the world who have
championed unity and reconciliation.
• To engage in activities that will foster socio-political and economic development of Africa.
• To facilitate learning and sharing on common interests.
• To provide opportunities where young leaders can be mentored.

Our Core Values

We maintain a Jesus-centred culture of unconditional love, among ourselves and our neighbours, appreciating our diversity (religious, political, racial, etc.) and viewing all as equal created in the image of God.
We focus on a value-centred wholesomeness of individual character in both our private and public lives as a foundation for trust and confidence in our community and movement.
We place a priority on relationships, realizing that our higher purpose, the spiritual life, can only be lived out through our relationships with each other.
We commit to excellence in professional and organizational terms, being strategic in our learning and growth, being transparent in our dealings and decision making, and striking a balance between formality and informality in our work so as to not lose sight of the bigger picture at hand.

Other values adopted to guide our work

AYLF is not an NGO or a religious institution. It’s better understood as a movement of like-minded friends who share a common vision of encouraging fellowship-groups for national leaders across the dividing lines of ethnicity, politics or religions.
It’s world-wide movement, with members from very many different nations – but at the same time the foundation of it all is based on friends gathering regularly in small groups for personal fellowship, moral accountability and to pray for their nation, local leaders and the leaders of the world.
Any movement needs to have a strong ideal or shared value to hold its members together. Many initiatives that try to promote unity across religious divides – can often end up with the ‘lowest common denominator’ when trying to create common ground. We are seeking the highest common denominator and so we reference our core values and methods to the principles, precepts and person of Jesus. His life and his teachings are respected universally – irrespective of religious affiliation. These are the values of: unconditional love, service, humility, charity, empowerment for the powerless, mercy, justice for the oppressed, freedom, encouragement, hope and faith.
Nearly all of the conflicts and wars in the world today are being fought because of religious or ideological differences and ethnic differences. We want to be a reconciling influence that crosses these divides trying to ‘love our enemy’ and ‘love our neighbors’ – the way Jesus taught.
To love in this way is nearly impossible. It calls for a change of heart and mind, a personal transformation by Divine influence. None of us is there yet ….but we can see changes in ourselves as we follow this Way of Jesus. And with time we begin to reflect his thinking, his way of speaking, his actions – his love. This is the hope for the transformation of society – beginning with transformed individuals and especially leaders.
The world in its present state is not aligned with our highest and best values– passed down to us through the wisdom in our sacred texts. This is why we see wars, injustice, poverty, crime and so forth. We have faith that as human beings making up the family of nations in the world – we can do much better than this. We need a vision for a new kind of society and we find this in Jesus’ concept of the ‘kingdom of God coming on earth’. It’s about a world that is based on values such as: harmony, unity, order, justice – all leading toward: “peace on earth – goodwill toward man.”
At the time of Jesus – his religion had increased the 10 commandments given to them by God through Moses – to over 600 commandments. Jesus boiled them down to two. He said “Love God with all your heart, mind and soul and Love your neighbor as your self.” This he said was the Sum of all….the other commandments. The sum of the law and the prophets. This was the greatest commandments. This is the main thing. And the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing – rather then focusing on all our theological differences that have led to the formation of tens of thousands of different denominations in our world today.

The people who are causing most of the problems in the world are just a small percent of the population. It is said that in any society 5 % of the people are the ones who make things happen, and another 5% is watching those who make things happen, and the remaining 90% does not know what is happening. Our movement has taken up this mission to reach out to leaders. Because, we know that once they are influenced to do good with the power given to them….many others, especially the poor will benefit. However, we ourselves only recognize one Leader and that is the one whose message and example we use as our common ground and our ideal, Jesus.