If youth are our future, what of the future of youth (leaders)?

originally posted in Institute for the Future’s blog

Youth leadership is a hot button issue these days. But I think what we tend to forget—or don’t have the opportunity to understand—is that youth leadership is very different throughout the world. Missing these nuances could lead to potentially ineffective global youth leadership initiatives.

While working in Kenya this year I had a lot of interesting conversations about Kenya’s youth leadership dilemma; the term is an oxymoron. In the traditional setting, youth cannot lead. Until you are married and have moved out of the youth category, you are not considered capable of leading people. Ethnicity, gender, marriage status, and whether you are living in an urban or rural setting all complicate the matter of youth leadership in Kenya.

Kenya Youth Scenarios

Last June I had the pleasure working with Institute of Economic Affairs’ Kenya Youth Scenarios, and joining in on two of the regional scenario building workshops.
 

Interview with Kenyan futurist Katindi Sivi Njonjo

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Katindi, the woman who runs the futures programme at IEA and I have been working on the youth scenarios with, for the Foresight for Development site. See how everything is connected??

You can read the profile here.

The community of African futures seems large and robust. Much like my experience in the US, when people get a chance to learn more about the work African futurists are doing, they almost always want to be a part of it. This alone has to be a good sign for the future of the field.

One big difference between foresight in the US and Europe as compared to Kenya is foresight here needs to very practical. According to Katindi, Kenya does not yet have the luxury of thinking for thinking’s sake, and therefore all foresight needs to be tied to very practical issues and solutions.

An atheist’s take on prayer

I remember when I first came to Kenya in 2005 and found myself in a meeting or at a meal and everyone had to pray. The first few times I became so paranoid that somehow the people in the room would know that I was fake praying. To some extent it was paralyzing, I couldn’t take a moment to hear what people were praying about or appreciate the moment. It never occurred to me either that people might not care. I had this totally irrational fear that they would discover I was fake praying and then cast me out of the community.

After a few prayer sessions this irrational fear slowly slipped away and instead I found myself annoyed at the concept of always having to pray. After a much longer time I began to appreciate the meeting or meal or even travel prayers. I discovered that regardless of god being in the mix, prayers were always relevant to the specific event. They allowed the room to take a moment to focus on the task ahead (or reflect on the task behind) and get everyone centered and working together.