By Alexandra Gray
Students at the African Leadership Academy (ALA) have been named this month’s “Decoders in the Spotlight” for contributing exceptional multimedia content to News-Decoder’s website: articles on Africa’s colonial history and China’s influence on the continent, and two videos with students interviewing a welfare group for single women in Kenya and a Nigerian business mogul.
ALA students stood out in a News-Decoder webinar in February when they discussed, along with students from Westover School in the United States, the role of women in Africa and the continent’s relations with the rest of the world. The students were joined by guest expert Nolwazi Mjwara, a South African working at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris.
This year, students at News-Decoder’s partner schools are examining eight global themes. ALA and Westover were paired together at the start of the school year to collaborate in reporting on Africa.
With exemplary teamwork led by three News-Decoder Student Ambassadors, ALA students conducted on-the-ground reporting on Africa that took readers and viewers to different countries on the continent, provided impartial insight into Africa’s present challenges and posed big, global questions.
Moitse Kemelo Moatshe, one of three News-Decoder Student Ambassadors at ALA, is from Gaborone, Botswana. She believes in the economic empowerment of women and in furthering gender equity on the African continent. Moatshe was instrumental in promoting and organizing the webinar and in soliciting content from her peers at ALA.
Adnan Shafi is a second-year student at the African Leadership Academy and one of our Student Ambassadors. He is one of the founders of Sauti Afrika, a podcast at ALA that features African youth discussing controversial issues with global resonance.
Shafi would like to pursue a career in parliament as a lawmaker to ensure that the rights of the people in his native Kenya are protected. He believes the world’s biggest problem right now is lack of cooperation. He explained:
“Often, decisions are made on the basis of one country’s interests and sometimes these interests clash. Rather, we must strive to take into account the world’s interests and reach fair decisions that way.”
To him, News-Decoder has provided useful experiences in journalism, quality control and reporting.
“By being able to vet the content of articles of other students in my school and assist them in their reporting, I began the process of honing skills that will be valuable in the world of employment,” said Shafi.
Our third Student Ambassador is Katai L. Mutale, a second-year student at ALA from Zambia. Mutale enjoys writing and has a keen interest in the media and communications. Aside from writing, she likes to read intriguing books, to travel, to blog and to construct thought-provoking art.
To access content by ALA students, click here.
Alexandra Gray is News-Decoder’s Community Engagement and Business Development manager. She develops creative marketing and communications content, manages social media accounts and works closely with the Student Ambassadors. She has a master’s in marketing from the University of Edinburgh and spent one year of high school at one of News-Decoder’s partner institutions, School Year Abroad Italy.