Mahfuz Alabidun Selected for Prestigious Mandela Washington Fellowship in USA
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Mahfuz Alabidun Selected for Prestigious Mandela Washington Fellowship in USA
By Alabidun Shuaib AbdulRahman
A Nigerian educator and founder of Inmates Educational Foundation, Mahfuz Alabidun, has been selected by the United States Government to participate in the 2023 cohort of its flagship exchange programme, Mandela Washington Fellowship.
The fellowship recognises Mahfuz’s impacts on inmates in Nigerian correctional centers by ensuring they have access to quality education through the Foundation he founded.
So far, the Foundation has provided literacy, adult and advanced education, teaching and learning aids, and reconstructed classes to over 1500 inmates and juveniles in Lagos, Osun, and Ebonyi states.
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Last year, the Foundation supported 30 inmates with NECO and WAEC/GCE exams in Lagos and Ebonyi states, many of whom are now enrolled in the National Open University of the Correctional Centers.
The Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders is a US-sponsored program launched in 2014 by the administration of President Barack Obama that empowers young people through academic coursework, leadership training, and networking.
The program provides hundreds of outstanding young leaders from sub-Saharan Africa with the opportunity to hone their skills in a six-week intensive academic and leadership program at US colleges and universities.
Alabidun expressed his excitement to be selected among Africa’s best and brightest for the program, which he considers a great opportunity.
Out of the 14,000 young Nigerians who applied for the 2023 application cycle, less than 200 applicants made it to the semi-final stage, and only 57 were eventually awarded the fellowship.
Mahfuz Alabidun will be studying leadership and civic management at Drexel University in Philadelphia in June and looks forward to learning new things, creating meaningful relationships and partnerships, and expanding the scope and impacts of his non-profit foundation.
He appreciated the United States government for investing in the next generation of young African leaders through the Mandela Washington Fellowship.
His Foundation is dedicated to using education as a form of reformation, ensuring inmates have all the resources needed to be educated during and after their stay in prison for the growth and development of the nation.
