NAIROBI, Kenya — My life almost ended July 27, 2024. But that’s where this story started.
Over 12 days at Kenyatta Referral Hospital — including five hours in theatre — I had a lot of time to ponder life.
My mind kept returning to the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. I had applied for this prestigious program once and reached the interview stage, only to be rejected.
As I stared at the steady drip of the intravenous medicine they administered to me every six hours, I vowed, “When I come out of this place, I will apply for the Mandela Washington Fellowship again.”
After recuperating and being discharged, I returned home and applied. This time, I was accepted.
Founded in 2014, the Mandela Washington Fellowship gathers young leaders from across sub-Saharan Africa to foster professional development for six weeks in America through academic study, workshops, networking and community collaboration. I was selected for placement at the Business Leadership Institute, hosted this past summer at the University of Texas at Austin.
My goal in the Mandela Washington Fellowship’s business track was to gain knowledge and skills to develop Qazini, an online media platform championing the positive stories of Africa. I had been brought on as a partner of Qazini in 2021, and I was eager to advance my ability to perform effective market research and create content strategies that target audience needs.
While my time in the fellowship proved successful and eye opening, I recently saw confirmation of what my peers and I had feared: After 11 years of gatherings that trained 7,800 young African leaders, the U.S. State Department has announced the Mandela Washington Fellowship will not be held in 2026 owing to federal funding reductions.
I am saddened that — at least for now — other Africans will not have the opportunity I had last summer. But I will cherish the memories I made and the lessons I learned for the rest of my life, and I hope my story can highlight the value the Mandela Washington Fellowship has offered to so many.
Fellowship fostered friendships, enriched education
After 9,275 miles of travel from Nairobi to Austin, including a layover in Frankfurt, Germany, I entered a state I only knew because of the Walker, Texas Ranger TV show I had watched as a kid in my hometown of Narok.
I knew Texas bordered Oklahoma, where I had professional friends: veteran journalist and poet James Coburn, and NonDoc’s editor in chief, Tres Savage. I had never met either in person before, but thanks to the Internet, they had mentored me in my writing.
Still, I felt rather alone when I landed in Austin. I took a deep breath in the airport, wondering what I could make of my first time in the great United States of America.
At UT Austin, I was the only Kenyan in the cohort. My fellow fellows came from other African nations, but I did not feel alone for long. Over the next six weeks, the other fellows became like family.
Our days were broken into academic sessions, leadership trainings, site visits, a pitch showcase, Ignite Talks, networking events and mentorship opportunities with personal business coaches. We also received unstructured time to network with Austinites and build meaningful connections in the community.
I’ll confess, I struggled in some of those classes at first. I am a natural storyteller at heart, not a businessman. But I was a storyteller who had found himself tasked with running a business after Damaris Agweyu, the founder of Qazini, brought me on as a partner, so I was eager to improve.
Ironically, I do have some background in business. After finishing high school in Kenya, the government sponsored me for a course in cooperative business. I had desired to pursue creative writing or journalism, but my test scores placed me in the “cooperative business” course. To pursue my actual dream, my single mother would have had to cough up hefty fees in a self-sponsored program. That wasn’t an option.
I saw the course as an opportunity to hone two skills. After all, a writer will always be a writer — the pen in their soul will never run out of ink. So while I continued to write in my own time, I studied business at the Co-operative University of Kenya. After four years of study, I graduated in 2018 with my degree’s emphasis being human resources management.
Still, I entered the Mandela Washington Fellowship with limited experience. When UT lecturer Rodney Northern taught us about market research — and when he revised the model of a storytelling business I had drafted — I realized I would learn more about business in these six weeks than I had during four years at my home university.
I love my alma mater, don’t get me wrong. It shaped me in academic discipline, laid a business foundation and incubated my creativity. But the truth is the truth.
More and more, under the tutelage of Northern, my confidence in running Qazini grew. I began understanding the practicality of business concepts.
When I met my personal coach in the fellowship, my confidence grew more. Kimberly Allen, who teaches at Austin Community College, helped me ask important questions of myself and my work. Why does Qazini exist? Why do we seek the audience we seek, and why are our stories needed by this audience? While this exercise seemed simple, it brought a deeper understanding of our market, a lesson that tied well with Northern’s insights on market research. I couldn’t stop jotting notes because every word she spoke built my inspiration.
In the leadership classes, I learned the art of listening and how it beats as the heart of leadership. Suddenly, I realized leadership is not about power, nor is it a title. Instead, it involves action and service.
‘If we do not define ourselves, someone else will’
During the Mandela Washington Fellowship, participants engage in Ignite Talks, a stage where fellows turn their personal stories into speeches.
With an opportunity to show the group I’m a storyteller, I revisited my cyberbullying tale from back in 2018. I connected the exhausting experience of having my identity mistaken for an accused killer with how, when we fail to define ourselves, others will define us. I said Africa rises when we — Africans — tell our own stories.
“If we do not define ourselves,” I said in the speech, “someone else will, and this will negatively impact us.”
The cohort voted my speech as the best of the bunch, a humbling recognition that made me feel like I was on the right track.
As we returned to our academic sessions, the program included site visits in Austin and Dallas, as well as networking opportunities that introduced us to other inspiring people and ideas.
My favorite interactions came while visiting with the leaders of South by South West, an annual conglomeration of festivals and conferences dedicated to helping creatives achieve their goals. Not only were we getting to experience American culture and opportunities, but we also found ourselves connected to one of the country’s premiere gatherings for artists and entrepreneurs.
During one of the fellowship’s networking sessions, I met Michelle Daniel, a deputy director and researcher at threatcasting.ai. A writer like me, she urged me to attend the Austin African American Book Festival, where, accompanied by my friend Mariama Diallo from Guinea, I met the universally acclaimed author Walter Mosley. I couldn’t believe we were at arm’s length, talking about writing and life. I’d read his novel Devil in a Blue Dress five years ago and had dreamed of meeting him one day. Mosley signed a copy of his book This Year You Write Your Novel.
To reach the goal outlined in his book’s title, I met other writers who also offered inspiration, like E. Nigma, author of the novel Between Wives. Later that night, I shared my novella manuscript with him, and two days later, he sent me detailed and constructive feedback. I also met Shaina Frazier, a creative writing professor at UT Austin. Seated across from her at a coffee shop, we talked about creative writing until we lost track of time. Never had I been so inspired.
‘Sometimes, the pen can be heavy to wield’
During my free time, I toured Austin and was shocked when I got into a Waymo, a self-driving car. Thinking about my computerized chauffeur, the creative writer in me began formulating a crime plot about a villain who settles scores by hacking into the Waymo system to best his “enemies,” locking the doors, speeding the car forward and ramming it into a wall! I imagined what sort of detective it would take to stop him.
I also attended an open mic event with my friends from the cohort, where they encouraged me to take the stage and spit some poetic lines. Later that night, we walked through the streets of Austin, the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World. Amid the vibrant nightlife on Sixth Street, we enjoyed bands billowing their songs from different stages.
When we traveled to Dallas for a combined leadership session with other Mandela Washington fellows from Texas Tech University, we watched a cattle drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards and visited the African American Museum. While the fellowship allowed me to forge new bonds with mentors and peers, I appreciated how it also gave me the opportunity to make connections outside the program.
Back in Austin, I used my unstructured time to visit the Inside Books Project, an organization that reads letters from prisoners incarcerated in Texas, then matches their needs to books from their library. While reading letters from knowledge-hungry prisoners, I lost touch with my environment and let my soul bleed on paper, writing back to one of the men.
I told him I was Kenyan and visiting Texas for the Mandela Washington Fellowship. He had requested a thriller and a dictionary. I told him I am a thriller writer, then listed the books I had selected for him. I signed off, my chest pounding, a reflection of how, sometimes, the pen can be heavy to wield.
The Mandela Washington Fellowship needs to survive
While so many of the connections I made were new, the Mandela Washington Fellowship also offered me the opportunity to meet a man who had helped my international writing career get off the ground.
Based in Oklahoma, NonDoc first published my work in 2017, through a connection from a friend, James Coburn, whom I had met in a writers’ group on Facebook. He introduced me to NonDoc’s editor in chief, Tres Savage, who believed in me an ocean apart and allowed me to submit a story. That marked the first time I was published internationally. As the years progressed, I submitted many more stories. Some, Tres rejected. Some, he published. Over the years, he mentored me and kept me encouraged.
When James and Tres heard I would be visiting their neighboring state of Texas, they said they hoped to come meet me in person. James, however, could not manage the trip owing to health issues. I remember my phone vibrating to a lengthy message from him. He said he would not be able to make it but that he was proud of me. He told me how badly it hurt his heart that he couldn’t come meet me. My eyes welled, and a tear leaked. I understood him. We were buddies for life, and I told him I would meet him someday when God wills.
In 2017, when I wrote my poetry book, it was James who had read the first draft and guided me. He wrote a review for the book. Without us ever meeting face to face, our souls bonded.
Knowing James likely could not travel, Tres flew to Austin to meet me for the first time. He took me to Black’s BBQ for dinner, and we talked about life in America and in Africa. As we discussed the political dynamics in America that were jeopardizing future iterations of the Mandela Washington Fellowship, he asked about the leaders and issues presenting challenges in Kenya. We talked about our work and how NonDoc had bridged 8,700 miles of my imagination. After brainstorming future pieces I might write for his American audience, I thanked Tres for the role NonDoc has played in my career.
On July 24, our cohort held its graduation ceremony at the University of Texas at Austin. I was privileged to deliver my Ignite Talk again, with cameras flashing as we received our certificates.
Three days later, I saw how all of the fellows’ eyes were watery like mine as we said our goodbyes and flew back to Africa.
To the fellows in my cohort who became family — Isabel, Boshirwa, Elzo, Wazi, Chester, Khumalo, Teddy, Mamy Sira, Mariama, Thato, Maro, Souad, Olu, Taiwo, Yohanna, Gisele, Aissatou, Lungelo, Reino, Eric, Colleen and Precious — I love you and wish you the best.
Back home in August, I met all of the 2025 Mandela Washington Fellowship’s Kenyan participants who had been placed at different American sites during a welcome reception with the then-U.S. Chargé d’Affaires, Carla Benini. It felt great reconnecting and knowing the U.S. Embassy would walk and work with us. I felt that they desired to see us leverage our experiences, networks and ideas to address pressing challenges and create opportunities. We were welcomed into the U.S.-Kenya Alumni Association.
As 2026 begins without a Mandela Washington Fellowship on the books, I want to thank the program team and the entire U.S. State Department for last year’s opportunity to network, learn and grow. Because of the Mandela Washington Fellowship, the United States will always be a part of my story, and I hope this opportunity will eventually be reopened to other Africans whose lives can be changed like mine has been.
