TAMALE, August 6 -- The four-day Youth Leadership Conference, with the theme: Leading Ghana into the Future: A Journey of Exploration begins on Friday 10th August at the University for Development Studies, Tamale.

The Baobab Conference on Youth Leadership began in 2010 as AfriLEAD’s way of creating a new breed of highly involved and engaged young leaders. The key piece of the program is an exciting 4-day leadership conference that brings together 360 young Ghanaian aged 15-25 from every schools in Northern Ghana to explore and develop their talents, skills and interests.

Its aim is to bring together young leaders across high schools in the three Northern Regions and to engage and challenge them to think and discuss critically about the complexity of challenges affecting our communities in Ghana and the impact they, as young leaders, can contribute to the creating solution to tackle these challenges.

The Conference features a mix of plenaries and panels on entrepreneurship, leadership, interspersed with teambuilding and reflection sessions. Leveraging on this platform, the delegates will explore new avenues, build lasting relationships, and understand existing challenges and opportunities for exercising leadership for Ghana’s development.

AfriLEAD’s Founder and CEO, Awin Peter said, “Leadership is the vehicle that can bridge the gap between Ghana as it is today and Ghana as it ought to be. And this leadership has to come from the young generation. This is why we have organized this Conference– to celebrate the promise and potential of our youth, and instill in them values of leadership, reflection and active citizenship.”

Mr Awin was addressing a press conference today (August 6th 2012).

From over 2000 applications, 360 youth students were competitively selected as delegates to the conference. They represent over 25 different high schools across the three regions.

The Coordinator of the Conference Miss Cecile Branco-Cote said, “the Baobab Conference on Youth Leadership’s biggest strength is its capacity to convene young people from very different socio-economic, educational and religious backgrounds and bring them to work together. This conference will serve as a platform to unite the young generation and to encourage them to create a change in their communities.”

The Partners to this conference are, Campaign for Female Education (CAMFE), Right to Play, Youth Alive, Youth Empowerment for Life (YEFL), Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS),The Youth Action for Integrated Development (YAFID), Ghana Angel Investors Network (GAIN) ,Talents Beyond Limits (TBL), Action Aid Ghana and Hosted by University for Development Studies. And with support from Cowbell, Tamale Integrated Fruit Company, RLG, GLO.

For complete information on AfriLEAD International including copies of all speeches and press releases please send request to peter@afrilead-international.org. And stay connected on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/AfriLEAD-International/272454972794929

Salomy Atakorah Gyimah

Director of Conference Public Relations