Africa has been long been described as a place which lacked good leadership. A place which requires rescuing and an almost mythical hand to usher it into the destiny it deserves. Firstly, to speak of the lack of leadership on a continent is to dispel the efforts of many visionary champions such as Nelson Mandela and Paul Kagame. To wait for a mythical hand to solve Africa’s problems is to be sheerly passive. The Narachi Mentorship Program (NMP) has made it their mandate to identify and equip young leaders who have a vision to build and work towards the Africa they want and deserve. 

NMP is a flagship program under Narachi Leadership, a boutique consultancy started by Zimbabwean Rachel Nyaradzo Adams. Rachel is a leadership practitioner and coach who has worked for organisations such as Yale University and McKinsey & company. Known as ‘The Courage Coach’, courage is not only a virtue she speaks passionately about but a virtue she lives by. Rachel left her position at Yale University and launched Narachi Leadership Academy back in 2015 in an effort to create deep benches of leadership across Africa. Her previous and current clients include L’oreal, Mastercard Foundation, Obama Fellows, the University of Oxford, and many others. She has spoken on platform such as the United Nations and Tedx. 

While many leaders are exposed to the tools and work she offers at a much later stage in their careers, Rachel decided to equip young leaders across Africa with these tools at the genesis of their careers; for free! NMP is now open to its sixth cohort of young and ambitious African youth who are eager to make a positive change in their lives, their communities and Africa as a whole.

Through in-depth workshops, panel discussions and recommended reading, mentees of the program will learn how to lead themselves, how to lead others and how to lead organisations/change. The program is designed to unleash the great potential that resides in youth who are often products of a society that has forced them to conform; at Narachi they believe that conformity is the opposite of courage. 

Launched back in 2020, the alumni network now brags of over 100 graduates who are spread out across the world on all continents of the world. Alumni’s interests and professions range from entrepreneurs, finance, creative economy, health sciences, engineering, law, academia and much more. Applications are open until the 4^th of May for young African leaders aged between 18-25 years of age. Instructions on how to apply can be viewed on the Narachi website and social media pages. The alumni network is also a rich well to draw from in regards to applications.