Academy for Educational Development

    Washington, D.C., August 10, 2004 — The W.K. Kellogg Foundation Africa Program has awarded a $7.8 million grant to the Academy for Educational Development (AED) in a broad initiative to strengthen leadership in Southern Africa.

The three-year grant will fund fellowships for undergraduate and graduate study in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. Areas of study range from agronomy to nursing. Funds will also be used for awards recognizing senior leaders who have made a significant difference in their communities.

Unlike traditional scholarship and awards programs, the Kellogg Southern Africa Leadership programs aim to address the social, economic and political challenges rural communities face by working with fellows and awardees to develop solutions grounded in core African values. The process also involves encouraging participants to take on a project or write a thesis that will have an impact where they live or work.

“Lasting solutions to complex problems have to be based on the values that resonate with a society from generation to generation, and this is particularly true in Africa,” said AED Senior Vice President Sandra Lauffer. “We hope this program will create a vanguard of leaders who will work together, in keeping with those values, to affect positive change in the region.”

The AED Center for Leadership Development in Washington will implement the initiatives in the Southern Africa region together with AED Botswana.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 “to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.” Its programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community, and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive, and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions, and healthy communities. To achieve the greatest impact, the Foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These include health; food systems and rural development; youth and education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these areas, attention is given to exploring learning opportunities in leadership; information and communications technology; capitalizing on diversity; and social and economic community development. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin American and the Caribbean, and Southern Africa. The Kellogg Foundation Africa Program promotes changes in the social and economic systems that make new growth possible and supports economic advancement for all to include greater public participation in policymaking and institutional reform.

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