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Jennifer Ellen French
Public Relations Manager
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
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ATLANTA—Sharon Hill, who manages the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies’ (AYS) Public Management Institute for the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, the flagship program of the U.S. Department of State’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), is coordinating a program to address barriers and develop strategies for strengthening leadership skills for women and girls in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The new program is supported with a $5,000 grant from the Fellowship’s Reciprocal Exchange component.
For this project, Hill and Trenny Stovall, an Atlanta-based attorney, have partnered with Fellowship alumnae Ndeye Yande Diop (Senegal), Affissatou Diagabate (Cote d’Ivoire), Djaoudath Alidou (Benin) and Rokhaya Diop (Senegal) to design a two-part program in which they will run focus groups in Cote d’Ivoire and produce a three-day Women and Girls Leadership and Empowerment Conference in Senegal in May 2021.
“The goal of this foundational work is to create opportunities for participants from across Africa,” Hill said. “We hope to encourage them to work together to develop results-based initiatives, programs and practices to address challenges faced by women and girls so they can become change agents and leaders in their communities.”
The Mandela Washington Fellowship is a program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and administered by IREX, a nonprofit global development and education organization. IREX works with partners in more than 100 countries in four areas essential to progress: empowering youth, cultivating leaders, strengthening institutions and extending access to quality education and information.
Award-winning Atlanta-based filmmaker Tamlin Hall, who has been involved with the Andrew Young School’s Fellowship Institute since 2018, has also received funding to work with two Fellowship alumni. He received a grant from the Fellowship to partner with Anne Mootian to produce a documentary about efforts to abolish female genital mutilation in Kenya that he will begin filming in May 2021.
Hall also partnered with Jasper Siembe to produce a documentary highlighting untreated mental illness in Sierra Leone. He received funding from The Rockdale Foundation for this project.
For more information on how to participate in the Women and Girls Leadership and Empowerment Conference, please contact Sharon Hill at [email protected]. For more information about the Mandela Washington Fellowship, please visit www.mandelawashingtonfellowship.org.
2019 Mandela Washington Fellowship alum Anne Mootian
Featured Researcher
Sharon Hill
Clinical Associate Professor
Public Management & Policy
Sharon Hill is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Dr. Hill has thirty years of professional experience in government and human services in Georgia, Texas and Illinois. Positions have included Director of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budgeting, Director and Deputy Director of Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS), Director of Federal Regulations and Data for DFCS which includes the Office of Quality Assurance, SHINES (Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System) and Data Analysis and Reporting. Dr. Hill worked for the Texas Department of Human Services as a Management Development Specialist and a Supervisor for a long term care program for the elderly and persons with disabilities. She also worked in Illinois in case management and supervisory positions in community mental health, child protective services, foster care and adoptions for both state and non-profit agencies.