About African Leadership Academy:  

ALA is our most recent addition to the team. The school seeks to transform Africa by developing and supporting future generations of African leaders. The Academy brings together the most promising 16-19 year old leaders from all 54 African nations. ALA is gaining interest from impressive corners; Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently spoke at ALA’s 2008 grand opening.

AFA is extremely impressed with our Piney Woods students and, as part of a collaborative agreement involving ALA, MAD and the Douglas Foundation, graduating seniors will attends the Academy’s gap year program. This program will allow our students to bring their international experience to the mix, but also have a wonderful opportunity to participate in a curriculum that is focused on entrepreneurship, African studies and leadership prior to beginning their career at a University in South Africa.  To learn more about AFA, please review their website http://www.africanleadershipacademy.org/site.

Gap Year at African Leadership Academy: Following graduation from Piney Woods, we plan to be positioned to continuously offer a “gap year” scholarship at the prestigious African Leadership Academy (ALA) in Pretoria. http://www.africanleadershipacademy.org. This gap year will allow our students to bring their international experience to the mix, but also have a wonderful opportunity to focus on African nations and their issues prior to beginning at University in South Africa. 

The ALA Gap Year is a selective 10-month program in South Africa that aims to develop young people from around the world into the global leaders of tomorrow. In September 2009, up to 20 Gap Year students from around the world will join a unique community of 200 of the most outstanding young leaders from across the African continent on our campus in South Africa. At ALA, participants will be exposed to the African continent while developing their leadership skills and designing innovative solutions to challenges facing needy communities across Africa. Participants will be drawn from a variety of ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and will have distinguished themselves as potential future leaders of the world.

Gap Year students have the opportunity to:

• Experience the beauty and diversity of the African continent, including its history, people, and culture;
• Make a lasting impact by designing and implementing a service project in a needy African community;
• Build lifelong bonds with amazing young leaders from across Africa and around the world;
• Engage personally with global leaders in business, politics, the social sector, and the arts;
• Learn a new language spoken broadly in Africa, such as Arabic, Swahili or Zulu; and
• Experience innovative programs in African studies, leadership and entrepreneurship.

Make your tax deductible donation today and help usbreak the cycle of poverty while,at the same time, developing future leaders in South Africa.