It is with great joy I announce that, this Summer, I will be a Legal Fellow and global cohort class member of the 2024 Garvey-Nkrumah Fellowship Program!
The Garvey-Nkrumah Fellowship Program, established in honor of international civil rights leaders, political theorists, and dignitaries Marcus Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah, is a summer leadership and professional development initiative designed to train aspiring lawyers and future leaders of African descent in the areas of International Trade & Development, Public Policy & Diplomacy, Conflict & Dispute Resolution, and Civil & Human Rights. Fellows will engage in a comprehensive learning experience through a legal internship, a trip to Ghana and Rwanda, and a self-directed capstone project designed to advance solutions that address legal, social, economic, and/or public policy issues within Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas.
This Legal Fellowship is a big victory, for it strategically builds on my professional experiences from 2023: (1) International Trade Intern at the United Nations International Trade Center in Geneva, Switzerland; (2) International Diplomatic Immersion experience at the Washington International Diplomatic Academy; and (3) Multilateral Diplomacy training at the United Nations Immersion Program for Multilateral Diplomacy.
With unswerving precision it also furthers my professional goal:
To be an international nation-building diplomat who creates and implements policies that drives the indigenous development, progress, self-sufficiency, and economic integration of the African continent.
I resolved to go to law school to answer an inner call to support the emergence of genuine leadership in Africa, to partake in the work of institutional transformation in post-colonial Africa so it reflects the cultural heritage and indigenous nature of the people, and to create frameworks that encourages the creative expression of the natural abilities of the African people for the progress of the African continent.
Yet I knew my designs and efforts alone would be insufficient, for I needed the decisive Grace of God and His Blessing to guide my earnest efforts to reach the goal! Thus, I find success because I try to lean into the guidance of God to know where I am to energetically exert diligent efforts to achieve victory! I am thankful to the Almighty for His Grace that opens doors!
My formula is: The will + higher guidance + strategic diligence /(over) time = unconditional victory! Every element in the equation must be balanced for the victory to be unconditional
I am honored to be a Garvey-Nkrumah Fellow, in the names of two men whose lives are a signpost to my own destiny. Yet I know every success I am afforded is only a Divine loan I am to repay through the service of my life to help my people. Thus, what drives me is not personal success, but to achieve my life’s objective:
To be a servant of God on earth, and a helper and guardian of the welfare and further development of the African people!
Onward & Upward!
~Dr. Ikenna Ezealah
Nation Upbuilding 