One of the things that build great institutions is traditions that create a sense of community and belonging. In the spirit of tradition, African Leadership College (ALC), ALU’s campus in Mauritius, held its first ever assembly this morning. Assembly is a time for everyone to pause from the busyness of everyday life, reflect, inspire and share. Today’s event was modeled by the ALC staffulty (staff and faculty).
The gathering starts with updates from the school’s leadership and a reflection on what has happened at ALC during the week in a “This Week at ALC” segment. This is followed by “This Week in Africa,” a news round up of stories from across the continent. Naturally, one of the highlights of the institution’s week was the arrival of the inaugural class and the beginning of orientation.
“Assembly gives you a sense of appreciation of where you come from, where you are and where you’re going. There was a timeline of where it all started to where we are now so it gives us the opportunity to reflect and pinpoint some events that we enjoyed and it helped us to envision the future,” said Emmanuel Kabeya from Zambia.
There is also a “My Story” segment where a member of the community shares an aspect of their life that has contributed to shaping them. This week’s story came from Samuel Darko, Director of Student Outreach. Darko told the story about how after several years of coming out at the top of his class, he encountered failure at 15 years of age. This experience and a series of other non successes brought him to a point where he learned to see failure as an opportunity for transformation.
“The way you handle failure becomes a determinant of who you will become. Become comfortable with failure and learn from it,” he said.
In the “Innovation Review” segment, students get to highlight ideas, ventures or projects that they have started. Setriakor Nyomi, a Technology Developer at ALC spoke about how his love for games led him to create the two-time award winning Oware 3D app. While Nyomi anticipated 10,000 app downloads in the first year, he got more than 10,000 in the first month alone. His story served as a reminder that there is nothing wrong with starting an idea if you have it.
Yassmine Eladib from Morocco said, “Mr Setriakor’s story was a reminder that we don’t need to go and get inspiration from outside. We’re surrounded by inspirational people who we can always reach out to if we need advice.”
Students will take ownership of this tradition and begin leading assembly next week. Veda Sunassee, Director of Student Life encouraged students to employ Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s proposed SUCCES approach from the book “Made to Stick while planning the next assembly. According to Heath and Heath, ideas only stick when you; keep it simple, do something unexpected, make it concrete, keep it credible, include an element of emotion and tell memorable stories.
“When you think about how to make your assembly successful, use the SUCCES formula. Excellence lies in the details,” he told students.
The ALC community looks forward to the development of other traditions that will bring us all together and reinforce our connection to the greater mission of the institution.
