CLI: A Proven Catalyst for Change
37%
of Congolese people are underemployed
500+
enterprises founded by
CLI young leaders
33%
of Congolese youth are not enrolled in secondary school
50+
hours of training for each of CLI’s young leaders
29%
of Congolese girls are married by age 18
50%
of CLI’s Leadership Institute participants are girls
166th
DR Congo’s ranking in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index
8,000+
graduates of CLI's ethical leadership training curriculum
CLI alumni go on to do great things!
University scholarships
Many CLI young leaders go on to attend university, which is rare in DR Congo. In fact, CLI alums have earned nearly 20 scholarships to top Congolese and international universities. This includes one alum with a full scholarship to Pitzer College in California and multiple Mastercard Foundation Scholars.
At the national level, DR Congo only graduates roughly 10,000 students from universities every year, so to even attend one is a tremendous accomplishment. The fact that CLI’s young leaders have done so with such regularity — and at the world’s leading universities — speaks to the broad impact of our leadership training curriculum on their lives.
Professional Success
After completing our program, young leaders from CLI have been elected to Congolese provincial assembly, founded law firms, started major enterprises, and created child psychology practices - just to name a few achievements.
In a country where official unemployment hovers near 50% (and measures of underemployment top 85%), the professional success of CLI alumni is notable. Most CLI graduates attribute their success to the “soft skills” training that they received from CLI — training that would have been impossible for them to access otherwise.
FellowshipS AND AWARDS
CLI has produced three Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) Mandela Washington Fellows since the program began in 2014. Given that the YALI program is designed for leaders who are somewhat older than the participants in CLI’s Leadership Institute, we expect this number to continue to rise in the future. In 2013, a CLI alum was a finalist for the African Leadership Academy’s Anzisha Prize.
While we judge our success on the basis of impact that CLI has on the lives of young leaders, their families, and communities, we consider our ability to connect graduates to programs such as these to be an indicator that our training is in line with best practices of leadership experts globally.
who we are
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