There are many NGOs in the world with their own ideas of what it takes to improve situations of injustice or poverty, but what impresses me most about Leadership Initiatives is that the solutions are elicited and implemented at the local level. Leadership Initiatives does not tell others how they will fix the world’s problems, it asks capable youth what their community's needs are and LI helps youth implement it. The web of positive and conscientious growth created by the growing network of LI and locally led projects is an enormously effective contribution to the global community.

Monica
American University

Programs like this are the reason why the world is continually improving every day (minus Global Warming of course). But I applaud you and your efforts to allow young people to explore their true potential. If only this program could be duplicated all over the world. Could you imagine?? I hope you can, because you look like you're already on the right path to do it! Good luck~God be with you!

Leadership Initiatives is an INCREDIBLE international non-profit organization that will be able to create a sustainable change in these communities by challenging youth to identify problems within their own community and empowering them to create solutions. From the posted video you can see the students are eager to learn and hungry for positive change. LI is able to assist them in making a positive impact on the community, while giving them the leadership and development skills to better their own futures. There is not an organization on this site that is more deserving of financial assistance than LI.

On a personal note, I have seen the sacrifices that have been made to keep this organization running.... not only with time, but also with finances, energy, sleep, you name it! It would only be just to see these men rewarded for years of hard work.

I was inspired by how Leadership Initiatives is able to empower university students with the knowledge and funds to create positive programs for their community without dependence on unstable or corrupt governments. By instituting indigenous change from the vibrant youth within the community, LI enacts social change without an imposing or oppressive Western presence. I truly believe in LI's ability to ensure lasting social change by utilizing indigenous solutions that incorporate and are enacted by the nation's youth.

It's been great opportunity for me to know LI and their development because it's ran by someone I know and also because of their success. Since living in Africa, I've had real dificulty to reach the local people. Maybe it is because of my work, but not just that, we as foreigners are easily separated from local communities and that is one of the difficulties many foreign development organizations may have. What LI has been doing truely contribute to local people in countries where things never work in straight way.Their involvement to all the countries have shown significant differences and I believe there will be more in the future. Their contribution should be recognised and also supported both by people in the communities and people from all over the world share the same thinking.

I have had the honor of working with the staff of LI on multiple occasions. I believe that the people behind this unique nonprofit are making a difference in the lives of countless people and spreading hope through their hard work and programs.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with an extremely hard working and inspiring LI team. They are truely commited to their vision of sustainable change through community empowerment and leadership skills. These are the most powerfull tools that one can be given to create change.

Maggie Gurman
San Diego State University
Social Work MSW prog.

It is a testament to their ingenuity and their determination that Leadership Intiatives has had such tremendous success in a field of endeavor typically tackled - if at all - by huge philanthropic organizations. Part of what makes LI such a praiseworthy institution is that its leaders are accessible both here, in the US, and abroad - allowing young people in both the industrial world and the developing to encounter serious ideas and to engage in meaningful discussion on a whole host of issues, all of them vital for our shared global future. This is the kind of transformative relationship needed to make dynamic - lasting - change. LI continues to expand its efforts, enrich its curriculum, and develop working partnerships on the ground in places that are too little visited by the resources or the wealth of the industrial world. LI, in a sense, is a unique envoy that is advancing a tremendous project on a budget that is a sixteenth the size of peer institutions and organizations. For these reasons, and many more, LI should be praised.

I thought I had reviewed most of the entries, however, I somehow let this one slip by! This is AMAZING work you are doing and you are right here in DC. I would love to have my guys and I connect with you at some point. Visit our site www.lifepieces.org. We are Life Pieces To Masterpieces, Inc. and for almost 13 years now, we have been raising young men and boys living in low-income and public housing in Washington, DC.

We have at least four of our LPTM college students who would DEFINITELY be interested in volunteering in Nigeria and/or assisting you in your work here. POSITIVELY let's be in touch!

In Peace

Mary Brown

LI is run by a passionate, selfless group of individuals that truly care about making global change. It is make huge impact in the lives of many people throughout the world. LI isn't about simply giving money to people in need, they give people the tools they need to establish and maintain their own sources of wealth. I am inspired by their work every day.

Leadership Initiatives has really impressed me with their strategy of helping rebuild Nigeria from the bottom-up. By concentrating their efforts on the community level, and having indigenous ideas propel community development projects, it's great to see this organization start to construct the infrastructure that is so badly missing on the local level. Also what's truly impressive in my opinion is the fact that Leadership Initiatives is helping people create their own change instead of simply giving a handout.

I am so impressed with the wonderful ideas and work of LI. I am so proud to see an organization help locals work on the issues they identify as opposed to coming in as an outside organization and telling them what their problems are and how they should be addressed. Thank you to LI's founders for your sacrifice, commitment, and belief in helping others and broadening their opportunities.

I was working as a freelance technician in Washington DC. when I 'discovered' a non-profit organization through a Craig's list ad. They needed a videographer to go to Africa to document an on-going leadership development program.

I was like: "Volunteer to go to Africa for SIX MONTHS?!" It didn't take me long to figure out that they were not swimming in the type of capital needed for me to even consider such a bold proposal.

Upon investigation I met an odd but definitely special and dynamic duo: Marshall and Antoine. At the first meeting I learned so much about what I thought people were NOT doing in Africa and more significantly in the despised, rejected zones of Africa. Here were two college students with no visible means of income hustling their asses off to sustain their vision thousands of miles away. What was wrong with them? what was driving them? I had heard all of the hype stories about helping poor African nations and had grown weary. Antoine's vision, passion and drive in the face of the type of hurdles that a non-profit-in-embryo like L.I. had ahead, was phenomenal to say the least.

Because Antoine, Marshall and their volunteers had hit the trenches first and then asked for ammunition.. they kind of found themselves in a financial crossfire which challenged them and volunteers at home and abroad incessantly. Antoine worked nights and Marshall literally gave his blood to keep the L.I. engine running. these guys were crazy!

As a son of Africa, I am genuinely inspired to see young American students moving against the current of time and
resources to make things happen in places that are not on the top ten list for community development.
"Leadership Initiatives" :I have always loved that name. It speaks to me and to my personal responsibility.It speaks to the action behind the idea. it is based in reality: like those awaiting the change that it will most certainly bring about!

Leadership Initiatives is a useful organization. We must take a stand for the good amd welfare of others. No man is an Island,. We cannot stand alone in caring for one another and sharing our talents and knowledge. We must reach out and take the shallenge for change. We need new leadership to help impliment the great cause for those in need, Nigeria is a country that hs alot of potential to learn many skills to help themselves and share skills amongst each other. We must given the oppportunity to make changes for the better. We start in one place and spread to many.

This organization sheds light on the disparity that we have in this world and moves to change it! I am so glad to know that I am connected to someone who is passionate about using this organization to make a change! I think what LI is doing is amazing and should not go without applause! Sometimes I feel people in America take things for granted. LI puts things in perspective, while trying to influence the lives of others in a positive light! Continue this grand journey! There is no where else to go but up! Here's to LI's perpetual success!

For change to truly be sustainable, it must come from within. The growth of leadership that is resulting from LI's programming is changing individuals and communities forever by enabling internal transformation. This mission works because it recognizes the potential of individuals and fosters that potential to bloom into something tangible for the entire community. Not only do I believe in LI for this vision, but also for its ability to inspire. The passion, dedication, self-sacrifice, talent, ingenuity, and undeniable determination of LI staff to turn this vision into reality are the assets that will enable LI to change the world...one person...one community...one country...at a time.

I have had the honor of working with Leadership Initiatives and watching it grow over the last few years. The amount of professional growth it has gone through is astounding. Every year it adapts to the new challenges presented to it. Adapting to the problems within communities and finding new ways for them to use their own resources to change their world. This is an organization that wants change and its mission and methods are some of the most powerful I have ever seen.

This is an organization that can inspire hope in this generation. They have learned from the accomplishments and the mistakes of previous organizations and are now charting the road to a better tomorrow by bringing young men and women together to change their nations from the ground up. This is a model institution of how a grassroots organization can bring substantial change to the world.

My name is John and I just wanted to post the results of just one of the program I helped to create in the Philippines to show you how it can change lives called Real Growth.

Real Growth created a literacy center that successfully brought talented teachers and motivated students to the reading table. The renovated library procured hundreds of books, teaching materials, and valuable construction supplies from local schools, businesses, and government agencies. The education majors at the university who made up most of the volunteer teaching staff were very successful in implementing appropriate curricula for each reading level. The surrounding villages were so pleased with the project that they asked for the program to be held year-round.

This is just one example of how LI changes lives and how it can change Nigeria.

Leadership Initiatives has changed over the last five years. I have watched this institution change from a two man operation in Namibia to a large group working to define how Nigeria will change themselves in the coming years. Last time I spoke to Marshall about how he and Antoine were trying to define how many lives their projects were changing, so they could better quantify their work. I laughed at this because, an organization like this never stops changing lives. With how this organization works to build upon the achievements of others and of itself there will be people a hundred years from now whose lives will be forever changed by the actions LI has made and will continue to make. That is the nature of their project and why it is so vital to the world today.

Leadership Initiatives has already done some wonderful things. Congratulations on your progress this far. It's amazing what these young people are capable of and at such a young age. Their projects are innovative and life-changing. I am in full support of what they do and can't wait to see what else comes of their work.

Growing up in WWII, there were a few things that most people forget that should be remembered today. When we were in the depression, President Roosevelt knew that he could not bring us out of this horrible predicament on his own. He knew that the only way to create sustainable change was to show Americans that they could help themselves. By creating a can do environment, by making an America that believed in themselves he allowed us to build upon our own infrastructure, he allowed Americans to build upon their own ingenuity. He only connected us with the resources we already had.

I firmly believe that this is what LI is doing for Nigeria and I hope to see it do, one day for the entire world. Show our brothers and sisters everywhere that we can build an environment where we can grow and build upon our own work and be the masters of our own destiny.

This a unique idea to create substantial changes around the world. This is a program that has taken years to learn how to best involve a community to build upon itself. This is an institution whose idea, we all have a large stake in, an idea that will decide if we as world will push our influence upon others and tell them how they must live their lives or if we as a planet can offer help and assistance when needed while encouraging those we wish to help to develop their own ideas, their own infrastructure, their own world that can live in conjunction with ours. This is the idea of LI.

Leadership Initiatives enables Nigerians to educate Nigerians whose communities are struggling: the illiterate and drug-addicted youth in many areas now have a chance. I really appreciate and commend the work of the program staff; the training they provide in conjunction with the support of the mentors not only ensures the success of our programs but compels the students, to flourish as responsible and accountable leaders

Something that many of the more novelty organizations (perhaps inadvertantly) do is condescend, patronize the developing world by attempting to sell it, so to speak, through cultural generalization and picking on Western consumer guilt. One of the amazing concepts at work in the Leadership Initiatives program is its dedication to community-oriented empowerment. This allows people from specific localities to choose the course of their own development, doing so in a way that is most appropriate to the people such development affects. It's an incredible concept, and to see it in action and affecting real positive change is truly breathtaking. With the proper support, Leadership Initiatives will have a huge impact on both today's and tomorrow's world.

To quote another commenter, "The world needs Leadership Initiatives." Keep up the amazing work!

Leadership Initiatives, in its dedication to real personal and social change, is the most impressive and passionate non-profit that I have seen in a long time. The LI approach recognizes that real change happens person by person, but also that each person can have a tremendous effect on the lives of everyone in a community. Each life has the power to illuminate other lives, and LI offers inspiration, tools, support and personal connection to help make that happen. Antoine and his colleagues have a rare combination of global vision, clear articulation of their goals, the daring to dream big dreams and the grit and perservance to make them happen. I've been honored to watch this dream develop and flourish.

This is a great program, but you know about that already.

Having been around when this was just an idea, I can say I am proud of your guys' results.
Such an effort to embrace & empower people in need all over the world is not only great, it is refreshing and humbling.
Please keep up the good work and may the true success of this project be yet to come.

Leadership Initiatives is empowerment that turns the ideas and drive of university students in Nigeria into locally sustainable community development projects. I love the idea and it appears that LI has the tools necessary to achieve success.

In my life I have come to learn that we cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own. I am to have been touched Leadership Initiatives and am happy to do anything I can to help them light the paths of others, their work is the most novel approach to development yet. It incorporates ideas that really do ask Nigerians not what Nigeria can do for them, but instead asks them what they can do for Nigeria. Changing their mindset with ideas never before introduced to their culture.

Leadership Initiatives is doing outstanding and important work. I applaud their efforts. Their goal is commendable and deserves recognition.

I am involved with Leadership Initiatives because it invests in the future of young people and that is my passion. Teaching young people to be independent, especially in a country like Nigeria, is a worthwhile investment. Secondly, I am particularly thrilled that the program is changing the lives of people who are otherwise less privileged

It is great to see any enity that understands that sending big checks in the mail has little impact, if any, on the people who must live and work in their own area. Corruption and graft have been negated with this type of program. I am not one who will say "change" is always good. It depends on the direction the change is aimed. Helping people help themselves is the only way. In the United States, we have failed to learn that after pouring Trillions of dollars into the "war on poverety"the only thing accomplished was creating several genereations of people dependant on goverment checks with out the skills or most importantly the desire to help themselves. At first look, I feel that you have the right idea and goal. I am willing and happy to support you in any way I can. I would like to be updated on your progress.
Paul C. Slade

Wow! That video was pretty amazing. These guys did not have much, but Leadership initiatives gave them an opportunity and look what they were able to produce. Developing countries are generally crippled by patronage, so to see these guys seize the opportunities presented to them proves that there is a wealth of untapped potential out there. We need more organizations like Leadership Initiatives to show the world the potential contained within marginalized populations. Keep up the good work!

When people are given an opportunity to own the change achieved in their communities, then something sustainable has been created. Leadership Initiatives seems to understand this basic principle, and the stories of Joshua and Khalifa are perfect proof of that. I hope L eadership initiatives continues to grow and empower more people and communities around the world.

I think very few people here in our country really realize on the limited opportunities and resources available in other remote countries. I think it is an amazing idea to identify students within the communities who have a clearer concept of the needs and struggles. I believe it is also a great way to start a chain reaction and motivate other local students to participate in this program and mentor others to share their knowledge. It is great to see that someone out there is acting on this matter.

I'm tired of the American government talking about freedom and making the world safe for democracy by marching into a foreign country and imposing our own ideas. Obviously, that strategy doesn't work. Instead, sponsoring the citizens of a country so that they can make their cultural revolution has a better chance of success to change their world and build a better global community. LI trains the people who are in the best position to make a change in their world. It provides people who know the problem, the people, the matierals, and the culture with the tools to create something more than themselves. In turn these people inspire others and creates a community of people who feel like they can make a positive change in their world, instead of resigning themselves to the status quo.

Leadership Initiatives is an international NGO that helps students worldwide to turn their ideas and drive into locally sustainable community development projects. This organization focuses on how to help underdeveloped countries by using education. The young individuals in a society are the future of a country. Therefore, by addressing their needs and guiding them towards the right path, these students can eventually help the development of a country.

I love this idea. It's based on the theory of "don't give them fish, give them a fishing pole." Ideas like this are great ways for countries to begin to become totally independent. It's the key to the future. I used to donate money all the time to charities who sent food. Although, this is still needed, it's only a band-aid to the actual problems. I hope this program flourishes and duplicates, and duplicates, and then duplicates again. Good luck.

Leadership Initiatives is a great organization that is attempting to evoke and create change around the world. Their goal is a commendable one and deserves recognition.

Leadership Initiatives has come up with a very unique and powerful way of creating sustainable change in the communities in which it operates. They have found a way to get the next generation (the college students) of Nigerian citizens invloved in leadership, developement and problem solving. These are skills that will serve those entire communities in pivotal ways. Some of the programs created by the students have already become integral parts of schools and businesses in the local areas. Keep up the good work.

I think Leadership Initiatives is a great idea: fighting poverty from the community up. Marshall has identified a huge problem in Nigeria - a lack of leadership - and is training university students with the skills they'll need to solve problems that they themselves have faced. Very unique approach to community development.

Africa has vast resources, but until relatively recently most of the continent has been ruled by foreign powers. Because of this the people of Africa have been empoverished and stripped of leadership skills. That is why this initiative is so important. It places the knowledge and skills in the hands of the people who most want to help Africa-- the African people.

As Justice Coordinator of the Justice Commission of the Consociates and Sisters of St. Joesph of Carondelet~St. Paul Province, I view Leadership Initiatives as an important organization that is helping countires to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. Their work, as described on their website, definitely has contributed to progress of goals: 2 (achieving universal primary education), 3 (promote gender equality and empower women) 6 (combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases)and 8 (develop a global partnership for development).

This last goal (#8) is the one that I always look for in projects because I believe that collaboration is how we live and work in this global society of this century. Leadership Initiatives promotes this well through their leadership training of college students and people in the local areas in which they work and serve.

Without LI, relationships and development in selected areas of the global community would not exist. I extend my cheers, affirmation and kudos especially to Leadership Initiatives in Nigeria.
Joanne Tromiczak-Neid
Justice Coordinator
Justice Commission
Consociates & Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet
1884 Randolph Avenue
St. Paul, MN. 55105
USA

The great thing about leadership initiatives is that they train local leaders to find solutions to their local problems- what they the locals think are important. Not someone elses agenda

The amazing thing about LI is that their development programs--which change so many lives for the better--are only one part of the larger point: creating new models for local leadership that are accountable, transparent, and self-sustaining.

This is an organization that promotes real change and not just superficial fix-its. Change must originate within a locality, and this organization helps local people to realize that they have the power and resources to affect change. Even one person can make a serious difference (as each of the volunteers devoting so much time and energy well knows). Leadership Initiatives does more than coach local people with skills and knowledge, it encourages them to think "I can make a difference," which is an attitude I sometimes fear is lost in more advantaged places.

Antoine and Marshall are great guys and have inspired me to work with them. The most incredible thing about this organization is how it inspires others to work with them, how they build coalitions to further their great ideas and the seeds they have planted knowing that the fruit they will one day bare will change millions of lives. Every time I donate myself to them I am investing in this worlds future and know I will be getting huge returns from it.

I have seen this organization grow and change over the last few years and it has gone from being an idea in Antoine and Marshall eye to something that is a force to be reckoned with. These men won't stop, have the ideas that can change the world and are by far the most resourceful people I know. They are smart, they never stop and they have plan. We are lucky to have them.

LI is a passionate organization whose hard work, efforts, and continued beliefs has and continues to provide opportunities promoting self-reliance, growth, and development. Keep up the GREAT WORK LI.

The reason I love LI is that it has a development model that recognizes that local leaders are the best to identify local problems, and create lasting solutions. LI facilitates this process in a way that nurtures leaders, establishes sustainable programs and unites the programs with available resources! Beyond the programs, LI creates opportunities that continue to grow exponentially with the empowerment and education of young leaders!