A staff writer with The Hope Newspaper, Saheed Ibrahim has been selected for the 2023 Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) holding in the United States of America.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders is the flagship programme of the U.S. Government’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) for Fellows, between the ages of 25 and 35, who are accomplished innovators and leaders in their communities and countries.

Ibrahim will join 55 other young Nigerian leaders rigorously scrutinised and selected out of 10,264 applications received for the fellowship, starting from June.

The Ondo NUJ Investigative Reporter and Best Print Journalist of the Year 2022 will be trained in ‘Leadership in Public Management’ Track at Syracuse University, New York for six weeks before joining other African fellows and American leaders at the YALI Summit in Washington DC.

Prior to his selection, Ibrahim is a YALI West Africa Regional Leadership Centre (Ghana) Alumnus and immediate past Coordinator of YALI Network Ondo State, making him a member of the three pillars of YALI, which are YALI Network, YALI RLC and MWF.

He was the Outreach Committee Chairman for Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) Nigeria, alumnus of Dice Mentorship Programme (DMP), former Assistant Media officer and Secretary of Women on Assignment for the Less Privileged and has volunteered for Rural Nurture Initiative.

At Owena Press, where he is the Education Page Editor he has trained and mentored over 300 interns. He is a career/leadership/life coach and has delivered several lectures and trainings to motivate and mentor many young people.

The Ondo NUJ Grassroots Reporter of the Year 2021 is majorly passionate about societal issues coverage, volunteering, youth and educational development.

Aside being a journalist, he is also a teacher, researcher, chronic volunteer and story teller.

He holds a Bsc Degree in Mass Communication from Adekunle Ajasin University, and Best Graduating Student of his set and also held several leadership positions such as two-terms Sports Director of his department, Faculty of Arts Sports Director, AAUA SUG Sports Committee Member, AAUA Athletics Team Captain, Chairman NAMACOS Audit and Education Committee.

He won a gold medal for AAUA at the Nigerian University Games and represented the school at several university games in FUTA, UNILORIN, UNN, UNIBEN and West African University Games at the University of Ghana, Legion.

He also bagged a Master’s Degree in Communication and Language Arts with a distinction at the University of Ibadan. He is an emerging communication scholar.