The U.S. Mission organized a week-long leadership training for over 2,200 young Beninese from all 77 of Benin’s communes. This training aimed to provided participants with hands-on leadership and entrepreneurship skills, and was conducted in partnership with the local national university and the van Duyse Entrepreneurial and Leadership Institute. The training was a great success, with participants leaving feeling empowered and part of a tight-knit cohort of Benin’s rising leaders.
On February 27, Ambassador Raynor and the Minister of State and Higher Education, Francois Abiola, presided over the closing ceremony. In his remarks, Ambassador Raynor encouraged the participants, noting “It is today’s young people who will revitalize the global economy, young people who will insist on a world where differences are not just tolerated but embraced, and young people who will build and sustain true democracies that not only reflect the will of their people, but that respond to their needs as well.”
