About me
A graduate of Psychology from Cambridge College, in the United States, Dumisani Nyoni is the Director of the Zimele Institute, a Division of the Organization of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP) one of Zimbabwe's oldest and most widespread NGOs. Zimele Institute focuses on learning and education as tools for development in rural Zimbabwe. The Institute works with rural schools and teachers to improve schools, learning environments and opportunities. In addition, Zimele Institute also engages urban youth in developing strategies to confront the challenges facing them, including unemployment and a host of other social issues. ORAP, through Zimele Institute also runs a learning center named Zenzele College which gives courses on development studies and related issues to Zimbabwean and international students.
Dumisani has a wide range of experiences from building and coordinating global action networks, facilitating large and small gatherings, workshops and conferences as well as advising organizations on strategy development, team building and the inclusion and participation of youth in programs and processes.
Having previously worked with the Earth Council at its former Headquarters in Costa Rica, Dumisani helped to launch the youth component of the international Earth Charter Initiative. Currently, he serves on the Earth Charter Initiative’s board of directors [referred to as the International Council of Trustees].
Dumisani has also worked as a Youth Coordinator at the Youth Employment Summit (YES) Campaign (www.yesweb.org), where he helped to organize the first global summit on Youth Employment, and to establish YES Country Networks in over 70 countries which are youth-led multi-stakeholder coalitions that are launching projects around the world to create sustainable livelihoods for youth. During his time at YES, Dumisani was part of a team that organized over 40 consultations world wide on the challenge of youth unemployment, worked with governments to create youth employment strategies, organized two global conferences (in Egypt, 2002; and India, 2003) on the topic of youth employment bringing together government, business, NGO and youth leaders from various sectors and institutions to focus on the global challenge of youth employment.
Dumisani has also worked with Pioneers of Change (www.pioneersofchange.net), a global network of social entrepreneurs, facilitators and change agents from over 100 countries. As part of the coordinating team, Dumisani helped to organize learning programmes as well as support dialogues amongst members of Pioneers of Change about increasing the impact of their efforts and initiatives. He is still a part of the Associates Network of Pioneers of Change, which brings together several members of the Pioneers community to offer advice, support and consulting services to organizations and groups worldwide.
Over the years, Dumisani has spoken on a wide range of development issues at conferences and workshops around the world including the United Nations World Youth Forum (Senegal, 2001), the Youth Employment Summit (Egypt, 2002), the Hyderabad Forum (India, 2003), Harvard International Development Conference (Boston, 2004), the Earth Charter + 5 Conference (The Netherlands, 2005), Conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID) (Canada, 2006)
Dumisani sits of the Boards of Directors of innovative organizations such as TakingITGlobal (www.takingitglobal.org), EnVision Leadership (www.envisionleadershio.org), EcoVentures International (www.eco-ventures.org). He also is an advisor to other organizations such as the Global Youth ACTION Network (www.youthlink.org), The Sweet Mother Tour (www.sweetmother.org), IDEAS (www.ideasnet.org) and the Ubuntu Institute for Young Social Entrepreneurs (http://www.ubuntuinstitute.com/). Dumisani is a member of the Global Leadership Network, the Generative Dialogue Project (GDP – www.generativedialogue.org).
Dumisani is also a writer and a keen musician. He is a contributing author to “The Earth Charter in Action: Towards a Sustainable World” (KIT Publishers, Amsterdam) and is currently helping to author two other books on Global Leadership (Global Leadership Network) and on Youth and the New Pan-African Renaissance for development and transformation (Asafo Media/Sweet Mother Tour).
A graduate of Psychology from Cambridge College, in the United States, Dumisani Nyoni is the Director of the Zimele Institute, a Division of the Organization of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP) one of Zimbabwe's oldest and most widespread...
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