THE ‘TWIN’ JOURNEY OF TRANSFORMATION.

In 2013, two brilliant and extraordinary ladies joined our program; Linda and Lina. Identical twins who were already high impact leaders at the University of Nairobi, Linda was the SONU Secretary for Gender, while Lina had just been elected to the SONU secretariat. Both ladies were ambitious and thirsty for more empowerment opportunities. They joined one of our programs then, “Ladies of Splendor” through which they were trained on leadership, good governance and mentorship – and later on they were partnered with a mentor to walk with them and guide them on their leadership journey, as we do with all our mentees at the end of any of our classes.

Through ELF they both had a chance to be trained by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) on political leadership, campaign strategies and the political parties processes. Later on, they were trained by Heshimika Excellency Initiative on innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development in line with our belief that every young person must be tooled with livelihood skills to enable them solve everyday challenges within their communities.

Linda and Lina later joined the Red Cross Club which enabled them to give back to society and teach them the value of servant leadership which is at the core of our training.

Through the networks they formed and the forums they attended, the visionary ladies started their own initiative called; The Identical Family, which today has over fifty sets of identical twins as members. The organization focuses on corporate events management and also visits mothers who have delivered twins to share the joy with them and break any stereotypes associated with having twins in Africa.

Lina says,

“ELF prepared me for the corporate world through public speaking training which has been of great benefit at my current job as a Marketing Executive in a financial Institution. Five years down the line, I look back and appreciate all the skills I acquired and the networks I formed”

The adorable twins point to a quote by Marianne Williamson in her poem (Our Deepest Fear) as having the most influence on their leadership journey to date,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

Linda is a relationship officer at an insurance company where she enjoys meeting and working with different people. Lina on the other hand is a marketing executive and prides in having cross function expertise in business and financial analysis.

This is the ELF dream, that we would help every young leader in Africa to discover who they are, and find a higher purpose to live for, that we would connect this leader to like minded young leaders to form a critical mass of change agents and to also connect them to mentors and organizations that would help prepare and guide them towards their purpose, finally our mentees would bring positive change in their respective communities through initiatives that solve the challenges around them.