“Nurturing diversity through humanitarian actions brings richness and vitality to the world,” Jolyne Jelimo

With over 5 years of experience, Jolyne is passionate about children, youth, and women. Her commitment to these special groups reflects the deep-seated sense of humanity which has seen her devout countless hours and years positioning them to be fit for the future through technology, leadership, and economic empowerment. She believes that nurturing diversity through humanitarian actions brings richness and vitality to the world. She is a transformational leader and a social change agent who believes in turning community vision into reality through strategic coalitions and harmonized action.

She is a passionate volunteer and currently serves as the Vice President and Country Chair for Global Goodwill Ambassador (GGA) Foundation in Kenya as well as a facilitator and a mentor at GGA’s Youth mentorship program. In her capacity, she has promoted and strengthened humanitarian leadership while taking lead in documenting the progress and challenges that continue to hamper effective humanitarian actions. While leading the team of humanitarians in Kenya, she has advocated for defending and upholding of humanitarian principles and transparency as a prerequisite for constructive co-existence.

ELF helped me to seek intellectual excitement, and I was able to learn exhilarating truths about the how and why of leadership in an international and national setting.

Jolyne honed her leadership, capacity building and youth development skills at ELF’s ABLI program and she credits the program for her current intellectual development in form of deeper knowledge in critical thinking, problem solving capabilities and abilities to understand complexities and ambiguity. The program also helped her achieve great personal and social growth through enhanced moral reasoning, personal efficacy, interpersonal skills, intercultural competencies, and commitment to social service to her country at large. This has enabled her to affirm and explore her passion in serving humanity.

“ELF helped me seek intellectual excitement, and I was able to learn exhilarating truths about the how and why of leadership in an international and national setting as well as answering my curiosity on whether there are other ways of leading multicultural teams while understanding cultural context without being unduly constrained by it. This has aided me to stretch my mind beyond its previous conceptual boundaries hence expanding my knowledge on leadership which is exactly the context within which I learnt the most during Elf program,”Jolyne adds.

Owing to her ELF lessons, she has been instrumental in the designing and implementing courses and projects that encourage youths to indulge in noble deeds of humanitarian activities that will make their life more meaningful. So far, the project has reached over 1000 youths and their target for the next 5 years is to impact 5000 more youths who will be nurtured, coached, and stretched beyond their comfort zone to maximize personal and professional excellence.

She is also aiming to increase the participation of youths and women in leadership and decision-making processes in their community, society, and the country at large. “I believe that by advancing and addressing women and youth’s differentiated needs and aspirations, a generation will be saved and with it, community’s hope, prosperity, peace and security.”

“I want to be part of several learning experiences such as professional behaviour, communication skills and occupational interest patterns that will form the foundation for sound career decision making and opening up new opportunities to develop new skills and have new experiences which will be used in impacting and making a difference in the society we live in,” Jolyne Jelimo.