• Brighton Kaoma with former US President Barack Obama in Washington recently.

By THANDIWE MOYO  –
ZAMBIAN youth Brighton Kaoma  has won the 2016 prestigious Mandela Fellows of the World-Wide Fund (WWF) International President’s Award in Washington DC, USA.
WWF Zambia head of communications and marketing Eneya Phiri said Kaoma who had an opportunity to meet former US President Barack Obama during the award presentation recently, made the entire continent proud.
Mr Phiri said in a statement that WWF recognised Kaoma’s role in actively participating to conserve the natural environment and achieving significant success through innovative approaches and that his efforts were influencing and inspiring others.
Commenting Kaoma’s meeting with Mr Obama, Phiri said Kaoma represented the best of Zambian and indeed African youth potential for change that would drive the continent’s 21st century push for prosperity alongside social, cultural and environmental renaissance.
“We in WWF take a lot of pride in what Brighton does and continues to do for the youth of Zambia and the continent,” Phiri said.
Speaking in Washington DC when he held and exclusive meeting with Kaoma, former US President Obama reiterated his commitment to supporting resilient and determined young people from across the African continent.
Mr Obama hailed young people on the continent who were using innovation and initiative to create sustainable solutions to challenges their communities were faced with.
“Our challenges maybe new. The instruments with which we meet them maybe new [too]. But those values upon which our success depends-honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism, these things are old,” he said.
He also announced his intentions to partner with young African leaders like Kaoma as part of his planned activities under the Obama Foundation.
Mr Obama congratulated Kaoma on being the 2016 recipient of the prestigious WWF International President’s Award which was bestowed on him by the WWF in June 2016.
The award which was presented by WWF International president Yolanda Kakabadse aims at recognising young people who were active in conserving the natural environment.
And Kaoma described his interaction with former US President Obama as “astonishing and a true revelation of the saying that ‘nothing was impossible’”.
“Being the only young African to meet President Obama from a pool of 1, 000 Mandela Washington Fellows of 2017 was a huge honour and a great learning curve,”Kaoma indicated in the same statement.
Kaoma used the opportunity to narrate to Mr Obama his journey in radio and environmental advocacy which he began at the age of 14 when the Children’s Radio Foundation visited his community and trained him in radio broadcasting and production.