USAID's Office of Transition Initiative (OTI) talks to Mahamadou Diakite, who works on the Mali Transition Initiative for OTI's implementing partner AECOM. Mahamadou. who was selected as a fellow for the 2014 Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), discusses Mali and his hope to be the change he wants to see.
Video Transcript
0:13 My name is Mahamadou Diakite I'm from Mali and I work for AECOM on the
0:20 Mali Transition Initiative program that is financed by USAID.
0:28 The country in 2012 fell into a big crisis of the mix of rebellion, military coup, jihadist
0:37 invasion, which created a lot of division within the local population.
0:43 Before the coup, Mali was seen as the example of West Africa. We were seen as a young democracy
0:49 when everything was going perfectly. The new challenge is how to bring the country to the
0:55 previous state it was before. As a young person my hope is to first fulfill
1:03 my responsibility not to only be that person who complains about things and not do anything
1:09 about it. I first give myself that challenge. Instead of complaining about what other people
1:16 do, first have that reflection on yourself. Am I making the changes, the right changes
1:24 sometime they say, you are the changes you want to see in life. That is my first hope.
1:31 The second is I hope to bring the right changes that Mali needs. How are we making people's
1:40 lives better?
November 12, 2015
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