In August 2000, eight young African-American professionals led by Dr. Christopher B. Howard, a former Rhodes Scholar and now President Elect of Hampden Sidney College, created the Impact Young Lives or IYL Foundation. Dr. Howard had recently been named a Henry Crown Fellow by the prestigious Aspen Institute for exemplary leadership. In addition to the executive seminars, the program required Howard to devise a community service project. Working on an HIV/AIDS initiative in sub-Saharan Africa for Bristol-Myers Squibb at the time, Howard reflected on those factors that had led to his success and contacted eight of his closet friends.
Cognizant of the influence that a good education coupled with exposure to different cultures and a robust professional network on their own success, the eight decided that extending these opportunities to previously disadvantaged students in South Africa would be a worthy undertaking. IYL’s original mission statement was “to encourage intellectual development through travel and scholarship for southern African students.” Former board member Willie J. Epps Jr., ESQ, a Harvard Law School graduate stated, “Chris approached each of us with this very generous and meaningful concept. Although we all led busy lives and were active in numerous public service projects, we just couldn’t say no to IYL.”
IYL launched its first essay contest at East Rand High School near Johannesburg, South Africa, where members of the Foundation challenged the 300 plus 11th grade students to write an essay about four areas that will inevitably dominate their countries livelihood during the post-apartheid era: business, technology, government and education. A distinguished selection committee comprising of five individuals including South African native Felicity Cunnigham, wife of NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham, and Gayle Lewis, wife of former US Ambassador to South Africa Delano Lewis, selected two winners: Daniel Makoena and Claudia Jansen. The two were honored at Ambassador Lewis’ Pretoria residence in December. Both students traveled to the Unites States in June 2001 to visit sites representing the four areas they discussed in their essays including Goldman Sachs, Howard University, the White House, Bristol-Myers Squibb Genomics Laboratory, Wall Street, Princeton University, and the United Nations. In addition, Claudia and Daniel received scholarships for tuition and books to Rand Afrikaans University and the University of the Northwest, respectively.
Since 2001, IYL has conducted two additional essay competitions at more than six Johannesburg area high schools and selected eight more winners who have traveled to the US. Five IYL Scholars are currently enrolled in university or technikon today. The organization has raised more than $100,000 to date including a $30,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation. In 2005, IYL created a Section 21, non-profit organization in South Africa with Moloeli Metsing serving as the Managing Director and Cyril Khambula, a Vice President at Toyota, serving as Chairman.
That same year, Barbara Howard became Chief Operating Officer of IYL-USA. Other highlights include the establishment of the Morehouse College-IYL Project, which was officially established in 2005, but dates back to the 2002 when Christopher Eaglin, Morehouse’s valedictorian and now a Marshall Scholar, served as Project Manager for that year’s visit. Christopher performed magnificently scheduling all events and accompanying the students. He was succeeded the following year by Christopher Peterson, then a Morehouse senior and now at McKinsey & Company who also served the IYL Scholars well as Project Manager. So it was quite easy for Dr. Walter Fluker, Director of the Leadership Center at Morehouse, to formalize the two organization’s relationship. Now all three IYL units: IYL-USA, IYL-SA and the Morehouse-IYL Project are poised to achieve even greater success for South Africa. With your help we will indeed “Develop Global Minds Today, To Solve Global Problems Tomorrow.”
