Before being an African Union Youth Volunteer attached to the Department of Trade and Industry as Mining Policy Officer. My journey goes back to 2012 - the first leg to Addis Ababa, the new flower and the headquarter of the African Union which is primarily established to spearheads Africa's rapid integration and sustainable development by promoting unity, solidarity, cohesion, and cooperation among the peoples of Africa and developing a new partnership globally, all aimed at achieving Africa We Want - enshrined in the Agenda 2063, Africa’s owned Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the next forty-three years from today. By then I have no relatives or friends working for the African Union Commission (AUC) to approach to take me into this good looking building – just a walk inside the compound will satisfy my needs, but deep beneath, I wanted to explore what the African Union is doing for the future’s prosperous peaceful continent. It was on March, a month after the Head of States and Governments annual Summit (HoSG), where African Presidents converged in the city to discuss polices, burning agendas, treaties, and partnerships.

 I once decided to go to the building to experience and learn about how to access the AU building – I went with less hope, thinking I will be prevented by the security guards, who stand at the gates like UN protection personnel. Surprisingly, I found out, it was easy; I just used my blue ordinary passport, to enter the complex as a quest, by then the Access Code was not yet introduced and the China Building (new AU building) was just inaugurated. I visited the Mwalimu Nyerere Peace and Security Building, Nelson Mandela Conference Hall, and took a look to some historical iconic pictures – it was not a pleasing experience, I rushed out and collected my passport, and went home.

My visit to the African Union headquarters, 2013

At night, I asked myself, did I learn something new from my visit today, the answer was a bold ‘NO’, but shortly I found myself typing the official website of the African Union (www.au.int) to research more about the union’s activities and functions. I have learned about the AU organizational structures, goals, mission, and vision - I came across the green button written job seekers, for the qualified people who are willing to join the AU workforce. I checked to get the opportunities for vacancies (http://aucareers.org/), internships (http://au.int/en/internships), and volunteering (https://au.int/volunteer/african-union-youth-volunteer-corps). I was a drop out second-year university student (Al-Neelain University in Sudan) by then, just because of the hard-divorce that led South Sudan to exit and stand as a new nation of its own in 2011. Joining the AU wasn’t in my vocabulary by that time but I am eager to learn more of what the activities of the union are, I had read about the holistic progressive agenda 2063 in making (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.africanunion.agenda2063), yet, I did not know how to be part of it, by then. I have learned that there is a Youth Division under the Human Resources Sciences and Technology (HRST) department led by a commissioner, currently spearheaded by H.E. Prof. Sarah Anyang Agbor, the iron women who champions the youth inclusion and always provokes the African youth to be proactive generation. Her famous quote goes like, “If you think, you can’t make a change, you didn’t spend the night with a mosquito” – this is how she value our collective unwavering call for transformation and development of Africa We Want, relying on the potential of African people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children to nurture prosperous Africa.