The Centre for Character and Leadership in partnership with the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues was privileged to host the Africa Regional Platform Conference under the theme ‘Global Innovations for Character Development.’ The conference was held from October 4-6, 2023 at Sarova Panafric Hotel, Nairobi.

Sponsored by the Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF), the conference brought together delegates who included researchers and practitioners in character development from 9 African countries as well as the USA and Bahamas. Dr. Tracey Farquharson and Andrica Smith-Munroe represented the TWCF and spoke about the commitment of the foundation to fund innovative research in order to build and expand the field of character development.

Global innovations for character development (GICD) was created by TWCF as an initiative that seeks to promote character strengths across the world. Character strengths includes attributes or virtues that enable individuals to lead better lives such as gratitude, compassion, integrity, forgiveness, hard work, humility, empathy, noble purpose and self-control.
Throughout the 3 days conference, delegates had an opportunity to meet, learn and network with each other. The training sessions were facilitated by the GICD platform managers.

Sessions included contextualizing character constructs and measures; Cognitive interviewing for measures development, program and evaluation life cycles and using theories of change to communicate with stakeholders and funders among others. The GICD facilitators were from Montclair University and Tufts University.

The delegates also had an opportunity to participate in a tree planting activity that was being hosted by the Dandora Secondary School. They all planted a giant bamboo seedling with the help of a student and jointly tagged a virtue on the tree. The students committed to nurture and model the virtues as they take care of the trees. The bamboos’ are intended to purify the heavy smoke that emanates from the dumping site which is located next to the school. The activity was part of the Centre’s work of promoting character development and climate smart solutions in learning institutions through the ‘Adopt a tree and tag a virtue initiative.’
“Those of us who value good character, quality of life and human flourishing, we should dare to dream big dreams with the hope that through education and service; the heart, soul and conscience of man can be re – ignited in realizing sustainable development goals,” said Peter Kingori during the tree planting event.
Towards the end of the conference, the delegates committed to establish an association that will bring together different stakeholders working in the field of character development within the horn of Africa.