UNAI and MCN Shortlist 2020 Millennium Fellows

In 2018, United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) and Millennium Campus Network (MCN) launched the Millennium Fellowship. The selective Fellowship is a semester-long leadership development program that convenes, challenges and celebrates student leadership on 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. For the Class of 2020, 15,159 students applied from 1,458 campuses across 135 nations and just 6% of the campuses were selected to host Fellows for the Class of 2020.

The Class of 2020 has been announced on the website of the organisation and shortlisted Fellows contacted via email. 1,428 Millennium Fellows were selected from 80 campuses across 20 nations to participate this year. Leading campus cohorts were selected from every region of the globe.

Speaking on the Fellowship programme, the Chief of United Nations Academic Impact, Ramu Damodaran said: “When we created the United Nations Academic Impact to foster a culture of intellectual social responsibility, we considered ‘intellect’ not as something remote or esoteric, but rather as a quality innate in every thinking individual. Our collaboration with MCN will allow students to demonstrate how the wisdom and thought they invest in their formal curriculum can be extended to a greater purpose of the common good, lending their strengths to their communities and their world and, in turn, being enriched by them.”

Of the 80 schools selected worldwide, 16 Nigerian Institutions made the list. They include Ahmadu Bello University, Babcock University, Federal University of Agriculture, Federal University Oye Ekiti, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Lagos State University, Niger Delta University, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Benin, University of Ibadan, University of Ilorin, University of Jos, University of Lagos, University of Maiduguri, University of Nigeria and the University of Port Harcourt.

In an interview with one of the shortlisted Fellows of Class 2020, Kehinde Fatola, a student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, he expressed his excitement for being selected for the programme, saying: “It is indeed a privilege, honour and pleasure to contribute my quota towards making the world a better place for us all through quality living and healthy lifestyle as well as increasing awareness about the dangers of redundant lifestyle as it relates to the UN goal 3 (good health and well-being).”

Kehinde Fatola will be working on SDG 3 – Good Health and Well-being, and UNAI’s Principle 9 – Sustainability. 

From August through December 2020, Millennium Fellows will take action to help make the Sustainable Development Goals and United Nations Academic Impact Principles reality.