About Us
African Leadership is a Christian education and development organization that trains pastors and church leaders in Africa and funds relief and development projects in their communities. African Leadership currently is training approximately 9,500 students in 22 African countries and is supporting over 50 projects in nine countries.
Relief project partners work to provide children’s services, famine relief, medical supplies, emergency shelter, water, and food. Developmental project partners drill fresh water wells, build orphanage facilities and schools, operate job training centers and medical facilities, and organize youth sports programs.
African Leadership was founded by President Larry Warren, who began working in missions in 1986, initially serving in Haiti, India, and Nepal. In 1990, he focused his efforts on the continent of Africa. He began by recruiting and training national directors to meet the enormous need for pastor and church leadership training in Africa, where most church leaders have no formal training. He saw firsthand the lack of resources available for the poor and impoverished ministers and church leaders who served congregations that could not offer support or salary, so he formed African Leadership in order to equip them for ministry in their communities.
Larry Warren was also impacted by the overwhelming physical needs in the communities of Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa, where the Warren family was based from 1993 to 1997. He responded by directing and funding ministries to meet some of these physical needs, including vocational training schools and child development programs in the slums of Nairobi, Cape Town, and Malawi. To increase fundraising, Warren and his family moved back to Tennessee.
The essential cornerstones of African Leadership are the National Directors and their staff, all indigenous African church leaders, who plan, organize, and implement local training programs. African Leadership's training programs are possible because of their dedication; this commitment frequently requires that they travel and work in extremely difficult and discouraging circumstances. As of January 2008, over 30,000 pastors and church leaders have graduated from the program.
African Leadership continues to expand its mission, addressing widespread famine in southern and eastern Africa; the HIV/AIDS epidemic; and refugees displaced by war and political unrest in Darfur, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere. African refugees in the Nashville, Tennessee area receive assistance and aid through African Leadership's Refugee Ministry directed by William Mwizerwa.
Through the work and vision of the board and staff, the African Leadership curriculum has been recognized and used by many other schools and organizations. The Child Protection Handbook, developed by Gerry Wolf and Taiwo Ilesanmi, has been adapted and implemented by UNICEF for a National Child Advocacy campaign against child abuse and child labor in Malawi.
