Promoting free markets and individual freedom in Africa through research
Jazz is known as the music that has promoted individualism and fueled freedom movements across the United States and the world. It is, then, only fitting that Feyisade Adeyemi found Students For Liberty through jazz. He was attending a poetry event, completely unrelated to SFL, and missed one of the workshops. As he was waiting for the next one, he heard a saxophone playing and followed the music to an African Students For Liberty event where they were playing the saxophone before introducing a speaker.
This happy accident saw Fesiyade become a coordinator in July 2017, he has since become the Academic Director on the Advanced Leaders Team with ASFL. Fesiyade is also currently a doctoral student at the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and continues to organize very successful events including the Road to Freedom Colloquy and a TedX Conference.
On October 1, 2018, Feyisade launched his own non-profit, The Chale Institute, a network of researchers, educators and advocates of liberty devoted to promoting free-market economics in Africa. Feyisade believes that SFL helped him become a nonprofit founder, even in the relatively short time that he’s been involved,
“All the credit goes to SFL. The simplicity of the trainings on SFLAcademy showed me the possibilities and helped to develop my awareness of public policy. It was through SFL that I became convinced that policies need decentralization and more importantly, that I need to share this knowledge with other people. Being a part of SFL, I saw an opportunity to encourage research in academia.”
The organization is currently taking applications to start its first training program, the Advocates of Liberty Program, on January 1, 2019. The Chale Institute is also a part of The Atlas Network, an organization that Feyisade only learned about through his involvement with SFL. SFL not only connected him to pro-liberty students in his country but across Africa. More importantly, he was able to learn the necessary skills to reach out to young people outside the movement and encourage them to engage with the ideas.
Students For Liberty has been such a big influence in his life that he recently wrote a book, “Are We Not Free?” which talks in a great deal about how SFL helped him to better understand economics and governance more than any of his university lectures.
On Students For Liberty, Feyisade believes that “SFL exposes students to opportunities to develop professionally. Through SFL, I have been able to develop my networking, fundraising and leadership skills. I’ve also become connected to other African leaders in the movement and this is a network I’ve been leveraging to promote my nonprofit. SFL also helped me appreciate the use of digital media in advocating free market ideas.”