Eleanor Thompson and Makmid Kamara Are Selected As Obama Foundation Leaders 2023

This year’s Obama Foundation Leaders Africa Program has featured two influential Sierra Leoneans. Namati’s Deputy Director of programs, Eleanor Thompson, and Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund’s Director, Makmid Kamara.

The program seeks to build a growing network of innovative and values-based changemakers who will drive positive change in their communities, the continent, and the world.

Thompson’s organization is focused on land and environmental justice in Sierra Leone. She provides direct legal assistance to communities during lease negotiations with investors. She has worked extensively on human rights, rule of law, and justice on national, regional, and global levels for over 15 years. She influenced positive law reform in Sierra Leone by co-drafting the Customary Land Rights Bill, and National Land Commission Bill, creating a more equitable and democratic framework for decision-making on land. 

Thompson is passionate about supporting people to utilize their power to protect their rights, hold their leaders accountable, and shape the laws that affect them. She is the lead counsel for AdvocAid, an organization that has taken the Government of Sierra Leone to court to have the country’s loitering laws repealed.

Kamara’s organization is based in Ghana. The grant-making firm focuses on Africa transitional and reparative justice. He supports survivor-led and community-based organizations in conflicts and post-conflict countries to advance truth, justice, and accountability.

In August 2022, Kamara hosted a global summit on reparations and racial healing for historical crimes. He is deeply committed to social change and believes that there is an urgent need to reunite Africa with its diaspora population to progress reparation demands and facilitate racial healing.

Thompson and Kamara join other Sierra Leoneans who have made it to the list of notable young Africans in putting an end to some of the continent’s age-old problems. 

The full list consists of other African changemakers across the continent, find out who are the 2023 Obama Foundation Leaders here.