Cyrus Kawalya

CYRUS KAWALYA is a renowned visual development artist/strategist using film, photography, and design as tools for social advocacy. He participated in the Young African Leader’s Initiative (YALI) Mandela Washington Fellowship in 2014 under the civic leadership track and is the founder/former President and current Chairman of the Board of the YALI Uganda Chapter. Under his leadership, he successfully led and designed a number of youth development programs, including U-LEAD (Uganda Leadership Empowered to Advocate for development), which was held in five regions of Uganda at various universities, as well as a country wide campaign for peace during Uganda’s election dubbed “I Pledge Peace Campaign 2016”, involving the creative arts as tools to deliver a message of peaceful electoral participation to Ugandans.

He is a founding member and sits on the board of trustees for Film 256, a creative platform bringing together Ugandan film industry professionals to commit to the development of the Ugandan film industry through imparting of film skills for development in underprivileged communities. Kawalya has been an advisor to the genesis of the Obama Foundation in 2017. He is currently the head of strategy on YALI Export Promotion Initiative (E.P.I) that is working towards creating partnership to foster Intercontinental Trade and Investment.