By Ayla Schlosser | Executive Director
Since August 2014 Resonate has conducted 6 workshops and trained more than 100 women and trained two trainers. We have worked with two Universities, alumnae of a secondary school specializing in leadership, a group of Peace Corps volunteers and secondary school girls from their villages, the management team at CARE Rwanda, and with a women’s cooperative. We have translated our entire curriculum from written materials and power point presentations into drawings and graphics in order to reach a more diverse audience, and we have heard hundreds of amazing stories.
In September, we returned to The Akilah Institute, our very first partner in Rwanda. Akilah teaches market-relevant coursework to prepare young women to be leaders and professionals. We have taught our Storytelling for Leadership course three times – once with each class of students in their three-year degree program. Our Storytelling for Leadership framework is now integrated into their curriculum, and is taught as a part of their leadership course to all students. We have conducted a Training-of-Trainers with their leadership teachers who are now prepared to deliver the course independently. We have just completed the most recent of these workshops. While on campus one of our former students, Neda, told us that she had started a storytelling club. The club meets every Thursday so that students can “really try to really get to know each other” so that they can support each other better. Neda told us that the students now recognize the importance of storytelling as a communication tool, so in addition to sharing with each other, they support each other in improving communication skills, preparing for interviews, and strategizing about how to reach their personal and professional goals.
In the next three months we will expand our reach to work with women and girls in Kenya, and we will also deepen the level of engagement with our participants by hosting leadership camps with secondary school girls in rural Rwanda. We aim to train 450 women and girls by the end of 2014, helping them to build confidence and leadership and become agents of change.
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