Coaching Support for Global South Women Leaders

CEDPA is always looking for new opportunities to expand our pool of coaches in developing countries - and are excited to report this quarter that we have added 8 new coaches from Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi. As we didn’t have funding for in-person training, we designed a distance-learning program to train these fabulous women leaders on how to be a professional coach. And we’re excited with the results! These new coaches have already been paired with alumni from the Women’s Leadership for Family Planning and Reproductive Health workshop held this past February in Nairobi, Kenya.

This 4-step distance-learning process is an abbreviated version of our full CEDPA Coach Training Program conducted in Washington, DC. The process included highlights such as:

• Self Assessments: This helped new coaches share their own background and experiences in coaching and mentoring, and allowed them to explore their own personal coaching style.
• Interactive PowerPoint: Included comprehensive information about the history of the coaching program, how CEDPA defines coaching, what a coaching session looks like, how the program is managed, etc.
• YouTube Videos: As we didn’t have the luxury to train these women in person, CEDPA produced 4 videos for new coaches to watch and learn about basic communication skills, steps of a typical coaching session and frequently asked questions.
• Individual Follow-Up: Throughout the distance-learning training, CEDPA initiated regular Skype calls with all new coaches to ensure they were on track with their learning and didn’t have any outstanding questions.

The most challenging part of the training was the limited bandwidth in Africa which prevented our new coaches from taking part in real-time webinars. The most rewarding part of this program is that your support through GlobalGiving made a great contribution to pilot the distance-training. Now that we have a working model, we can effectively train more women coaches in the future at a lower cost.

Thank you for your continued support of the CEDPA Coaching Program!

Update:  Since our last GlobalGiving report in June 2012, CEDPA conducted a 45-day check of the new team of coaches working with alumni from the Women’s Leadership for Family Planning and Reproductive Health Workshop as well as their first quarterly reports.  All of the coaches reported active and highly constructive coaching sessions are taking place monthly, both in person and virtually. A variety of themes have emerged during the coaching sessions, with clients requesting advice and support on such items as resource mobilization for reproductive health and family planning programs, mainstreaming advocacy in other programs, carrying out advocacy at regional levels, advocacy tools, working with the media and working in local languages, team building, time management, delegation and dealing with gender issues in male dominated work environments.

This project listing will be discontinued as of 9/30/2012.  All funds received to-date have been used in support of the CEDPA Coaching Training Program.