Indigenous Women's Leadership Program

What kinds of changes are needed in a person to become a leader?  According to Margaret Wheatley one of the major aspects is learning to persevere through times or situations that are difficult.  It is perhaps a large thing to ask, but the changes we see are not in large areas but small.  

 This past month we took a trip to the beach with some of the members of our women's reading circle.  They also invited our scholarship students to come along. The women divided the cost of a house on the beach and we took some of the students. The lodging was going to be a bit tight, with our students sharing a room and some air mattresses, but the situation turned out worse than we expected as the two owners of the house did not communicate well and double-booked one of the rooms. They apologized but there were no more rooms in the area and we lost use of one of the rooms. The two women who were supposed to stay in that room, moved into a room with two other women, three of the four affected happened to be our staff, so we managed with a hammock and an air mattress, but the fourth, a young medical professional was not as thrilled about the distruption. We sat, talked out the issue, dealt with our feelings, changed the division of the cost, and went on. For us, par for the course, but for our group member, as she revealed later in the evening, staying was something completely new.  

At dinner as we were star watching she commented, "In the past, with this kind of disruption, I would have just gone home. I started to think of who could drive me to the main road so I could leave and not deal with the room change." She had a very chaotic home life as a child and her programmed response has always been fleeing, avoiding the problems. It might seem a bit petty, but she had worked very hard to become self-sufficient and independent to escape the absolute chaos of her upbringing.   She told us that her private, solo medical practice is a way of keeping control of as many elements of her life as possible. She added, "Seeing you all adjust with few issues, and talking openly about the frustrations, I calmed down and could stay. I would have never done this before, nor would the group have seen me again for a while, perhaps ever."  

Later the next day the woman, an avid swimmer, took time to teach several of the scholarship students basic swimming techniques. Increasing the bond that she has with them and their respect for her for taking her time to teach a coveted skill they could never afford to learn in any formal manner.  Plans were made to look for more venues to continue the basic lessons. 

We are honored to be able to walk, taking these small steps of change, with the women, helping them learn more about themselves and the world around them.  What look like small steps can be huge changes, and without our conversations, we would never know.  

Thank you all for your support of our Women's Leadership program. Helping women understand their own lives better to then help others in our community.  We hope you will continue to support us on our journey with these women through GlobalGiving.