Young Women as "Emerging Leaders"

In cooperation with our partner organization in Bahrain, WLP completed the full first draft of Emerging Leaders, a manual for adolescent girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen. The manual will serve as the primary curriculum for YWLP, and is intended for use during leadership training workshops. The manual's fun and interactive sessions enable adolescents to develop greater self confidence, learn how to communicate more effectively, build leadership skills, and identify areas where they can be leaders in their own communities. Values and Leadership, How to Learn from Differences, and Creativity in Problem Solving are just a few of the session titles. One interactive activity, called "Building the Longest Chain," asks each participant to write a sentence describing something they did the previous day. The group then puts the sentences together to create a story. This game is meant to help youth learn the importance of valuing each person’s contribution and working together to accomplish a common goal. Makarm, a workshop participant, said, "This workshop was a lot of fun and had a lot of energy, which helped me understand the concepts. We learned about self esteem and self reflection, and that communication is really important to being a good leader. We are hoping for more of these workshops!"

Similarly, WLP is developing leadership initiatives for women in their late teens and early twenties in Jordan and Nigeria. Groups of young Nigerian women gathered in Lagos and Jos to discuss the components needed in a manual to specifically reach their own age group. Among their suggestions was that the manual should address concepts of gender and sexuality as well as cultural and religious barriers to women’s leadership. WLP Nigeria/BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights has also entered into a partnership with the University of Jos to provide scholarships for students, internship opportunities, and leadership trainings.