"When we invest in women and girls we are investing in the people who invest in everyone else."- Graca Machel. Having nearly completed our first round of Fellowships, we are launching a new campaign to provide 2-year fellowships to 10 more up-and-coming female educational leaders in Ghana! By providing leadership training, mentorship, and micro-grants to these rising stars, we empower them to provide inclusive, equitable, quality education for all.
Lack of recognition and gender inequality prevents women from assuming roles of leadership and innovation: this perpetuates cycles of poverty and powerlessness. Without access to funding, strong female role models, and networking tools, young female educators and their innovative programs often "get stuck" in the early stages. As a result, entire communities miss out on opportunities for education.
We forge pathways for women educators by providing 2-year fellowships with 6 unique components: 1) leadership trainings in topics like goal setting, storytelling, and fundraising 2) mentorship pairings to match fellows with strong female role models 3) micro-grants for fellows to expand their community programs 4) exposure to professional networks 5) global recognition through attendance at international conferences 6) peer accountability partnerships in which fellows exchange support
If we offer 10 Fellowships per year, in ten years we will have: 1) a global network of over 100 up-and-coming female educators, 2) universally applicable protocols for peer to peer goal setting and accountability, 3) a cadre of mentors, 4) linkages with global trainers, 5) university affiliations, and 6) grassroots programs which can be scaled. Each Fellow touches the lives of hundreds in her community, and as we empower them to expand that work, our Fellows will soon be impacting thousands.
